[logifail]

Neither Binface nor Farage have any answers for the problems the UK appears to be facing; this election feels like something specifically designed to create material for viewers of Have I Got News For You[0] to laugh at.

From The Atlantic: "The [UK's] output per person is now only just above that of Mississippi, America’s poorest state - and that slight lead is only achieved thanks to London. Outside the capital, in places where tourists do not visit, living standards fall well below Mississippi’s"[1]

According to the IEA, the UK has the highest industrial electricity prices of the 25 IEA countries reporting data.[2]

Hinkley Point C is routinely described as the most expensive nuclear power station ever built, four times the average for South Korean plants. Guaranteed pricing originally £92.50/MWh (2012 prices), now equivalent to around £133/MWh (2025 prices), inflation-linked for 35 years...[3]

HS2 is consistently ranked as the most expensive high-speed rail on the planet.[4]

[0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mkw3

[1] How Britain Became as Poor as Mississippi - A case study in self-sabotage https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/07/uk-productivity...

[2] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68da5e91dadf7...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_...

[5] https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/hs2-reset

[benrutter]

I think you make some good points, but as a UK citizen, there probably some extra context 'd want people to know.

Firstly, the Farage/Binface byelection is a result of Farage being investigated for breaking laws designed to stop political corruption. He's called an early local election to "let the people decide". Even if voted in, if he's found accountable for those charges, he'll have to call another election. So all major parties are staying out of this one, but would likely stand in a second. Essentially what I'm saying is, this isn't a normal local election by any means so I wouldn't use it to talk generally about political parties offering to the UK.

I would also urge against using HS2/electricity-prices/Hinkley to make a " therefore the UK is in dire trou me". There all quite different: Hinkely and HS2 are certainly managed and unpopular, but they're individual projects - a lot of the UK issues are caused by much more complex, larger economic problems than government projects being mismanaged.

And then on the energy price, the UK has really expensive energy. One reason for that is because there's a huge amount of invesent in renewables right now, and the investment is paid for by the consumer. I'm not arguing this is necessarily good, but it's a political choice to prioritise more expensive electricity today, with the goal of cheaper / more secure energy tomorrow. It's a lot more complex than just "the UK is cooked because it has expensive energy".

Sorry for the minor essay! I think the UK's economic situation is serious, but also very interesting (it's possibly the most extreme global example of financialisation backfiring), complex and worth understanding!

[phi0]

> Outside the capital, in places where tourists do not visit, living standards fall well below Mississippi’s

The article appears to treat nominal GDP per capita as a measure of living standards, which is obviously nonsense. Rather than looking at things like the Human Development Index or World Happiness Report, in both of which the UK outranks the US (incl. all the non-Mississippi states).

Residents consistently reporting higher life satisfaction and happiness likely speaks more to their living standards than non-purchasing power parity adjusted GDP per capita.

It is baffling how a sentence this uninformed made it into the article.

[lmm]

I don't know what specifically is wrong with the US-centric numbers you are citing, but I know they don't match the lived reality of the UK, which compares favourably with not only Mississippi but with the US as a whole.

[ealexhudson]

In what ways do you expect a candidate for MP for Clacton to address the various calamities you mention?

[askvictor]

Same way that any candidate would I guess. It's how the Westminster system works; members advocate for their constituency within a broader parliamentary system.

[interstice]

While I haven't been to Mississippi I have spent the last 6 months driving around the UK on a working holiday, and this sounds like a massive stretch. Free healthcare might be helping.

[testfrequency]

Actual rage bait.

I don’t even have the energy to get into how cherry-picked this entire post is. Bad and inaccurate comparisons, false tourism claims, lame tropes, ignoring extreme and amazing progress while pointing at why some numbers may appear how they appear.

[Nursie]

This election was designed to distract from investigations into Nigel Farage’s funding. The reason Binface is getting a lot of attention is because none of the major parties are standing, as a ‘fuck you’ to Farage, to make his distraction look all the more ludicrous.

So no, neither of them has a plan, but that doesn’t really matter because neither of them will be running the country after the election either. It’s a bielection for a single seat. Running the country will be down to the new Labour PM and his team. As such the rest of your post is fairly irrelevant.

[pjc50]

Why is the life expectancy for Mississippi significantly lower than the UK? https://www.mylifeelsewhere.com/compare/mississippi-usa/unit...

[Barbing]

>Outside the [UK’s] capital, in places where tourists do not visit, living standards fall well below Mississippi’s

That is so sad and even somewhat shocking.

[kcartlidge]

> That is so sad and even somewhat shocking.

It would be if it were a meaningful comparison, but it isn't. The comparison shouldn't be about the GDP per capita etc, but the life that gets you in the country you live - and there it fails.

[gadders]

I think Farage and Reform/Restore have a solution to this:

From The Atlantic: "The [UK's] output per person is now only just above that of Mississippi, America’s poorest state - and that slight lead is only achieved thanks to London. Outside the capital, in places where tourists do not visit, living standards fall well below Mississippi’s"

This is what happens when you import low-skilled migrants (and their extended families) who are a net drain on the economy.

I think they're also against Net Zero, which is causing all the high energy costs.

[Nursie]

Net Zero is not the cause of high energy costs in the UK. The cause is international al energy costs, a way of setting the benchmark price per unit against the most expensive power, and tax.

