Good conditions for a morning run 🏃‍♂️

Scots living in the most deprived parts of the country are 4.5 times more likely to drink themselves to death than those staying in the wealthiest areas. Not a figure contained in the Scottish Government press release on the subject.

First run in a while which I began by seeing my breath in the air. 🏃‍♂️

The combined right-wing (Tory + Farage vote) has been around 50% in Britain for around 10 years already. Labour is banking on being able to mobilise the remaining voters horrified by the prospect of Farage becoming Prime Minister and a Reform government. That's becoming a taller order by the day.

Autumn Clyde 📸 @duncs1875.bsky.social

Saturday run before going out to oppose the fascists and then watching Hibs in the League Cup at Ibrox. A busy day!

The hollowness of contemporary appeals to British sovereignty, and the therefore shallow nature of right-wing incarnations of nationalism, is a dominant and consequential political trend.

"if the hypocrisy is natural, it is still epic. For decades, the right said the nation state was the sacrosanct unit of world affairs, as the family is of the nation state. If that line has changed, conservatives shouldn’t mind if liberals go ahead and question their patriotism" on.ft.com/3KfOaS6

Have a good weekend

Finally making some progress on my book proposal. Carbon Citizens will be a study of how energy generation has transformed Britain since the 1940s from the perspective of the workers and communities formed around coal, electricity, nuclear and oil and gas who made it happen.

That's a Labour government minister berating university students and staff by saying that 'too often people go to university to "explore research and knowledge"'. I'm very glad of our students who study history to explore research and knowledge.

It feels as though we can start to talk about us now living through the biggest change to British politics for a century since the 1920s.

Running past the changing trees 🏃‍♂️

Saw this yesterday lunchtime @traversetheatre.bsky.social. Thoughtful, thought-provoking and horribly relevant. It's well worth your time. Runs until Saturday.

Perhaps it's just horrendously quaint of me to think that a social democratic party with a thumping majority and nearly four more years of government should concentrate on passing major reforms which will be hard to overturn and create a lasting legacy.

‘A report commissioned by Scottish Enterprise estimated that 2822 jobs depended on oil refining in Grangemouth. It’s hard to estimate the overall loss of economic activity, from food vans to specialised suppliers and administrative staff.’ @ewangibbs.bsky.social: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

We’ve heard a lot about flags but turbines and steelworks are the true stuff of economic sovereignty. Britain has been blatantly exposed as dependent on foreign governments and multinationals, as demonstrated by the recent closure of Grentmouth oil refinery. Read more in my @lrb.co.uk article ⬇️

‘The highly qualified refinery workforce wanted and expected to be part of the energy transition. But Grangemouth has been left only with a vague prospectus, Project Willow.’ @ewangibbs.bsky.social on Grangemouth’s oil refinery closure and the UK’s ‘unjust transition’: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Obviously, I think it would be good if more people condemned this stuff for high-minded reasons, but it is deeply funny to me the number of people in politics who haven't even noticed their self-interested reasons.

It was a privilege to once again attend the Auchengeich Miners’ Memorial Service which commemorates the 47 men who died in the Auchengeich colliery disaster on 18 September 1959. As it does every year, the service brought the community together in a respectful inclusive spirit.

An oft overlooked part of clean energy transitions is that they necessitate the dismantling of fossil infrastructures, sectors, and economies. Managing this is as critical as managing the creation of new technologies and sectors, imo.

We’ve heard a lot about flags but turbines and steelworks are the true stuff of economic sovereignty. Britain has been blatantly exposed as dependent on foreign governments and multinationals, as demonstrated by the recent closure of Grentmouth oil refinery. Read more in my @lrb.co.uk article ⬇️

‘These are not deals that lead to the British people owning industry, which Miliband claimed in 2023 was one of Labour’s objectives. They are subsidies and incentives, large sums of public money accruing no equity.’ @ewangibbs.bsky.social on an oil refinery closure: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

SCOTLAND SPEAKS WITH ONE VOICE. NO HATE. NO PASSION. NO HEARTS. NO HIBS. seriously though thank you Ewan and thank you everyone who came to support our final show in Glasgow before heading to the Traverse next week. Sold out show at Oran Mor. What a response! Electric.

Spent my early Saturday afternoon watching @jmacr.bsky.social’s incredible new play, Our Brother. It’s a compelling and enduring story of utopia, dystopia, violence and the character of human memory and story telling as the crimes of the 20th century fade from human memory.

