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In an industry that thrives on innovation, we must be cautious of holding successful companies back in the name of competition.
The post In Attacking Apple, the Department of Justice Fails to Grasp the Essence of Progress appeared first on American Enterprise Institute - AEI.

The Arab world 'has too much history and not enough geography'. Savour that vivid phrase as the essence of Bob Bowker's fine memoir of life as an Australian entranced by a Middle East that is ...

Today, economic sanctions are generally regarded as an alternative to war. But for most people in the interwar period, the economic weapon was the very essence of total war. The... READ MORE
The post The History of Economic Sanctions as a Tool of War appeared first on Yale University Press.

The Warren‐​Marshall crypto anti‐​money laundering bill that's being shopped as a response to Hamas's October 7th pogrom is bad public policy that would, in essence, grant terrorists veto power over the lawful use of technology. U.S. policy should not give terrorists the right to deny technology to those using it to lawfully and constructively build.

A region's competitiveness is manifested in the commercial success or failure of its companies. In essence, improving competitiveness means increasing productivity. European competitiveness and productivity growth have been deeply linked to the ability to promote innovation and use new technologies that are capable of transforming productive sectors and companies. In recent years, however, European investments […]
La entrada Why the D9+ Group should provide stronger leadership in European digital policy se publicó primero en Elcano Royal Institute.

Earlier this month, the Indian Supreme Court delivered a judgment in a reference pertaining to the law and scope of legislative privileges under the Indian Constitution. The primary question before the court was whether legislative privileges extend to the protection from prosecution of a legislator who receives a bribe to speak or vote in a certain manner in the legislature. In the following sections of this post, I'll first discuss the existing law on legislative privileges in India, which is unique in its origination and formulation. I'll then argue that there is a need to reconceptualize the understanding of legislative privileges in order to support the legislative systems in performing their roles and functions in their true essence.

On 15 December 2023, the Swiss Federal Council (Government) announced that it intended to start formal negotiations with the EU on the conclusion of a Framework Agreement (FA) 2.0. Five existing and two new treaties between the EU and Switzerland are to be subject to dynamic alignment and institutionalised, i.e. provided with a monitoring and judicial mechanism. The project, which is practically fixed in the decisive questions by a "Common Understanding" ("CU") between the two parties, is based on a triple B approach: in substance, it consists of unsuccessful bricolage, the foundations were laid by bullshit, and because elections and a change of the Commission are imminent in the EU, bustle is supposedly of the essence. The CU summarizes what the Parties have informally agreed on.

We have an awful lot of people trying to insist that climate change simply should not be a political issue. John Harris is just one of them:In the UK, unfortunately, the past 48 hours has seen a political story whose parochialist absurdity is off the scale: Conservative voices undermining the fragile cross-party consensus on reaching net zero by 2050 and calling for many of the UK's tilts at climate action to be either slowed or stopped. The reason? The results of three parliamentary byelections – and, in particular, the views of 13,965 Conservative voters in the outer London suburbs.But climate change is the very essence of a political issue, something that has to be decided by politics. No, leave aside the question of whether it is happening, even that of whether anything should be done about it. Stick with just the one point - if we're to do something what is it that we should do? Net Zero? A carbon tax at the social cost of carbon? As it happens the science prefers the second rather than the first there. So no one can use "but the science" to decide on the first. But very much more importantly there's a big political question here. Britons are being told to carry the cost of lower emissions so that others may gain the benefits of lower emissions. This is something that can only be done with the acquiescence of Britons. Elections are how we decide those things. What we do about climate change is the very essence of what a political issue is. Therefore rather than no politics about climate change we must have lots and lots more.This is before a rather more sarcastic observation we'd like to make. The same people - largely that is - who argue against this democracy about climate change are those who shout for a "more democratic economy". Surely that couldn't be because they think the demos would vote for their economic policies but against their climate ones now, could it?

