Tim Wakeling

Tim Wakeling

@timwakeling.co.uk

Liberal, woke, left wing climate advocate, web guy and Christian in the UK. Would like to see a more generous and equal (but not communist) society.

133 followers33 following937 posts

Tim Wakeling reposted

Russ Jones
@russincheshire.bsky.social

2 down, 3 to go 🇷🇸 Serbia — Vucic lost 🇧🇷 Brazil — Bolsonaro lost 🇮🇱 Israel — 27 Oct 🇧🇬 Bulgaria — 1 Nov 🇺🇸 USA — 3 Nov

Russ Jones@russincheshire.bsky.social

Five tests for nationalism in the next 10 days. Could be genuinely transformative. 🇷🇸 Serbia — Vucic lost (yay!) 🇧🇷 Brazil — Lula leads early count 🇮🇱 Israel — 27 Oct 🇧🇬 Bulgaria — 1 Nov 🇺🇸 USA — 3 Nov One down, one looks promising, three to go.

Tim Wakeling reposted

Simon Evans
@drsimevans.carbonbrief.org

NEW ANALYSIS: Expensive gas behind "nearly 90%" of rise in UK household electricity bills since 2020 + 77% of the rise in gas bills Contrary to what you've seen in media / political narratives, net-zero is "helping to shelter Britain from the impact of expensive gas", says @acjsissons.bsky.social

Tim Wakeling
@timwakeling.co.uk

Great capacity crowd, this, to hear Obama in conversation in Manchester. A president, unlike some, who's actually worth listening to. All ages, as many women as men, and not a red hat to be seen. 😉

Tim Wakeling
@timwakeling.co.uk

These rumours don't always come to anything, but if you are planning a heat pump and are able to appoint an installer before the 28th, it may be a good idea. You still have 3 months after the voucher is approved to actually do the work. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

theguardian.comMinisters preparing to slash heat pump subsidies to fund defence spendingExclusive: Some of £2bn savings needed from energy budget expected to come from boiler upgrade scheme, sources say

Tim Wakeling reposted

Peter Walker
@peterwalker99.bsky.social

NEW: Kemi Badenoch’s flagship party conference policy document, The Right Way, overestimated the cost of net zero by nearly £500bn, seemingly after someone accidentally double-counted figures on a spreadsheet. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

theguardian.comTories overstate net zero cost by nearly £500bn in apparent spreadsheet errorExclusive: Badenoch’s flagship conference policy document cites £957bn estimate, twice the total in climate advisers’ data
Tim Wakeling
@timwakeling.co.uk

In 2000, it was a positive selling point for a developer to say they hand coded everything in HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Now we'd say anyone not using a CMS and a few plugins or tools, except in cases demanding something very specific, is wasting time and money. How long before we see AI that way?

Tim Wakeling
@timwakeling.co.uk

The idea that those who work hardest have, or should have, the most money is completely false (and not biblical either). Those with best connections or standing have always done best, and supporting those with poorer connections (regardless of how hard we think they work) has always been our duty.

Tim Wakeling
@timwakeling.co.uk

I know about Thessalonians where Paul says those who don't work shouldn't eat. That means people who *choose* to sponge and contribute nothing (which, by the way, is something rich people do far more often than poor people). There is no suggestion that food or support should be proportional to work.

Tim Wakeling reposted

Prof. Eliot Jacobson
@climatecasino.net

Records come and records go. But this is one for the ages. The preliminary Nino 3.4 sea-surface temperature anomaly is now at a record 3.23°C above the 1991-2020 baseline. This crushes the previous daily record set in 1982 by over 1.14°C. The Climate 8-ball is looking up.

Tim Wakeling reposted

Andrew Sissons
@acjsissons.bsky.social

The link between electricity and gas prices has already begun to break - and the government can take some credit for that... www.nesta.org.uk/blog/the-ene...

Gaby Hinsliff@gabyhinsliff.bsky.social

...& repeal of the Thatcher ban on public ownership of water companies (not quite the instant nationalisation some wanted but audience still v excited), Speeding up the breaking of the link between electricity prices & gas market sounds boring meanwhile but it's the route to cheaper electricity.

Tim Wakeling
@timwakeling.co.uk

If Burnham goes to the country in 2029 with ready-to-implement proposals on a National Care Service, rejoining the EU and proportional representation, together with something compelling on transport and climate, to be honest it's hard to see him not winning a majority.

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Tim Wakeling
@timwakeling.co.uk

How can we reduce demand for petrol, I hear you cry. Well get people onto electric in the medium term, but immediately, the most effective way is probably speed limits. 50 mph uses up to 25% less petrol than 70.

Tim Wakeling
@timwakeling.co.uk

Never mind the climate for a moment, this is economically illiterate. You reduce the price of something when you want to increase demand for it. Every shop owner knows that. But when supply is restricted, you don't want to increase demand, you need to reduce it. Or the price will go up.

Tim Wakeling reposted

Met Office - weather and climate
@metoffice.gov.uk

Following quality control checks, a manually operated weather station has been confirmed to have recorded 38.2°C on Thursday the 13th of August, making it the hottest day of 2026. This exceeds the previous maximum temperature of 38.1°C recorded at Kew Gardens on the same day.

