Hearts track Falkirk's Spencer
Hearts are keeping close tabs on Falkirk midfielder Brad Spencer, with the 29-year-old entering the last year of his contract with the newly-promoted Scottish Premiership club. (Daily Record), externalRead the rest of Tuesday's Scottish gossip.
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BBC News
33 minutes ago
- BBC News
'What's not to get excited about?' - your views on 'real deal' Nygren
We asked you for your views after Benjamin Nygren signed a five-year deal with what some of you said:Gordy: A good signing and hopefully just the start - we need cover all over the pitch. Centre back, right and left-back cover is essential and a goal-scoring centre forward, while holding onto to what we have, unless a massive offer comes in that will help buy other players. We need to show more ambition in the transfer market this season to be successful at home and in Nygren scored a hat-trick against Fenerbahce in Europe, and is obviously a very good What's not to get excited about? Another Scandinavian with a clear determination to advance his career and full of positivity. I've seen him play for Sweden and he has bags of energy and drive. Almost looks like he's a mini Daizen, but let's not burden the boy with too much The signing of Nygren could turn out to be a very shrewd piece of business. He appears to be a player on an upward path and with the guidance of Brendan Rodgers, we can hopefully continue his progression. If we can get two/three good seasons out of him then we could end up with a £30m+ asset. Either way it certainly looks like £1.5m well Nygren looks like the real deal. It's difficult to make one's mind up based on highlight reels, right enough. He is saying the right things in the media, regarding his winning mentality, his experience and what he thinks will be expected of him while wearing the hoops. I just hope he has the longevity to do it season after season, on a cold wet Wednesday night in the north east of Scotland!
The Independent
33 minutes ago
- The Independent
Earth doesn't recognise national boundaries – we must collaborate for Net Zero
Almost sixty years ago, in 1966, I arrived at St John's College, Cambridge, on a scholarship from BP to study physics. This would turn out to be a golden period for the oil and gas industry. Two new frontiers – the North Sea and Alaska – were on the cusp of opening up, and the industry's reputation as a source of innovation, diplomacy and prosperity was strong. How times change – both in obvious and less obvious ways. The North Sea peaked long ago, with Britain sadly ever more reliant on energy imports. A fuller understanding of climate change has laid bare the duality of hydrocarbons, with most energy companies far too late in taking action. The focus in most developed countries is now on how to produce more and more energy from zero-carbon sources. This is all part of what is commonly meant by the 'energy transition', which is essential if we are to save humanity from the uncontrollable and destructive impact of climate change on health, food supplies and migration. But a less obvious energy transition has been taking place, right in front of our eyes. In 1966, the UK consumed more energy than it does today, despite decades during which both the economy and the population have grown. And the UK now no longer consumes any coal to speak of. If someone had told me this as an undergraduate, I would have scarcely believed them. Some of this change is down to deindustrialisation, but much of it can be attributed to steady gains in energy efficiency. The direction of travel is the same in the US, Canada and the EU. This should give cause for great optimism. The energy transition is a serious challenge which will take years to complete, but it is underway, and it is inextricably linked to energy security. The idea that energy security can be based solely on oil and gas is wrong and dangerous. So too is the view that we can achieve an overnight transition simply by setting net zero targets. Countries need a diversity of sources of energy so that when one source is attacked or interrupted, the supply can be made up by another. UK supplies are much more secure when they are domestic and do not rely on long-distance supply chains. Those such as renewable sources and nuclear fission also happen to be carbon-free. To make progress in the energy transition, we need serious and realistic plans, driven forward by a sense of common purpose and supported by the necessary resources. Plans will vary from country to country, but if they are to succeed, they should have four things in common. The first is to start by working out what will be needed in 25 years. It is clear to me that we will need carbon-free flexible electricity from renewables and nuclear power, both fission and perhaps fusion. At present, electricity accounts for about 20 per cent of global total energy demand; by 2050, it could be closer to 50 per cent. We will continue to need liquid fuels to power heavy transportation such as ships, trucks and long-haul flights, but may be able to create them – and other materials – by transforming waste, wood and crops using enzymes created by AI. And we could use the inevitable super-intelligence of AI to become more efficient everywhere. This future of low-carbon and mostly domestic secure energy is very possible if we commit now to the right level of consistent R&D investment in areas of highest potential. But, of course, we cannot afford to wait, so we must deploy the technologies already available and capable of continuous improvement. This is the second pillar of any successful approach. Electricity from wind and solar is already competitive with the lowest-cost hydrocarbon alternative. What is needed is better long-duration storage and the infrastructure to bring supplies to market. The efficiency of energy use can be dramatically improved by deploying more advanced software and strengthening economic incentives. New nuclear power, including the exciting potential of small modular reactors, can be deployed. Greater deployment of EVs reduced oil demand, but because we are still using oil and gas as 70 per cent of the UK's energy and will continue to do so long into the future, we must use them cleanly. Eliminating methane emissions is feasible and commercially viable. Capturing carbon and storing it is possible, but it needs further deployment and improvement before it is economically feasible to do so. Third, it is important to remember that no one country can achieve all these goals on their own. Competition is a good thing, but in a time of tight budgets, it is better to work in collaboration with other willing partners. The Earth's climate does not recognise national boundaries. We cannot wait for everyone to join in or allow ourselves to be forced to work at the pace of the slowest. Those who are able must act. For governments, that means putting in place internationally coordinated regulations and incentives, and directing funds to the necessary research. There is a strong case in the UK for creating a central national direction of the science and engineering required for the necessary breakthroughs, because efforts are currently too fragmented. It is also essential that we get a grip on a malfunctioning electricity market in which prices are too high, for which green energy is wrongly blamed, undermining efforts to secure public support for the energy transition. But it should be obvious that governments cannot do everything. That is why the contribution of the private sector is so important, and is the fourth pillar of any successful approach. Companies can bring the organisational capacity and international reach to take discoveries from the laboratory to the market. They cannot run away from the issue because they are part of society, serving its needs. But their success must also be nurtured, supported and celebrated. History shows that the private sector is the engine of human progress. We forget this at our peril. There is much that can be done, and no reason to despair. A major transformation of the way we live and work will take time. Industrial revolutions are complex processes replacing established embedded systems with something new and better. But in this case, the necessary changes will only come if we have a clear plan and a visible path to a world which is truly Beyond Petroleum.