Apparently we've all got to be poorer. Well, yes, again, but this time it's because: The global extraction of raw materials is expected to increase by 60% by 2060, with calamitous consequences for the climate and the environment, according an unpublished UN analysis seen by the Guardian.Natural resource extraction has soared by almost 400% since 1970 due to industrialisation, urbanisation and population growth, according to a presentation of the five-yearly UN Global Resource Outlook made to EU ministers last week.To get a handle on the sort of size of number they're talking about: Each year, the world consumes more than 92b tonnes of materials – biomass (mostly food), metals, fossil fuels and minerals – and this figure is growing at the rate of 3.2% per year.Of course we don't, in fact, "consume", we borrow for a bit. That old phrase of dust to dust, ashes to ashes, is true at the planetary system level. Say, the use of metals - we might dig them up out of one hole, use them then stick them back in another, mine to landfill, but we've not consumed them.But OK, so 92 billion tonnes, call it 100bn. Up by 60%, let's give them an inch and call it 200 billion tonnes. Big number.Except: The lithosphere consists of sediments and crystalline rocks with a total mass of 23,000–24,000 × 10x15 metric tons.24,000,000,000 billion tonnes.200 billion is 0.0000008%In a million years we'll use under 1% of it (assuming we've got the right number of zeroes there all the way through).This is such a problem that: ""Higher figures mean higher impacts," he said. "In essence, there are no more safe spaces on Earth. We are already out of our safe operating space and if these trends continue, things will get worse. " which we think might be a bit of an exaggeration. "The report prioritises equity and human wellbeing measurements over GDP growth alone and proposes action to reduce overall demand rather than simply increasing "green" production." Ah, yes, we must be more equal and poorer as a solution. How did we guess that is what would be suggested? "Decarbonisation without decoupling economic growth and wellbeing from resource use and environmental impacts is not a convincing answer and the currently prevailing focus on cleaning the supply side needs to be complemented with demand-side measures," Potočnik said." That, again, means make everyone poorer.Yes, sure, 200 billion is a big number even when speaking about government budgets and deficits. But the size of the Earth is a really, really, big number. Against which 200 billion is a grain of a smidgeon of a smear. It's simply not an important nor relevant number nor percentage. It's a great excuse to impose perpetual poverty upon the population, of course it is. But it's not a good reason. Because a big number of a very big number is a small number.

The largest AI models should be monitored by a third-party auditor - who would basically check an AI system to ascertain its capabilities and the risk it poses. Both OpenAI and Anthropic - two of the AI labs with the most advanced systems - commissioned a third-party auditor called ARC Evals to act as a 'third-party evaluator to assess potentially dangerous capabilities of today's state-of-the-art ML models.'A safety evaluation of an AI system, known among AI labs as an 'eval', checks an AI system's capabilities to ensure that pre-deployment they are developed and deployed responsibly and with human interests in mind. When ARC Evals stress-tested OpenAI's pre-aligned GPT-4 it did so in a controlled environment and in essence tried to make the model misbehave.They managed to make GPT-4 lie to a human and get that same human to perform a task for them on TaskRabbit, make long term strategic plans, and write and run code: 'As AI systems improve [...] It is important to have systematic, controlled testing of these capabilities in place before models pose an imminent risk, so that labs can have advance warning when they're getting close and know to stop scaling up models further until they have robust safety and security guarantees.' ARC Evals is particularly worried that future and more advanced systems might exploit financial arbitrage, create new pathogens, and impersonate online humans. With this in mind, British-based Deepmind got together a very stellar cast of AI researchers including Turing Award winners, to hash out *exactly* how one monitors the risks from the increasingly advanced and potentially more dangerous AI models. They find that: 'Current approaches to building general-purpose AI systems tend to produce systems with both beneficial and harmful capabilities [and that] Further progress in AI development could lead to capabilities that pose extreme risks, such as offensive cyber capabilities or strong manipulation skills.'And because of this, they go on to explain 'why model evaluation is critical for addressing extreme risks [...]. These evaluations will become critical for keeping policymakers and other stakeholders informed, and for making responsible decisions about model training, deployment, and security.'Model 'evals' to uncover the risk of extreme risks of catastrophe and existential risk 'should be a priority area for AI safety and governance.' Major labs such as Google Deepmind, OpenAI and Anthropic have perhaps the biggest responsibility in the whole AI ecosystem, as they are the ones developing the model - which can be used for great good or for great (even unintentional) ill.The Adam Smith Institute's paper will be released next month and I cannot wait to share with you the fantastic innovation-led policies for the safe deployment of AI that we have cooked up.