Tim Wakeling
@timwakeling.co.uk

A win without a majority for the far right in east Germany is perhaps a good outcome. Electorates are famously good at blaming the government of the day for every problem regardless of whether they had the power to fix it, and a minority govt won't fix anything, so they may get shot down next time.

Tim Wakeling
@timwakeling.co.uk

If only there were another island nation that could have told Iceland holding an EU referendum was a bad idea. They are already in Schengen and the single market; they should have just gone ahead and gained the voting power to go with it.

Tim Wakeling
@timwakeling.co.uk

Almost nobody thinks they are an extremist. People generally believe that their opinions are those that most reasonable people would share; after all, if they didn't think their opinions were reasonable, they wouldn't hold them.

Tim Wakeling reposted

Josiah Mortimer
@josiahmortimer.bsky.social

Politico: "London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) has improved lung growth in children, according to research led by Queen Mary University of London — the first evidence that clean air zones may benefit child development."

Tim Wakeling
@timwakeling.co.uk

Government alerts should be sent to phones when there is an urgent action most people in the alert area need to take. Like fleeing an approaching wildfire. In the latest case, 99.9% have no action to take because they weren't planning to light a fire or BBQ anyway. That is a misuse of the system.

Tim Wakeling
@timwakeling.co.uk

A public information campaign is absolutely appropriate for this. But not an emergency phone alert. Next time I get one my instinct will be to assume there's probably nothing I need to do for that either.

Tim Wakeling
@timwakeling.co.uk

More fine margins in Michigan. People talking about whether El-Sayed can scrape together a narrow win in a seat Democrats already hold. Given Trump's behaviour, we should not be having to sweat about this. If Americans were as angry about Trump as they ought to be, this would be an easy win.

Tim Wakeling
@timwakeling.co.uk

People saying we've tried and failed and should now just give up on net zero and get used to the warmer climate: here's the thing. Unless we stop making it worse, it will never stop warming. We have to BOTH adapt AND stop emitting CO2 asap.

Tim Wakeling
@timwakeling.co.uk

AI will find its place. I'm finding it very useful in my work. But I think we're already discovering that it's not going to be able to replace everything. :)

Tim Wakeling
@timwakeling.co.uk

Jonathan could have a point. These little announcements (energy bill VAT, bus fares, business rates) are small but very memorable, because each has a direct and obvious impact on everyday people's lives. A clever way to begin. Let's see where he goes from here. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

theguardian.comScoff at cheaper bus fares and No 10 North if you like, but Andy Burnham knows what he’s doing | Jonathan FreedlandRetail politics while taking power out of London: if this works, Burnham’s premiership could be seriously transformational, says Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland
Tim Wakeling
@timwakeling.co.uk

They aren't transformational, we all know that. But they seem to be Burnham's way of saying "I hear your concerns and am going to do something about it." He could say that in a hundred interviews and most would never hear it, or talk about it to each other. But this way they will.

Tim Wakeling
@timwakeling.co.uk

Like it or not, to succeed as a political leader I think you have to be a salesperson. Blair and Johnson succeeded because they were good at that. Cameron was OK. Brown, May, Truss, Sunak and Starmer all stumbled because they weren't very good at it.

Tim Wakeling
@timwakeling.co.uk

A good first step - sends the right signals. Cutting electricity VAT but not gas helps every household (we all have elec; not everyone has gas). Poor households with fan heaters benefit, and heat pumps become more attractive. As an all-electric household, we'll save double this amount.

Andrew Sissons@acjsissons.bsky.social

The new government’s first big policy announcement is removing VAT from electricity bills - from October onwards. Should save £40 - £45 on a typical annual bill and reduce the price ratio to about 3.4 (assuming bills don’t otherwise change dramatically in October) www.gov.uk/government/n...

gov.ukNew PM cuts tax on household electricity bills to give breathing space on cost of livingNew Prime Minister takes immediate action to cut taxes on electricity bills to give millions of households breathing space this winter.
Tim Wakeling
@timwakeling.co.uk

Thank goodness for that. Good riddance to Argentina. Horrible team, disgusting behaviour, got what they deserved. And Spain definitely did. ⚽😎

Tim Wakeling
@timwakeling.co.uk

New House of Lords rules being drawn up for retirement at 80. BBC says new members will be "asked to agree" to retire at 80. For goodness sake, don't make this a pseudo-voluntary thing. Just legally dissolve their peerage automatically on their 80th birthday whether they like it or not.

Tim Wakeling
@timwakeling.co.uk

(In fact we should take this further and just remove the "at 80" bit. Retire then all and elect replacements. But perhaps that's more controversial.)

Tim Wakeling
@timwakeling.co.uk

Just overheard a parent talking in a completely relaxed way about not having even decided yet which country to visit for a summer beach holiday this year. In peak season with a family!

Tim Wakeling
@timwakeling.co.uk

I wish football writers in the media would realise that most of us have no idea who all the managers are. When I read "there were chances at goal for Bert Bloggins's side" I have to stop reading and Google which team that is.

Tim Wakeling
@timwakeling.co.uk

Tomorrow, price-capped gas prices go up 24%, because of the fossil fuel supply crisis caused by the Iran war. But electricity is only rising by 5%. Why? Because a lot of UK electricity is now generated by renewables rather than gas. Those turbines and solar panels are paying for themselves, folks.