🧵You know the idea, posited by @theIFS, that the main parties are engaged in a "conspiracy of silence" this election.
Their original point was about spending plans.
But I think you cld go much further.
I can think of at least 5 other areas where there's a conspiracy of silence 1⃣Taxes ARE going up under all the main parties' plans.
But they prefer not to talk about this, hiding instead behind the claim that tax rates on income tax, NICs and VAT won't rise. But they've still signed up to plans which will mean the AMOUNT of taxes we're paying will rise.

🧵
You've probably heard this claim - both from @rishisunak and more recently from @Nigel_Farage 👇
UK has leapfrogged others to become the world's fourth biggest exporter! And all after Brexit!
Unfortunately the reality is somewhat less impressive than this sounds.
Here's why: First thing to say is that the bare bones of the claim are certainly true.
Between 2021 and 2022 the UK did indeed rise from 7th in the league table of the world's biggest exporters (counting both goods and services) to 4th.
We'll get to why this happened in a moment. But still

🏠THREAD🏠
Why everything you thought you knew about housebuilding in the UK might actually be wrong.
A nerdy but quite important thread, with special relevance in an election where every politician is promising to build x-thousand more homes.
It begins (of course) with a chart This is the conventional picture you prob have in your mind of housebuilding in England👇
Data on housing starts or completions, divided up by who's doing the building. The govt compiles it from data on housing warranties submitted to the NHBC.
And there's a clear pattern...

The chart I can't quite get out of my head is this one👇
Population-adjusted net migration since 1855(!)
We've NEVER seen net migration flows like this before.
Whether you put it down to post-Brexit migration rules, post-Covid shifts or something else, it's an ENORMOUS shift... I'm quite surprised the issue isn't even bigger this election.
Perhaps it's because it takes a while for data trends to become a cultural issue.
Think Polish plumbers, post-war Commonwealth migration or Windrush generation.
The recent flows from India/Nigeria dwarf all those...

Am I allowed, at this stage, to point out that... there is no such thing as a fossil fuel free book?
Like it or not, paperback & hardback books are fossil fuel products.
If that sounds odd, consider for a moment how the book you've been idly flicking through is actually made...

https://twitter.com/fossilfreebooks/status/1796243537706553559

We all know the main ingredient in paper is wood. Turning wood into paper is a v energy-intensive process.
In the UK it accounts for roughly 6% of our emissions. Mostly thru burning gas to power the mills.
Paper mills are trying to reduce their emissions. But it's not easy

V interesting new analysis out today from the @IPPR.
There have been plenty of reports saying we need to do what we can to rebuild manufacturing & grow green tech.
But WHICH SECTORS could the UK actually compete in? This report provides some of the answers news.sky.com/story/rapid-st… Full report here👇
It's precisely the kind of forensic work this govt (or the next one) needs to do on industrial strategy. We can't hope to compete with China & the US in EVERY field. So what do we focus on?
They say: heat pumps, wind and green transport ippr.org/articles/manuf…

🧵
Joe Biden has just confirmed he's going to raise the special tariff on electric vehicles coming from China to 100%.
Also new tariffs on batteries and solar panels.
What's going on here?
Here's a quick primer with some charts 👇 First off, a recap on what's happened with tariffs.
The standard tariff on cars is 2.5% - that's what most other nations pay.
Trump levied an extra 25% tariff on China in 2018.
Now far from changing course, Biden is doubling down - or rather quadrupling down.
Now it'll be 102.5%

I hate to be pedantic (and no doubt this will mean I'll be labelled as one of those doomsters @KemiBadenoch is calling out here) but there's a few problems with the data the biz/trade sec is quoting here.
When you correct them, the picture looks a little different...
🧵

https://twitter.com/KemiBadenoch/status/1785691778743423487

Let's start with the big one.
In all the charts in the @biztradegovuk document she quotes from, it looks like export volumes are bigger than ever before 👇
Hurrah!
Except this is true only when you fail to adjust for inflation. Which, as we all know, has been VERY high recently

🚗UPDATE🚗
- Britain is STILL sending millions of pounds of luxury cars into states neighbouring Russia, according to new data.
- There is STILL no especially plausible explanation
- Car lobby group the @smmt STILL insists it's got NOTHING to do with Russian sanctions
🧵 You may recall this from last month 👇 abt how UK car exports to Russia stopped when sanctions were imposed. But they spontaneously. mysteriously rose to Azerbaijan.
I promised to post regular updates if the phenomenon continued. Well, it's continuing

https://x.com/EdConwaySky/status/1767506597553799546

NEW
Britain's motoring lobby group the @SMMT has insisted that an unprecedented 2,000% increase in car exports to Azerbaijan has NOTHING to with Russia and is explained by the fact that this former Soviet state is a “flourishing market in its own right”.
This is rather... odd
🧵 Before we get onto that, some background (thread on this here👇).
TLDR: UK car exports to Russia have collapsed, because of sanctions. But UK car exports to countries neighbouring Russia have suddenly risen by nearly the same amount. Esp Azerbaijan

https://twitter.com/edconwaysky/status/1767506597553799546?s=61&t=Ug2R7U1yPL68F7cdHrD74Q

🚨The strange tale of British luxury cars & Russian sanctions🚨
🧵A thread on some v striking charts which raise some disturbing questions abt the car industry.
Let's start at the start.
Wealthy Russians love high-end British cars.
Don't just take it from me. Take it from her 👇 So when Russia invaded Ukraine, it was not without significance that all Britain's major carmakers said they would stop sending their cars to Russia.
Anyway, shortly afterwards, the UK imposed sanctions which made it illegal to do so anyway...