Hello Fully Automated listeners! This is a rebroadcast of Episode 6 of Class Unity: Transmissions, as posted here. Transmissions is the official podcast of Class Unity, and I want to thank them for their permission to use this episode. You can find out more about Class Unity over at https://classunity.org/

For those curious, there will be more independent 'Fully Automated' content coming soon. But I will continue to repost those 'Transmissions' episodes in which I am involved, as I think they will be of interest to listeners of this show, too.



Hello comrades! Welcome to our sixth episode of Class Unity Transmissions.

In this episode, we open with a quick check-in with our comrade Jamal, from CU Chicago, who has been studying the recent strikes in France. Then we move to our interview recorded earlier this year with Armand M, one of the authors of our article from last September, "Gay Particularity, Reconsidered."

In the interview, we discuss some main points from Armand's piece. We look at how, in the late 80s and 90s, activist organizations such as ACT UP participated in civil disobedience actions against insurance rate increases and worked to expand universal Medicaid benefits to include AIDS treatment. In 1990, when Congress refused to release funds already earmarked for AIDS services, claiming that patients with other conditions were more deserving, ACT UP called for national health insurance. What was it about the ACT-UP era that made the gay rights movement so capable of articulating universalistic political demands?

We also look at the struggle for gay marriage, and how it effectively diverted financial resources and political energy away from organizations prioritizing healthcare and employment. Given that the gay liberation movement has not always supported this demand, what changed? Armand discusses the role of "respectability politics" in diverting the struggle from a more traditional leftist perspective. Notwithstanding the importance of access to health insurance and spousal inheritance for partners, Armand suggests that the shift toward gay marriage should be viewed as a conservative turn in queer politics.

Next we turn to the historical emergence of queer identity. Postmodern theorists like Judith Butler tend to see politics as essentially a question of identity, and thought. In this light, politics for them is necessarily the question of a slow, patient struggle to change unconsciously held ideas. However, notes Armand, while homosexual behavior has always been present in human societies, "queer" identification is only a very recent phenomenon and its emergence, as we will see, cannot be understood apart from its specific socio-economic conditions of possibility.

We also discuss some wider literature around this topic (see links below). For example, we address Roger Lancaster's piece in Jacobin, "Identity Politics Can Only Get Us So Far." Lancaster raises the question of how today's "identity" version of gay liberation struggle orbits this idea of a certain quest for one's subjective essence. Earlier versions, to the contrary, saw "coming out" as an "indispensable means" for building a political movement. Among other things, this means that earlier liberationists generally took a dialectical approach to sexual categories. We ask Armand how this "pre-Stonewall" idea of a subjective labeling understood from the outset as something eventually to be cast aside connects with Marx's notion of the eventual self-abolition of the "proletariat."

Other key points raised include the relation of identity-based struggle to CU's concept of the iron triangle, the limits of aesthetic struggle ("psychosocial emancipation)," and the extent to which Armand's critique of the limits of contemporary gay liberation struggle might be expanded to other cases.

Your hosts for this episode are Nicholas K, Steph K, and Jamal.

