Good riddance to Chris Skidmore – China’s useful idiot
By Paul Homewood
h/t Philip Bratby/Ian Magness
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Thank you Ross Clark, for the best exposee yet of this charlatan:
The future, according to Chris Skidmore as he announced his resignation as an MP on Friday, “will judge harshly” anyone who supports the government’s Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill. Sorry, but it will be even more severe on Skidmore, as the man who committed Britain to economic suicide and failed miserably to inspire the rest of the world to do the same.
It was Skidmore, lest we forget, who drove the 2050 net zero target through the House of Commons in 2019 – without, it now seems, the faintest idea of how it was going to be achieved. All he did appear to know was that it was going to stimulate a huge economic boom for Britain.
In Skidmore’s fantasy world, the net zero target is going to create 480,000 green jobs by 2030 and boost the economy by £1 trillion – figures he trotted out in his review of his own policy commissioned by Liz Truss. Presumably, if it means homeowners having to pay many thousands for heat pumps and motorists being priced off the road, well that is just tough because – in that familiar assertion – the costs of not doing net zero will exceed the costs of doing it.
Net zero is creating “green jobs” alright. Skidmore has already landed himself one: professorship at the University of Bath, focussing on, er, net zero policy. But many of these green jobs seem to have one thing in common: being in campaigning, PR or regulation. As for the industrial jobs actually making, inventing and developing things, we don’t seem to be doing quite so well as some might have thought. How many wind turbines do we make in this country – which is supposed to become a “wind superpower” at some point?
However, we do seem to have stimulated a boom in green jobs elsewhere. China has around 40 per cent of the world’s renewable energy jobs and produced, according to 2021 estimates, 44 per cent of the world’s electric cars. But here is the thing: China doesn’t even have a legally-binding net zero target of its own. Under Western pressure it has set a vague aspiration to eliminate net emissions by 2060, but there isn’t much more than that.
It is doing very well out of the commitment to net zero made by Britain and other Western countries without taking the plunge itself. How come? Cheap energy, for one thing. China is building plenty of wind and solar farms itself but not at the cost of trying to live precariously on intermittent green energy alone. Even now, a majority of power generation in China – perhaps the power being used to manufacture our wind turbines and electric car batteries? – is from coal.
The world is a far messier place than Skidmore’s student-level politics would have it. Rishi Sunak has opted to grant licenses for new oil and gas extraction in the North Sea because he can see, as can anyone with a clear head, that it will take decades for the world to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels. Other countries have come to the same conclusion, expanding their oil and gas production even while muttering platitudes about net zero.
The Government is also betting on a green technology where global leadership is still up for grabs: carbon capture and storage. It might not turn out to be commercially viable, but it could massively boost our chances of getting to net zero. And if it does, then it will also eliminate the objections to the continued use of oil and gas.
In the meantime, UK-produced gas and oil might help reduce emissions as well as boost domestic energy security. Why? Because at the moment we are importing large quantities of energy in the form of liquified natural gas (LNG) from the US and Qatar – shipping it across the world at a cost to global carbon emissions.
Skidmore might see himself as a man of high principle. By flouncing off and causing a by-election he has not just thrown his Conservative colleagues to the wall, he has demonstrated he still can’t see the huge millstone he has put around the neck of the British economy.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/06/good-riddance-to-chris-skidmore-chinas-useful-idiot/
Maybe one day, somebody might care to explain to me why prats like Skidmore don’t emigrate to China, India, or the rest of the developing world to offer then his advice, if they really want to save the world!
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Skidmore is a climate fanatic.
Ross Clark brilliantly skewered the consequences of following the climate fanatics in his satirical book “Denial” from a couple of years ago
It is quite short but I would rate it alongside the equally short Animal Farm by Orwell. Well worth a read. Speaking of Orwell I got 1984 for Christmas and it is next on my list to read again.
…and again and again and….And then make sure those coming after you read it as well.
The strange thing is, how prescient Orwell was: What would we call a ‘visiscreen’ today? And a ‘speakwrite’? He got it.
Skidmore is a liar. He’s resigning because he’s a rat leaving a sinking ship, not on principle. These are EXPLORATION licences, many, if not all, of which will go nowhere. Even if oil ir gas is found, its probably 5 years at least before there’s any production licence.
I hope it is good riddance. But I have a horrible feeling that he fancies his chances of becoming the next Chair at the Climate Change Committee. Hence his professorship sinecure.
Do these people like Skidmore not look around and see that most of what he touches, uses, wears etc. contains a quantity of fossil fuels. He’s quite happy for the UK to ban all oil production and leave it to other countries to supply Britain’s needs!
Well I did say in the previous article that a lot of commenters (me included) were using the words “good riddance”.