Clean, renewable power is a way out of the mess.

[logifail]

"What costs make up an electricity bill?" from the House of Commons Library is worth a read[0], it reveals the typical breakdown of a household electricity bill in the UK:

Wholesale electricity costs make up 28.7% of the bill

Carbon taxes make up 6.4%

[0] https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-...

[gadders]

"While gas accounts for 93% of wholesale electricity prices, those wholesale prices are only around 40% of bills. Ofgem’s breakdown of bills includes the costs of the Capacity Market (“CM”) and Contracts for Difference (“CfD”) within wholesale costs and not policy costs. Policy costs include the Renewables Obligation (“RO”), Feed in Tariffs (“FiT”), Energy Company Obligation (“ECO”), Warm Homes Discount (“WHD”), Green Gas Levy (“GGL”), Network Charging Compensation Scheme (“NCCS”) and Assistance for Areas with High Electricity Distribution Costs (“AAHEDC”). Moving CM and CfD costs from wholesale to policy costs would reduce the share of wholesale costs in the final bill to 42% and increase policy costs to 14%."

"Prior to 2006, the margin between retail and wholesale electricity prices was broadly stable at 3.88 – 4.79 p/kWh with an average of 4.23 p/kWh (2006 money). Had this margin been maintained in the subsequent years ie the costs of the energy transition not been added to bills, households would have saved £130 billion in 2006 money (£218 billion in today’s money). In contrast, some estimates suggest that the UK spent an additional £75 billion as a result of the 2021-23 gas crisis.

So despite what people say about high gas prices being responsible for high electricity prices, this was only true for late 2021-23 – for most of the past 25 years, something other than gas prices has been driving electricity prices higher."

https://watt-logic.com/2025/05/19/new-report-the-true-afford...

[testfrequency]

You’re not allowed to celebrate how prepared for the future the UK is over nearly every other country in the world. You must get angry about current high energy costs due to the investments and war that are happening, just ignore anything positive.

[ben_w]

In fairness, it is very difficult to look at the last 16 years of British governments and hold the belief "these people have well prepared the UK for the future".

[testfrequency]

I agree there’s no shortage of misses and embarrassments, though I would argue there’s still a lot to be proud of. A lot of progress has been made - especially when you zoom out and compare to peers. The HN crowd these days seems to have it out for Europe, and only sees headlines about doom and gloom in policy.

If anything, the past 16 years has taught me personally that everyone in the UK wants change - too much change possibly.

The UK was the first G7/G20 to cut carbon emissions by 50%, we just ranked [0] 3rd globally large in part to setting up for the future with green energy.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jul/08/climate-...

[SideburnsOfDoom]

Ed Miliband has been doing really well as Energy Secretary, "overseeing a boom in clean energy investment, driving jobs and growth" (1)

But he hasn't been there for very many of the last 16 years.

1) https://observer.co.uk/news/politics/article/miliband-bids-t...

[pjc50]

Oddly, the Conservative government was overseeing the renewables boom, although they did kneecap onshore wind unnecessarily.

[SideburnsOfDoom]

Sadly the current Conservative leadership have fallen quite far, prioritising cheap culture-war nonsense instead

https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/kemi-badenoch-says-tory-hopefu...

[ben_w]

Mm. Double-checking their actual record, much moreso than I remember.

[gadders]

How do international high energy costs single out the UK and make our energy costs the highest?

>>Clean, renewable power is a way out of the mess.

Yes, can't wait until it exists.

[Nursie]

> How do international high energy costs single out the UK and make our energy costs the highest?

Because of the marginal energy pricing scheme in use, which pays for all generation as if it were the most expensive. That and taxes etc. The UK energy market needs reform, blaming the Net Zero effort is ... well it's just wrong.

[gadders]

And paying people to not generate electricity

But essentially there no countries with high renewables and low energy cost: https://nypost.com/2025/05/07/opinion/cheap-solar-and-wind-i...

[Nursie]

An opinion piece in an American right-wing tabloid? That's surely the end of the argument then!

[pjc50]

There are some highly specific issues, which need fixing, but doing so requires having all the deliberately uninformed idiots removed from the debate and silenced.

Top of the list is probably the problem that most of the renewables are generated in Scotland while demand growth is in England, especially around London. Getting electricity across the country requires power lines. However, NIMBYs are holding the entire country hostage: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2n76244x5o

In order to avoid opposition, there is a new plan: https://www.easterngreenlink1.co.uk/ + https://www.easterngreenlink2.co.uk/ , which will be almost entirely undersea. Almost. NIMBY opposition is focusing on the shore landing points. I believe "grade 2 listed concrete anti-tank cubes" were mentioned at one point, although I can't find that reference.

Once those are built, there should be no more instances where we have to burn gas in the south while curtailing wind in the north. More distributed battery storage is being deployed (again, in the face of NIMBYs).

Anyone who is going to tout nuclear as the solution: you are going to have to deal with even more NIMBYs. Coal? Obviously a non-starter. Gas: there is some argument that you might be able to get more out of North Sea drilling. However, please provide a timescale for that. It's not instant either.

[ectoloph]

Net Zero isn't what sets the price of UK electricity generation.

Marginal pricing means that gas sets the price.

At time of writing, gas is only generating 6.9% of the UK's electricity. https://grid.iamkate.com/