Here is a list of the readings mentioned in the article:

Andrew Davis (2010),

U.S. officials secretly encouraged Turkey to increase its donations to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) shortly after Washington suspended its own funding to the organization amid Israeli allegations that a dozen of UNRWA's 13,000 Gaza-based employees participated in the October 7 attacks, according to Middle East Eye.
The news reveals a large gap between the Biden administration's public and private messaging on UNRWA, which Israel has long accused of ties to Hamas. The White House joined Israel's public crusade against the group, leading several other Western countries to cut off their own funding.
That drop in funds risks further aggravating the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where famine has rapidly spread amid tight Israeli controls on aid for the population of the besieged strip. Without new funding, UNRWA officials say they would have to shutter operations by April.
The revelation suggests that U.S. officials are more circumspect about UNRWA's alleged complicity in October 7 than previously known. U.S. intelligence agencies reportedly consider accusations against the 12 employees "plausible" but this assessment is "low confidence."
American officials also reportedly asked Turkey to get Gulf countries to put forward money to fill the gap, though it's not clear whether the U.S. ever directly asked Gulf states to make such a move.
The U.S. has also been unwilling or unable to confirm Israeli allegations that numerous other charities related to Gaza are really run by Hamas, according to the Wall Street Journal. Part of their hesitancy comes from the fact that, as with UNRWA, Israeli officials are expecting their counterparts to accept accusations provided without serious evidence. "Allies have been asking for credible evidence for a long time, but are still waiting," a senior U.S. official told the Wall Street Journal.
UNRWA now claims that what little evidence Israel did provide about its employees came through "torture and ill-treatment" leading to coerced confessions, which are notoriously unreliable. The false confessions were used "to further spread misinformation about the agency as part of attempts to dismantle UNRWA," a spokesperson for the group averred.
This growing distrust over Israeli claims may be part of why the European Union decided to resume its UNRWA funding late last week in a move that will keep the aid group above water for now. But it also leads to an obvious question: Why is President Joe Biden still publicly accepting Israel's claims about the group as credible?
One possible explanation is domestic politics. Many in Congress have long been skeptical of UNRWA due to Israel's years-long opposition to the organization, which staunch Zionists say perpetuates the conflict by granting refugee status to multiple generations of Palestinians born in camps. The current draft of a major U.S. military policy bill would prevent any funding from going to UNRWA, and House Republicans are hoping to drag the organization's director before Congress for a grilling on Israel's accusations against his former employees.
There is, however, political cover for the White House if they choose to use it. Just last week, 50 House Democrats urged their colleagues to approve funding for UNRWA in order to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. "As the largest funder of UNRWA, it is critical that the U.S. continue to appropriate funds to support its important work," the group, led by Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), Andre Carson (D-Ind.), and Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), wrote in an open letter.
As starvation sets in across Gaza, Biden will have to decide if he is willing to face down Congress and Israeli officials in order to surge aid and prevent further catastrophe. Time is of the essence, according to Matthew Hollingworth of the World Food Program, which also operates in Gaza."To have a situation today with half a million people facing famine in just five months is extraordinary at that scale," Hollingworth told the Guardian. "There's nowhere else in the world today with this many people at risk of famine. Nowhere. And it's all man-made."

