@bettinastruff.bsky.social
UK/EU based photographer Twitter: @bettinastruff #WomensRights #LGBTQRights #Neurodiversity #ActuallyAutistic #Cyclist #VaccinesWork #WearAMask Unsolicited DMs will result in a block.
“Everyone deserves respect and everyone deserves the safety of being able to exist. Trans people are no exception to that.”
🚨 Naomi Smith, CEO of Best for Britain: Elon Musk is a “dangerous and malign influence, who belongs nowhere near our critical infrastructure.”
https://www.ft.com/content/999125b0-9ae7-426b-8755-eff076545ade
At @commonseac.parliament.uk we're launching an inquiry into the environmental impact of UK data centres, which seem likely to be gas-powered. Brits shouldn't have to face higher bills and accelerated climate change in Starmer's bid to become an “AI superpower”
www.politicshome.com/news/article...
🔴Trump: ‘When You Think of It, We Shouldn’t Even Have an Election’
As his approval ratings slide amid growing discontent over his unpopular war in Iran, the President is looking at multiple ways to subvert the mid-term elections, reports Owen Bennett-Jones
bylinetimes.com/2026/03/13/t...
One TRILLION dollars!
Me in @theguardian.com on the addiction of UK politicians/commentariat to large, and largely meaningless, numbers and why it's bad for policymaking.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
The Overton window is already shifting.
The Labour Government are now more scared of losing votes and seats to the Green Party than to Reform.
youtu.be/6iFdA6i-URQ?...
Currently, my old oil boiler also gives me hot water.
I do have an immersion heater for emergencies but it costs an arm and a leg to heat enough water for a bath.
So I need an integrated solution.
Oh, plus solar panels and a battery to reduce the running costs because electricity in the UK is so ridiculously expensive.
If the government would pay all the costs of switching then I'd do it this summer.
But otherwise, I'll wait until I downsize to a house with a heat pump already installed.
Well, for a start, there's no way I'm ruining the appearance of my house by running pipes all around the outside.
So that means I need a regular heat pump heating radiators and hot water.
And I need new piping, new radiators, probably underfloor heating downstairs.
Plus making good the damage.
4kW/h 24x7?
So you're saying that one of these would be enough to heat the whole house and provide hot water?
And 16kW is the equivalent of about six ovens.
I get the feeling my electricity bill would go through the roof.
I'm in favour of heat pumps in theory.
But in practice, for my 12 room house finished in a natural Cotswold render, a retrofit would be an unsightly nightmare.
My 25 year-old oil boiler kicks out about 28kW at peak.
So I'd need two 16kW heat pumps + loads of new piping.
Argh!
Indeed.
I think you're underestimating a tad.
I currently have 18 radiators and a hot water tank all served by one oil boiler.
Looking at air-to-air heat pumps it seems I would need at least two multi-room systems each with an outdoor pump and piping running up the outside of the house into each room!
Performative nonsense given Labour's continued insistence on their Brexit red lines.
She's not going to get far without accepting FOM.
Much better to simply say: "We fucked up big time with Brexit - please can we rejoin the EU ASAP?"
Performative nonsense given Labour's continued insistence on their Brexit red lines.
She's not going to get far without accepting FOM.
Much better to simply say: "We fucked up big time with Brexit - please can we rejoin the EU ASAP?"
Is Ofgem going to send them sternly worded letter then?
The additional cost of ONE fossil fuel price spike on the scale of 2022 = the ENTIRE COST of Net Zero by 2050. We get precisely nothing in return for the first cost, and a whole new, more secure and cheaper energy system from the second one.
#NoBrainer
www.theccc.org.uk/2026/03/11/c...
I’m very glad to see this particular blog from @danneidle.bsky.social
I‘m concerned that an old friend of mine may have been caught up in such a scheme (not necessarily this one).
I‘m forwarding the blog so they find out whether their scheme is similar to this one.
taxpolicy.org.uk/2026/03/13/m...
Wind power, as it turns out, is very useful
www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...
I think I've probably used a bank note once in the past month and maybe a coin at some point too to get a supermarket trolley.
Amazing how much energy is being spent this week by the right of British politics on something that is rapidly becoming an irrelevance
At current prices around £1.5-2k
I was quoted 30k+ to install a heat pump in my house as I need new piping, new radiators and/or underfloor heating, preferably with solar + battery to top it up during the day.
Basically involves ripping the whole place apart and starting again from scratch.
Some grants are available of course, but they're woefully inadequate given the cost of retrofitting heat pumps to a property that wasn't designed with them in mind.
Government also insists on means-testing grants, which makes no sense if they want the biggest and quickest take-up possible.
Four newbuilds have gone up in the village in the last couple of years and all have heat pumps.
Only one has solar though which I find surprising given that electricity prices are still way too high and likely to remain so for at least the next 5-10 years.
Just a shame they're so bloody expensive to install.
My home is heated with an oil boiler because we don't have mains gas out here in the sticks, but installing a heat pump would cost the equivalent of 20 years' oil bills.
That's really not a worthwhile investment in the short to medium term.
Surely the greatest push for Single Market access would be to apply to rejoin the EU?
But wait, red lines...
Palantir is back in the news.
Checking in on Elbridge Colby who assured me the threat to Taiwan was so accute the US couldn't spare any weapons for Ukraine as his administration burns through a decade of missile production in a week to make snuff propoganda films.
If you think the NHS has problems, wait until you see the chaos across the pond.
It’s a complex system in US - Medicaid, Medicare, private insurance, TRICARE - too often the sick fall through the cracks and either stay sick or lose a lot of money – or both.
We need to Trump-proof our politics and stop the US administration peddling their divisive agenda here in Britain.
Nigel Farage wants to import Trump-style chaos and division into the UK, backed by a shadowy network of think tanks and campaign groups with close ties to the MAGA movement.