The Guardian
35 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Rachel Reeves must rethink how tax and spend decisions are made after welfare U-turn
There are many lessons for Labour's bruised leadership from last week's embarrassing U-turn on welfare cuts, but one is surely that how – and when – fiscal policy is set is not working. Binary fiscal rules, a slim margin for error (less than £10bn), and the Office for Budget Responsibility's twice-yearly forecasts, have combined to turn tax and spending decisions into a grim spectator sport. City analysts are constantly second-guessing exactly how Rachel Reeves's hand will be forced next. As the Bank of England governor, Andrew Bailey, put it last week, before the benefits climbdown, 'having the financial markets marking fiscal policy to market on a daily basis is not a good state of affairs'. The chancellor promised to hold only one budget a year, at which tax changes would be announced: a decision aimed at demonstrating stability and strength. However, the Treasury began signalling during the bond market panic in January that she was prepared to use her spring statement to make spending cuts, if higher interest costs set her on course to break her fiscal rules. Some wise heads argued at the time against the idea of hastily drawing up cuts, tailored to close whatever gap the OBR identified in five years' time – the period over which the rules are assessed. As the former Bank deputy governor Charlie Bean put it: 'I think we want to get away from this idea that we continually have to be neurotically changing taxes and spending to try to control this OBR forecast so that it's hitting our target.' In his understated way, Bailey effectively agreed with that this week, arguing: 'There is a danger in overinterpreting a five-year-ahead forecast.' They are right: one result is hasty policy changes driven by cost-cutting targets (although the Treasury lays part of the blame on the Department for Work and Pensions for, it claims, dragging its heels over the reform package). Another consequence is that the debate over economic policy ends up being reduced to a desiccated row over tax and spend. That is especially depressing, given that the contours of an economic strategy are starting to emerge more clearly, a year into Labour's term. The focus last week was meant to be the 'modern industrial strategy' – a hefty document that set out a new approach to nurturing eight strategic sectors, including clean tech, advanced manufacturing and the creative industries. There was much to praise – a senior figure at one business lobby group joked that they would struggle to know what to campaign on next, as so many of their long-running asks had been met. Unions were gratified at the focus on creating jobs and funding additional training – and the promise of workforce strategies for sectors experiencing skills shortages. The government's pragmatic trade strategy, also published last week, was another victim of the overwhelming focus on the welfare row. All this was lost in the Westminster drama of defending the cobbled-together cuts and then negotiating the concessions that already looked inevitable when Reeves insisted on Monday that there would be 'no U-turn'. Her team now have two unenviable tasks ahead of them. First, they will have to start work on a possible package of tax increases to announce in the autumn. As her aides are keen to point out, she could yet strike lucky: growth could bounce back; inflation could ease more rapidly than expected, freeing the Bank of England to crack on with rate cuts; and gilt yields could slide. Treasury officials will be pushing hard over the summer to try to convince the OBR to take into account the growth-friendly nature of some of the government's policies, perhaps nudging forecasts in the right direction. Sign up to Business Today Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning after newsletter promotion However, the majority of independent experts currently believe it is more likely than not that the OBR will downgrade its expectations of productivity – and therefore growth – setting Reeves on course to breach her fiscal rules, even without the £4bn-plus cost of the policy swerves on winter fuel and disability benefits. Reeves could ditch those fiscal rules, of course – but that would be sticking two fingers up at flighty financial markets. Tweaking the rules to allow herself more leeway seems less unthinkable, given how many times previous chancellors rewrote their own rules – but she would have to proceed with caution. While they deny that they are poring over a menu of potential tax rises (although they surely must be), Reeves's allies privately concede that they are thinking about how to avoid another debilitating annual cycle of fevered speculation about fiscal policy. Here they have a number of options, some of which were set out by the International Monetary Fund in its recent report on the UK economy. One is just to build up a bigger buffer against the fiscal forecasts, of course, to reduce the constant sense of jeopardy – but that would probably require an even bigger tax grab. Another would be to commission only one OBR forecast a year instead of two – dodging the spring iteration that prompted the scramble for welfare cuts. This possibility alarms the Treasury, with its echoes of Liz Truss, who saw the OBR as part of the 'anti-growth coalition' and paid the price in the bond markets. A sensible halfway house might be to continue to commission two forecasts but treat the spring one – given there is no budget alongside it – simply as a useful waymarker, for what the chancellor might have to consider in the autumn. Whatever emerges from this rethink, it must allow Reeves to be more flexible in the face of changing economic circumstances because the framework she so carefully constructed to project strength has instead trapped Labour into decisions that ultimately proved untenable.