We're told that the green economy is a very good thing, growing fast, highly productive and all that: The UK's net zero economy grew by 9% in 2023, a report has revealed, in stark contrast to the 0.1% growth seen in the economy overall. Nevertheless, the report pointed out that strong future growth from green businesses was being put at risk by government policy reversals, lack of investment and competition from the EU and US.Thousands of new green companies were founded in 2023 and overall the sector was responsible for the production of £74bn in goods and services and 765,000 jobs, according to the report by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) and the Confederation of British Industry (CBI).Super, great. But there's a confusion there. If this is all a very good thing, growing fast, highly productive, then why do we still have those demands for subsidy? The answer is that the numbers are being tortured. In the actual report itself we're told: The net zero economy spans a number of new and emerging sectors, such as renewables, carbon capture, or green finance, as well as more traditional, established sectors, such as manufacturing. The latest CBI Economics analysis shows that these businesses contributed £74 billion in Gross Value Added (GVA) in 2022-23, which is equivalent to 3.8% of the UK economy – larger than the economy of Wales (£66 billion). They also supported 765,700 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) jobs, equal to nearly 3% of total UK employment. Their contributions include the value generated by their own activity (£25 billion) and their employees (218,500 jobs) as well as the wider economic contributions they supported through their expenditure with suppliers and the expenditure of their employees on goods and services. In essence, due to these wider spillover benefits, for every £1 million in GVA contributed by net zero businesses, nearly £2 million more was added through these wider economic contributions.Ah, no, that's not the way GVA works.GVA is attempting to give us something like GDP calculations but for some portion, region or other subset of that national economy. GVA is therefore worked out the same way as GDP but for that subset. This means that what people spend upon housing, clothing, food, as a result of this subset of the economy is not included in the GVA of the subset - for the housing, clothing, food, would turn up in those other subsets if we were to analyse them. As, when we calculate GDP we do not include those run on effects. For, obviously, if we included the run on effects in GDP of each sector then we'd be double, triple, multiply counting every sector and end up with a GDP that is hundreds of times larger than reality.We're fine with people doing economic analysis of the green economy. In fact we'd welcome it if people did. We're really very sure indeed that the result will be that green economy jobs are less productive than the rest of the economy. For the obvious reason that the green economy is attempting to solve externalities - those things not included in market prices nor our market price based measures of the economy like GDP or GVA. As the value of the output - lower emissions - is not in our measures of output, but the working hours to achieve them are then we run into the productivity measurement equation. Value of output at market prices divided by hours of work put in to gain it. Exactly because we are trying to solve externalities by our green policies then and therefore green jobs will be less productive.As we say, we're absolutely fine with, even look forward to, economic analysis of the green sector. While we wait for that we can reject political fluff jobs like this.