7K Saturday! 🏃‍♂️

‘Why didn’t Grangemouth and Port Talbot get the same treatment as Scunthorpe? One reason was that the owner of the Port Talbot steelworks, the Indian conglomerate Tata, was more co-operative.’ @ewangibbs.bsky.social on the closure of Grangemouth’s oil refinery: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

First run under the lights for a while 🏃‍♂️

Petroineos closed Grangemouth refinery earlier this year, ending a century of refining on the Forth. Media attention fell on INEOS and Jim Ratcliffe, but the role of PetroChina, the other part-owner of this crucial energy infrastructure, was ignored. Read more in my LRB piece🔽

"... these are not deals that lead to the British people owning industry, which Miliband claimed in 2023 was one of Labour’s objectives. They are subsidies and incentives... no government seems prepared to do more than prop up the market." - @ewangibbs.bsky.social www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Great read on the radicalisation of Dominic Cummings by @johnmerrick.bsky.social. Cummings cuts a distinctive figure as a British right-wing 'revolutionary' rather than a traditional conservative.

An autumn cat 🐈‍⬛ 🍂

The current transition to a renewables system may be the first mass scale primary energy source adoption to occur without catestrophic loss of life. Key stakeholders (gov, unions, industry) have built on past lessons like piper alpha, but key to this is that renewables is intrinsically safer tech.

‘According to Labour’s manifesto, making Britain a “clean energy superpower” will secure energy independence and create “650,000 new high-quality jobs”. There is little sign of either so far.’ @ewangibbs.bsky.social on the closure of the Grangemouth oil refinery: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Really pleased to see that this has now been published in the latest issue of Contemporary British History, alongside articles by @fibowler.bsky.social, @andrewperchard.bsky.social, @benjthomas.bsky.social, and others.

Rightfully, the stupidity and offensiveness of using the legacy of the death of 144 people in the Aberfan disaster in South Wales to block a solar farm in Oxfordshire has been widely condemned. It’s also deeply ironic to refer to the legacy of coal in blocking replacing fossil fuels with renewables.

A thorough review of Nicola Sturgeon’s memoir, Frankly, by @danigaravelli.bsky.social which comments critically on the former First Minister’s sometimes evasive writing and self-reflections.

Back from holiday, back to normal, back running but not back at work until tomorrow.

‘A report commissioned by Scottish Enterprise estimated that 2822 jobs depended on oil refining in Grangemouth. It’s hard to estimate the overall loss of economic activity, from food vans to specialised suppliers and administrative staff.’ @ewangibbs.bsky.social: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

More than half of 434 Grangemouth refinery workers who lost their jobs in the closure earlier this year are still looking for work. Important reporting from @karingoodwin.bsky.social in @theferret.scot featuring quotes from current and former workers and me. Read ⬇️ theferret.scot/grangemouth-...

The cabinet is currently being reshuffled but more consequentially, the government is failing its promise to deliver a green industrial future at the cost of tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs. You can read my London Review of Books article on the recent closure of Grangemouth oil refinery ⬇️

‘The highly qualified refinery workforce wanted and expected to be part of the energy transition. But Grangemouth has been left only with a vague prospectus, Project Willow.’ @ewangibbs.bsky.social on Grangemouth’s oil refinery closure and the UK’s ‘unjust transition’: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

The cabinet is currently being reshuffled but more consequentially, the government is failing its promise to deliver a green industrial future at the cost of tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs. You can read my London Review of Books article on the recent closure of Grangemouth oil refinery ⬇️

Fascinating by Gabe Eckhouse & @ewangibbs.bsky.social on "Two Late Imperial Oil Booms" (UK & US). To my mind though a crucial distinction is the massive domestic resource base and origins of the US #oilandgas industry & the imperial origins of the UK's. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Cracking and informative read from @ewangibbs.bsky.social on Grangemouth and the lack of a just transition in general www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

I’ve written for @lrb.co.uk on the closure of Scotland’s last oil refinery at Grangemouth by Petroineos and the unjust transition in British manufacturing. A committed workforce was betrayed by multinational employers as governments failed to meet their promises.

Ewan Gibbs is always worth reading on Energy history and policy.

I’ve written for @lrb.co.uk on the closure of Scotland’s last oil refinery at Grangemouth by Petroineos and the unjust transition in British manufacturing. A committed workforce was betrayed by multinational employers as governments failed to meet their promises.

Six weeks from publication! Forgive a little book promo. I’ve got some talks lined up this autumn if you want to hear more about Electric Wind. Feel free to message me for more details.

This is the little documentary @ewangibbs.bsky.social and myself made last year on just this open.spotify.com/show/7hW74e1...