Bonkers

​+In the light of the English Women’s footballing success, surely there’s a lesson there for Rishi Sunak—’play the ball, not the woman!’ © C. Challen
 
+’regulatory reform will face predictable opposition, but this will be overcome as people observe the benefits of a common law regulatory system based on responding to the side effects of free market experimentation.’ These are the words of Patrick Minford, aka Liz Truss’s ‘economic advisor.’ It’s worth dwelling on the words ’the side effects of free market experimentation.’ Liz Truss wants to set fire to all the EU regulations that were embodied into UK law following Brexit. So in future, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens after some ‘free market experimentation,' and cross our fingers that maybe, just maybe we’ll get some common law regulation to deal with the ‘side effects.’ Brexit is definitely not done yet.
 
+I met James Lovelock, who as has died aged 103, a couple of times whilst an MP and involved with the politics of climate change. His articulate grip and eloquence at a great age was in itself thoroughly impressive. But I couldn’t agree with him in every respect of his undoubted environmentalism, which meant, in my opinion, holding some unjustified reservations about renewable energy and his support for nuclear power. There may be a case that renewable energy, such as wind (I think he had a particular dislike for wind turbines ‘despoiling the landscape’) may not be inexhaustible, but what about tidal power? I wrote a review of one of his books from which I got the impression (highly mistaken, most probably) that overuse of tidal power might diminish its source (i.e. the Moon). Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Could the Moon crash into Earth if we overused tidal power? Sounds bonkers, so I’m sure I misread it.