Question Time

Eebo said:
i don't mind politicians or anyone having a different view of the World but be please be prepared to answer a simple straightforward question.

It really winds me up that they are either so stupid they can't answer a question or think we are so stupid that we can't see that they are not answering the question.

It's the political equivalent of saying 'no comment' continually in a police interview, the difference being that the people you are disrespecting and avoiding questions from are the people who pay your wages and who you want to vote to keep you in a job. It's the same technique as corporate bullshit speak in business, just meaningless inpenetrable waffle to avoid answering a reasonable question. If you do it enough people get bored and can't be bothered asking, but is really just a way of saying "fuck off I don't have to answer you".
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You think that was a simple straightforward question? I doubt she even understood the complexities of what she was asking, particularly as she framed it in the binary.

The activist bloke certainly didn’t.
The politicians didn’t want to show they didn’t, or appreciated it would require some hours to answer.
And I can’t recall what the funny old bloke said.

I do get the general point of your post however.
 
metalblue said:
You think that was a simple straightforward question? I doubt she even understood the complexities of what she was asking, particularly as she framed it in the binary.

The activist bloke certainly didn’t.
The politicians didn’t want to show they didn’t, or appreciated it would require some hours to answer.
And I can’t recall what the funny old bloke said.

I do get the general point of your post however.
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I understood her to be asking the question "how will allowing a multinational company to drill for oil improve energy security?" as the Tories claimed.

Mercer simply kept repeating again and again that it would be more secure with absolutely no specifics or details or explanation, and did not address how it was any way different to what we already have. He had plenty of opportunity to expand or explain but just expected people to believe it because he said it.

He was clearly parroting the party line and either because it is untrue or he doesn't understand there was no argument to support his claim.
 
I'm afraid the Tories (and to be fair, many people in the wider population) believe that to assert something is enough. It needs neither proof nor analysis.

It's all part of a desire for simple solutions to complex problems. I wish I had a tenner for every time I've seen it asserted that we should simply turn the boats back to France. No one cares that it's both impracticable and unlawful. And if you bring up the Dublin Agreement that the clown Johnson scrapped - well, let's just say, they don't like it up 'em. They are in denial.
 
Eebo said:
I understood her to be asking the question "how will allowing a multinational company to drill for oil improve energy security?" as the Tories claimed.

Mercer simply kept repeating again and again that it would be more secure with absolutely no specifics or details or explanation, and did not address how it was any way different to what we already have. He had plenty of opportunity to expand or explain but just expected people to believe it because he said it.

He was clearly parroting the party line and either because it is untrue or he doesn't understand there was no argument to support his claim.
Click to expand...

How does it not improve our energy security? Risk diversity will always improve security. Thats what I would have said, probably be accused of avoiding answering the question she didn’t really understand the complexity of.

Unless …. she wanted to challenge the ownership model against a backdrop of global supply chains that we’ve already seen stretched? (A fair challenge but not one that can be answered in 5 minutes and I’m not going to get in to the sheer hypocrisy of the left supporting the government to pay our energy bills).

Maybe she was hoping for a discussion on increasing refining capacity or government adopting a mothball approach to unused capacity to ensure security…

Or perhaps she wanted a conversation around security of renewables and was concerned with the lack of any noise from government or opposition on the storage conundrum (the elephant in the room if ever there was one)…

Maybe she wanted to expand on technology as a security driver and discuss the viability of direct air capture to fuel as a scalable tool to net zero? (Check this one out, it’s interesting tech)

And so on and so forth. Try having a meaningful conversation on any of these in a couple of minutes. Thats why the answers are always shit like let’s insulate homes or “waffle, waffle, something, because I said so, waffle”.
 
Eebo said:
Just expected people to believe it because he said it.

He was clearly parroting the party line and either because it is untrue or he doesn't understand there was no argument to support his claim.
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This is now unofficial self-servative party policy.
We have stated Rwanda is safe.
Therefore Rwanda is safe and how dare anyone use facts to dispute this.

Much the same as me saying that tomorrow it will be Sunny all day and 28°.
I'm going to the beach for a swim and to get a tan.
Anyone want to join me?
 
metalblue said:
How does it not improve our energy security? Risk diversity will always improve security. Thats what I would have said, probably be accused of avoiding answering the question she didn’t really understand the complexity of.

Unless …. she wanted to challenge the ownership model against a backdrop of global supply chains that we’ve already seen stretched? (A fair challenge but not one that can be answered in 5 minutes and I’m not going to get in to the sheer hypocrisy of the left supporting the government to pay our energy bills).

Maybe she was hoping for a discussion on increasing refining capacity or government adopting a mothball approach to unused capacity to ensure security…

Or perhaps she wanted a conversation around security of renewables and was concerned with the lack of any noise from government or opposition on the storage conundrum (the elephant in the room if ever there was one)…

Maybe she wanted to expand on technology as a security driver and discuss the viability of direct air capture to fuel as a scalable tool to net zero? (Check this one out, it’s interesting tech)

And so on and so forth. Try having a meaningful conversation on any of these in a couple of minutes. Thats why the answers are always shit like let’s insulate homes or “waffle, waffle, something, because I said so, waffle”.
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I get your point that there are always more complexities and that the format is not suitable for an extended in depth discussion of all the angles.