Just because they resign, shouldn’t mean their crimes / treachery to the well being of this country, whilst in office, are exonerated !
That said, the majority of Westminster, Civil Service & House of Lords fall into this category also and its not just net zero, just take in the lies told since 2020
‘Safe & Effective’ that has ruined the country.
Us Vulcans will never forget 🙂
I am sure we can find enough rope for them all.
It will say, “Made in China.”
The Woke Wanker Fund often have TV adverts pushing you to contribute and adopt a rhino/gorilla/elephant/leopard etc and included in your pack will be a cuddly toy of your chosen animal. I wonder where these toys are made and with what energy source. Of course, I think it would be far more interesting if they sent you the animal not a toy.
The main question is why he was allowed to resign when he should have been sacked years ago. Good riddance to this garbage. Rishi – why did you not sack this guy, and why have you not sacked half of your MPS who are members of the insidious Conservative Environmental Network? E
https://www.cen.uk.com
Another one on the net zero gravy train.
https://members.parliament.uk/member/4021/registeredinterests
I was quite enjoying this Telegraph article, unusually, right up to “carbon capture and storage. It might not turn out to be commercially viable, but it could massively boost our chances of getting to net zero.”
Correct on point one, it will never be commercially viable. Neither, however, will it have any influence on our failure to reach net zero, unless it is achieved by bankrupting the country and everyone in it.
The great irony of a viable CCS system is it’d enable endless use of coal and gas!
And allow us to either prove the C02 claims wrong or then tune the climate to the optimum.
I’m sure Ross Clark doesn’t believe that excreta, but like others has to try to present as being “reasonable “ to the green loons
You are probably quite correct. That is the problem; the narrative is controlled and speaking against, or outside, it leads to excommunication. The media, “science”, academia and finance are all controlled by this simple mechanism and it is only people like us, mostly a collection of old farts who cannot be got at who are able to voice contrary opinions on a platform like this.
CCS is like batteries for backup: they cost money and produce nothing. Very large amounts of money and produce nothing.
The seat will be cancelled due to boundary changes at the coming GE. All he had to do to make his point was resign the Tory whip and sit the remainder of the year as an Independent. Job done.
But of course no self-respecting bed-wetting Green wankpuffin could do something so sensible, so here we are.
Maybe the main Party’s could agree for once to not stand, leaving the seat unfilled? That could avoid £250,000 of expenses running a pointless by-election.
Why should the people of the constituency be unrepresented?
I’m not convinced that having an MP equates to people in a constituency being represented. Take as an example the group of MPs recently discussed here as supporting the Nut Zero nonsense. Were they representing the views of their constituents?
For the tenth time! WP is being a pain.
Thanks, Paul.
Skidmore’s high paying green job is, like all the rest, a cost, not a benefit.
His is “peak” uselessness.
Cost ÷ benefits
Division my Zero is undefined.
This was written:
Maybe one day, somebody might care to explain to me why prats like Skidmore don’t emigrate to China, India, or the rest of the developing world to offer then his advice!
His advice to get rid of fossil fuel energy would not work in those places.
They support him giving that bad advice in countries that will pay China and others to use more coal to produce the green energy wind and solar and batteries products for sale to western countries to scam us.
There’s more about Skidmore here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/01/06/reform-uk-boycott-chris-skidmore-by-election-gloucester/
The most incredible part of this article is the comments section!! Thousands of people screaming about the stupidity of Net Zero/wind farms/solar/EVs – the public have twigged it’s all nonsense but the BBC/Sky are still pretending it’s all going to magically work.
Does anyone else keep seeing the word “skidmark”, whenever his name appears?
Of course “continued exploration” is common sense. Whether any oil and gas company will want to do business in the UK after the next few years is doubtful in the extreme. And whether the price of natural gas in the World will spike up again in the medium term is also doubtful. The price of natural gas, now and for the rest of 2024, on the European Futures Markets is really quite low. One tenth of what is was in August 2022.
After 28 (COPs) years of the climate change lunacy global emissions are higher than when all the COP nonsense started.
However, the UK is proud to claim we have cut UK emissions by 50% and lead the G20 nations in the race to Net Zero by 2050.
Yet, we repeatedly hear from the BBC/Met Office claims of record this and record that weather events as evidence of climate change. If the BBC/Met Office are correct then clearly halving CO2 emissions is not working but simply wasting billions on Net Zero measures which is certainly having an effect on the UK economy.
When will the UK politicos wise up to the simple fact that destroying the UK economy and living standards whilst the rest of the world watches on is not a smart move?
They are auditioning for positions in Klaus Schwab’s New World Order.
As they are not students of history, they have missed what I learned in high school and college.
Those who are useful idiots in overthrowing whatever or whomever, are the first to be marched to the firing-squad. They know these people are not reliable or loyal.