vivweb01

Much water has flowed under the bridge since I first published this exposé of our relationship with domestic cats. As an honorary Civil Servant, the UK's high level Downing St. representative, Larry the Cat, has, as always, figured large in decision making behind the scenes, and has displayed some frustration recently at the way things seem to be going.  Keen-eyed observers of nightly BBCTV news may have noticed  Larry making a surprise entrance through the #10 front door  in Monday evening's broadcast. The door  opened as if by magic at his approach, suggesting he was expected for an important meeting of state. It is probably no coincidence that a major decision on the fate of HS2 is in the offing. Larry is normally reticent about things political, but went on the record recently in a press interview as voicing serious concerns about the project  – you can read a summary of his interview at the end of this expose.  The rumours circulating recently that Lar...

Much was made in the media a week or so ago about the various meetings Nigel Farage had ‘across the pond’ with the President Elect and his current ‘right hand man’, Elon Musk. It also emerged that Musk had offered ‘hundreds of millions’ to support Reform campaign in future UK elections. After a somewhat stunned and incredulous reaction in UK, there was something of an outcry amongst the other UK political parties against what was seen as unfair advantage. While it wouldn’t be against current electoral rules for a donor to contribute a large sum to Reform, and both of  the major parties have received donations to the tune of single-figure millions in the past, the excessive amounts Musk is reputed to be offering would ‘upset the apple cart’ politically. I predict that limits on donations will now quickly be introduced by Labour. That still leaves Musk the possibility of beating any limit on individual donations by employing multiple-company approaches. I doubt whether even 'artf...

  In a word, no..... Why ? Before I try to answer this question, here's some relevant background info.  In less straitened times, much more competition existed in the energy supply marketplace, and some quite competitive offers were available, particularly from new suppliers wanting to increase their market share. Amongst these deals were some involving tariffs which were ‘no standing charge’ i.e. you paid a higher unit rate for your gas and electricity, and only paid for the units you used, which were all priced at this higher rate.  This benefited low users of gas and electricity, and at the time these tariffs started to appear they were hailed by environmentalists as a much fairer and greener way of charging customers, given the urgent need for us all to consume less of the fossil fuels we use to power our boilers and generate our electricity. The recent upsurge in ‘raw’ gas and electricity prices, and the desire of the power supply companies to maintain their pr...