Israel's war on Gaza has significantly internationalized with its expansion into the Red Sea since November. This body of water, which is critical from the standpoint of global trade, is consequently becoming increasingly militarized.
Members of NATO have been divided in their responses to the Red Sea security crisis. Some states in the Transatlantic alliance have favored a more militaristic approach to dealing with Houthi missile and drone attacks against commercial and merchant vessels. But others have warned that such action only risks escalating tensions.Beginning on January 12, the U.S. and UK — with nonoperational support from Australia, Bahrain, Canada, and the Netherlands — began bombing dozens of Houthi targets in various parts of Yemen. Additional rounds of bombing followed, and Washington and London are continuing these strikes against Ansarallah. However, France, Italy, and Spain have notably refused to take part in those U.S.-led military operations while instead opting for a more diplomatic approach to the Red Sea security crisis. Turkey says 'no' to bombing the Houthis The NATO member most staunchly opposed to such Western military intervention against Ansarallah is Turkey. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan went as far as accusing Washington and London of "trying to turn the Red Sea into a sea of blood." Erdogan's remark should be at least partly understood within the context of Turkish domestic politics at a time in which much of the general public is angry about Israel's industrial slaughter in Gaza. Particularly in the Turkish social media sphere there is a "rising tendency to glorify the Houthi war against Israel," said Betul Dogan-Akkas, an assistant professor of international relations at Ankara University, in an interview with RS. She explained that there is a general lack of knowledge among the general Turkish public about the Houthis but also a shared belief that state and non-state actors should support Gaza, which many Turks perceive the Houthis to be doing.Dogan-Akkas added that Erdogan has been keen to criticize some of Turkey's traditional Western allies for not taking any action against Israel in response to its behavior in Gaza since October while using, what Ankara sees as, disproportionate force against the Houthis in response to their maritime attacks.Although Erdogan's statements are frequently intended for domestic consumption, Turkey's president and high-ranking officials in Ankara seem gravely concerned about U.S.-UK military action in the Red Sea worsening regional tensions that could risk bringing NATO into a much larger conflict."It is not [in] Ankara's interests for the crisis to escalate, and Turkey would not benefit from a collective effort to attack Houthi targets given Erdoğan's desire to remain equidistant from the sides of the conflict," Batu Coşkun, a political analyst who specializes in Turkish affairs at the Sadeq Institute, told RS. "These concerns are likely being brought up by Turkish officials in NATO meetings as well.""Turkey is not directly party to the growing hostilities in the Red Sea and has in essence adopted a position of active neutrality. The government was even quick to downplay an incident where Houthi linked pirates boarded and detained a Turkey bound vessel," he added.Turkey, as a maritime power with vested interests in Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, has high stakes in the outcome of the Red Sea security crisis and militarization. Turkey's economy has been paying a price for increased freight costs with large container ships rerouting to avoid the Red Sea altogether because the Houthi maritime attacks.
Trade between Turkey and Far East countries such as China, which is Turkey's number one supplier of goods, must now go around South Africa and through the Strait of Gibraltar instead of through the Bab al-Mandab. Also, India, Malaysia, and South Korea make the list of Turkey's top 20 import partners.Enter SomaliaLast month, Turkey and Somalia signed the Framework Agreement for Defence and Economic Cooperation, which is a 10-year pact that purportedly involves Ankara in developing, training, and equipping the Somali naval forces while establishing Turkey as the protector of Somalia's coastline and ultimate maritime security guarantor. Building on that agreement, Turkey and Somalia signed an inter-governmental energy cooperation deal on March 7, which will further boost bilateral relations and increase Turkey's role in the Horn of Africa.Ankara and Mogadishu's defense and economic cooperation will reach new heights with Ankara having "expansive and unlimited" control in Somalia, according to one Mogadishu-based analyst. From a regional standpoint, Turkey is set to step up its activities as an increasingly influential actor in the Gulf of Aden's security landscape, which, as Coşkun explained, means that "Turkish maritime assets will now be present in proximity to the escalating crisis in the Red Sea."As Red Sea security continues to suffer from the Gaza war's expansion, Ankara will probably continue pursuing policies aimed at sparing Turkey from becoming excessively entangled. Ankara's participation in Western-led initiatives aimed at "deterring" Ansarallah from more missile and drone strikes against ships is highly unlikely. Rather than aligning with Washington and London against the Houthis, Turkey will attempt to balance itself between the various actors in Yemen and the Red Sea while also positioning Ankara as a defender of the Palestinians in Gaza."Amid insecurity in the Red Sea, Ankara benefits from being an actor that all parties are seeking to engage with. Turkey remains tethered to the Transatlantic alliance by virtue of a unified security architecture. However, [Turkey] sits at a somewhat unique position where its regional relations remain equally significant," Coşkun told RS.