💷BUDGET THREAD💷
A few thoughts on what was supposed to be a big event but ended up feeling, well, a wee bit thin.
And that’s the first thing to say.
Strikingly, this Budget was HALF as big as the Autumn Statement. Look at the difference between the scorecard totals 👇

Was it a tax-cutting Budget?
I mean… not really.
Well, OK, the net impact is taxes aren’t going up as quickly as they were 6 months ago.
But (and I think this is pretty crucial) THEY’RE STILL GOING UP. The tax burden will be higher at the end of this Parliament than before.

https://twitter.com/edconwaysky/status/1765376139571208194

🧵Here's a thread about an obscure economic theory from a century and a half ago, which is about to become a MASSIVE deal.
⚡️It helps explains why tackling climate change is going to be v v hard. Some say impossible.
The story begins with this building👇
Yes it's the @SphereVegas.
Not just a massive entertainment venue but also the world's biggest screen. By all accounts it's an amazing spectacle both outside and in, where there's also a ginormous wraparound LED screen (also one of the biggest anywhere)

https://x.com/sarahkenny2/status/1758252252836376779?s=46

🚨How British companies are bolstering Vladimir Putin’s war machine🚨
A depressing thread.
But an important one.
With some pretty shocking charts.
Let’s begin with the “official” picture. It suggests UK trade with Russia has collapsed since Feb 2022. Down by 74%… Now let's fill in the data.
Look how we're no longer exporting cars or heavy machinery to Russia. Because the govt is well aware this stuff could be repurposed into weapons. So the official line is that this is a big success story.
Looks like Russia's economy is being starved

With Tata steel having just confirmed the closure of the two blast furnaces at Port Talbot, here are a few important datapoints.
First, UK steelmaking has collapsed faster, over the past half century, than ANY other country in the world save for Venezuela.
Pretty shocking👇 The Tata plan is to replace the two blast furnaces with two electric arc furnaces.
There are some strong arguments - not all of which come back to net zero.
One is that Britain produces more than enough scrap steel to satisfy its needs. At the moment this is mostly exported

Here’s one of the blast furnaces at Port Talbot being tapped. Witnessing it is an extraordinary experience. What you’re looking at here is molten pig iron, hotter than lava, coursing out.
Blast furnaces exist to turn rock (rich in iron) into metal.
They are breathtaking places… The problem is, the main product of these blast furnaces (there are two at Port Talbot) is actually not iron, but carbon. About a tonne and a half of carbon for every tonne of iron.
In carbon terms, blast furnaces are the single most concentrated source of pollution anywhere…

Here’s the story of how the discovery of some islands off the coast of South America changed the world forever, in unexpected ways.
It also helps explain why rivers & coasts around the world are constantly smeared with sewage.
Bizarre but true.
Anyway, here are the islands👇 They’re called the Chincha Islands, in Peru.
No humans live there but a LOT of birds do.
Over time those birds left rather a lot of droppings.
But unlike in most other bird colonies, it barely ever rains, so instead of being washed away those droppings just built up over time.

I went to one of the world's biggest glass factories & it was REALLY cool.
Here's what I saw👇

The factory is the @Encirc plant in Cheshire.
It's enormous. Acres & acres.
If you poured anything from a glass bottle in the UK this Xmas there's a good chance it came from here...
🧵 🍾Glass is ultimately melted SAND, with a few important additives🏝️
📖Much more on this in Material World if you're interested (it's incredibly interesting).
The sand gets shovelled into a massive furnace (the world's biggest for containers) from these big hoppers at the end.

🌞Here's a short story abt how I went to Morocco to see one of the world's biggest solar plants.
It didn't go quite as I expected

This is the Noor complex near Ouarzazate.
It's massive. Bigger than the capital of Morocco.
Europe (& UK) plan to import solar power from Morocco.
🧵 This place is interesting because it's actually not a traditional solar plant.
Most solar power these days is PV or photovoltaic👇
Solar energy hits the silicon panel and is converted straight into electricity.
Noor has a section devoted to PV. But in this case it's a sideshow...

⚡️INERTIA⚡️
The magic ingredient at the heart of our power systems.
It's also one of the obstacles to replacing fossil fuels with renewables.
In short, a REALLY big deal!
But most folks have never heard of it.
It's widely considered too complex.
So. Here's your idiot's guide
🧵 Key thing here is to remember that for most of history most of our power has come from turbines spinning.
Steam turbines in coal and nuclear power stations. Gas or hydro turbines.
When you think of the electricity grid, think of lots of big wheels turning, all around the country.

🪨BALL CLAY🪨
A mineral few have heard of. But it's one of the critical ingredients we're going to need if we want to eliminate carbon emissions in the coming years.
Why? Because ball clay is the key component of something called electrical porcelain. Which is a BIG deal.
🧵 You'll have seen electrical porcelain, but probably without noticing it.
It's usually turned into "bushings" - those brown serrated bits you see in substations and sometimes on pylons.
That's electrical porcelain, and it insulates the cable going into a big transformer 👇