However I would have been a lot happier with just your first paragraph as an answer than what we got from Mercer.

That could at least have lead to an exchange of views and some learning and improved understanding.

There is no interest or benefit watching people say what they think, I would prefer to know why they think what they do.

It is not just QT that is like this, everything including the news is now about how people feel or what they think, very little about why they think that or how they justify it, or what the facts are.
 
Eebo said:
I understood her to be asking the question "how will allowing a multinational company to drill for oil improve energy security?" as the Tories claimed.

Mercer simply kept repeating again and again that it would be more secure with absolutely no specifics or details or explanation, and did not address how it was any way different to what we already have. He had plenty of opportunity to expand or explain but just expected people to believe it because he said it.

He was clearly parroting the party line and either because it is untrue or he doesn't understand there was no argument to support his claim.
Click to expand...
I’m sure the clever mr. Mercer understands completely how the massive foreign and private companies who are currently buying/owning the licences have nothing but deep concern for Britain’s energy security as they sell the oil and gas for the best price on the open market.
Doesn’t he?
 
Eebo said:
I get your point that there are always more complexities and that the format is not suitable for an extended in depth discussion of all the angles.

However I would have been a lot happier with just your first paragraph as an answer than what we got from Mercer.

That could at least have lead to an exchange of views and some learning and improved understanding.

There is no interest or benefit watching people say what they think, I would prefer to know why they think what they do.

It is not just QT that is like this, everything including the news is now about how people feel or what they think, very little about why they think that or how they justify it, or what the facts are.
Click to expand...

Can’t disagree with any of that mate.
 
metalblue said:
How does it not improve our energy security? Risk diversity will always improve security. Thats what I would have said, probably be accused of avoiding answering the question she didn’t really understand the complexity of.

Unless …. she wanted to challenge the ownership model against a backdrop of global supply chains that we’ve already seen stretched? (A fair challenge but not one that can be answered in 5 minutes and I’m not going to get in to the sheer hypocrisy of the left supporting the government to pay our energy bills).

Maybe she was hoping for a discussion on increasing refining capacity or government adopting a mothball approach to unused capacity to ensure security…

Or perhaps she wanted a conversation around security of renewables and was concerned with the lack of any noise from government or opposition on the storage conundrum (the elephant in the room if ever there was one)…

Maybe she wanted to expand on technology as a security driver and discuss the viability of direct air capture to fuel as a scalable tool to net zero? (Check this one out, it’s interesting tech)

And so on and so forth. Try having a meaningful conversation on any of these in a couple of minutes. Thats why the answers are always shit like let’s insulate homes or “waffle, waffle, something, because I said so, waffle”.
Click to expand...

The control was all waffle, wasn't it though? It was harking back to take back control sloganism of Brexit. It's not a serious point about energy security otherwise, there would be conditions or state equity imposed.

The Tory party don't do anything other than Slogan policies anymore.

That's probably why their most successful policy "Ban the XL Bullies) in recent months was so quick.
 
Bodicoteblue said:
I’m sure the clever mr. Mercer understands completely how the massive foreign and private companies who are currently buying/owning the licences have nothing but deep concern for Britain’s energy security as they sell the oil and gas for the best price on the open market.
Doesn’t he?
Click to expand...

That’s the obvious concern but actually who owns/extracts the product neither increases or decreases security. It’s pure supply and demand dynamics, what we do know is the product in the ground doesn’t increase our security given oil and gas remain vital to global energy demands. We all wish that wasn’t the case but it is. So given the realities you always want supply to outstrip demand (or an equilibrium at a minimum) and anyone extracting commodities has to do something with it as having it sitting around doing nothing incurs costs - so they want it extracted and sold. The more the supply the lower the energy feedstock costs.

We also know oil has a limited time horizon (copper is the new oil and all that) so extracting it and oversupply now is about the best thing for energy security (obviously not quite that simple as we have global refining and storage capacities which are a huge part of the costs we consumers see).

There is a separate argument that the government should take more value out of our oil fields but that horse bolted a long time ago. In fact given we don’t do that well out of the trade oversupply is only beneficial to us - sadly we’re too small a player to make huge price differences though.
 
Mr Kobayashi said:
The control was all waffle, wasn't it though? It was harking back to take back control sloganism of Brexit. It's not a serious point about energy security otherwise, there would be conditions or state equity imposed.

The Tory party don't do anything other than Slogan policies anymore.

That's probably why their most successful policy "Ban the XL Bullies) in recent months was so quick.
Click to expand...

Read my next reply on why it doesn’t matter who owns it….
 
blueinsa said:
Give it 18-24 months and the narrative on here will be “you voted for Starmer, you voted for a populist”.
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It has already started, if you're REAL Labour you wouldn't vote for Starmer because he's really a Tory.

The "I told you so" brigade will continue to be right eeking out a living on the peripheral of the political landscape getting flustered about question time, Gbeebies and TwatterX ;)
 
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