"The biggest piece of energy legislation in the UK's history has become law today… laying the foundations for an energy system fit for the future." That will surprise anyone involved in the gas and electricity privatisations between 1986 and 1990. The truth of the matter is that the government will now be messing about with our energy supplies more now than they were before, increasing regulation and reversing the tide of privatisation. The six claimed benefits are:The introduction of new business models for Carbon Capture and Hydrogen (CCH), which would create 50,000 jobs in Carbon Capture and 12,000 in Hydrogen.We would become world-leaders in nuclear fusion regulation.Energy network competition would be enabled through the introduction of competition to onshore electricity networks. This is predicted to save consumers up to £1 billion off their energy bills by 2050.The expansion of heat networks through Ofgem, creating better pricing for consumers and businesses.Better regulation of energy smart appliances.The extension of smart metre rollout to 2028, saving consumers £5.6 billion.There is no doubt that fossil fuel electricity will still be needed for a considerable period- in essence because the wind does not always blow nor sun shine. Current policy expectations for Net Zero means CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage) must be upscaled and extended until fossil fuels are mitigated by a sufficient baseload of alternatives. The fossil fuel providers should be expected to take care of this problem with its costs, and supply, in effect, green electricity to the national networks. What is puzzling, and, frankly, nonsense is the idea that the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) has to discover how that should be done and show helpless private companies how to do it. Of course, the fossil fuel generators are happy enough for DESNZ, and therefore the taxpayer, to take charge and pick up the tab.Hydrogen is a more subtle issue. Contrary to popular belief it will not be efficient for heating homes (ever) or blending with natural gas for electricity generation (sometimes) except when it is virtually free because wind farms and / or solar are producing more than consumer / business demand needs. It also has uses for heavy goods vehicles but, because hydrogen's storage space to power ratio is poor, not for aircraft- except the smallest. In short, the DESNZ claims for hydrogen are wildly exaggerated.And so are its claims for fusion. Nuclear fusion, as distinct from fission, was discovered in 1922 and its use for commercial electricity generation has been receding ever since. There is no harm in government investing in scientific research, but the May 2022 Science Select Committee agreed there would be no commercial use by 2050.  It might be commercialised in the next century, so why is it in the Act now?DESNZ is correct in outlining that previous attempts towards energy market privatisation were only skin-deep. As energy analyst Ronan Bolton outlines: "The eventual market model and regulatory framework introduced in 1990 was a compromise. This was dictated by concerns about the risks that competition would pose to the coal and nuclear industries, along with concerns about the share price of the privatised companies if they were exposed to too strong a competitive threat." Yes, consumers had a choice of retailers but Ofgem and the National Grid, which bought the electricity and resold it to retailers at standard (wholesale) price, pretty much continued what the Central Electricity Generating Board had long done. Where DESNZ is wholly incorrect, is in moving the electricity market back to central control and regulation, rather than towards the full competition it claims.  The ways of achieving that include those suggested to the 2023 Energy Select Committee. One of them recommended that genuine competition nationwide (including Scotland) be introduced by distribution system operators (upgraded from today's local "retailers") whilst Ofgem and the National Grid retreated to simply balancing the books. In other words, DESNZ, having correctly identified the problem, recommends precisely the opposite of what is needed. Domestic energy is about 40% of energy consumption and home heating (neighbourhood hot water – popular in Iceland) is 2% of that. 0.8% is not a large enough part of the UK's energy problem to justify 17% of DESNZ targeting, though it clearly has room to grow, notably from local small modular reactors. In the five years to 2022, the number of people in government interested in home heating has doubled which may explain its appearance in the Act.Finally, the Act addresses smart metres. In 2019, it became clear that only half of domestic energy metres were "smart" and the target to make 100% smart should be shifted from 2020 to 2024. By the end of March 2021, things were not going much better: a 1% drop since the previous quarter and 44% overall. Smart metres were turning dumb, installation costs were rising and being passed on to consumers. The 100% target date is now 2028. Thus claimed £5.6 billion saving per annum does not follow reasonable assumptions.The Energy Act does, and does not, apply to Scotland and Northern Ireland which have their own legislation. The extent to which devolution applies is unfathomable. English and Welsh (presumably) consumers and businesses may save up to £16.6 billion but, as DESNZ has provided neither arithmetic nor rationales, their figures have the credibility of jingle bills. Absolutely no attention seems to have been given to dividing issues between what the free market can, and should, do for itself and where it is only the government that can bring some necessary public benefit.Instead, the Energy Secretary, a.k.a. Santa Claus, claimed: "The Act also supports our new approach to make sure that families don't feel a disproportionate financial burden as we transition to net zero, and forms a central part of our efforts to keep people's bills affordable in the long-term." In fact, as can be seen above, it does nothing for those objectives at all. And where are Chris Skidmore's recommendations?