There is a potential disaster heading our way over the next 10 years.

There has been a lot of talk recently about an energy 'gap' around 2016. What that means to the ordinary person is that there will be shortages of electricity at peak periods.

Why? Because the investment is not in place for our increasing demand for electricity to be met.

A contract was very recently agreed for four new, latest generation nuclear power stations. All very good but at least three years too late! The first station is due to be operating in 2018. That is if everything goes well and the planning permissions don't spend years in the courts being granted!

Another aggravating factor is that a number of UK coal and oil power stations are due to be decommissioned by the end of 2015.

New fossil fuel power stations (mostly coal) are needed but global warming and climate change concerns means that they should only be operating with carbon capture technology - which isn't available yet!

Note that a number of fossil fuel power stations are needed by 2015 just to stand still, ie to replace old stations going out of service .

Renewable energy sources are promising. Wind farms are producing electricity now, and more are due to be built. But wind farms only operate when there is wind! The fossil fuel and nuclear stations can be turned down when energy from renewable sources is available, but the fossil fuel and nuclear stations will have to be able to meet the peak demand for electricity on their own!

Businesses and private homes can do a lot by using electricity efficiently and avoiding heat loss through insulation etc but the real problem is in generating electricity efficiently.

The government has the job to ensure that the lights do not go out. At this moment of time it would seem that they are failing in their responsibilities!

I have a fairly low opinion of the competency of New Labour and their leaders.

But the way that our leadership run the country affects so many people, in same cases the consequences are awful.

One of Gordon Brown's personal statements on what he was going to do to help families who were having problems paying their mortgage was to introduce the Mortgage Rescue Scheme. This was a key announcement by Brown and it was intended to show how he was able to respond to the needs of people who were likely to lose their homes because of the recession.

It took time for the scheme to come into effect, during which many people would have had their homes repossessed!

But we now find that the number of people that the scheme has helped in England is 15.  It is good that 15 families have been helped but what about all the other families who have had their homes repossessed? 

15 families helped! In Scotland it is around 1000 families, in Wales it is 70 families.

There were 11,400 repossessions between April and June. Yet this grandly announced scheme of Gordon Brown  has only helped 15 families!

Is this just incompetence by our government? Or are they only interested in saving the banking system?

Perhaps the officials involved in awarding certificates showing that school kids are able to catch a bus, should have been  spending their time on the Mortgage Rescue Scheme!

Remember this quote from our prime minister Gordon Brown?

The UK is one of the best prepared countries to deal with swine flu and “all action necessary” will be taken to stop its spread (april 2009).

So did Brown take 'all action necessary' to stop the spread of swineflu? Clearly not since we have the virus running freely throughout the UK!

Was it possible to stop the spread of swineflu? I don't know, I am not an expert! But Brown made these claims to make himself look good, to look like a PM in control of events, a PM who can make a difference, unlike the lightweights (as he calls them) in opposition.

In reality we are now the third worst country in the world with swine flu and the government itself has now said that there will soon be a rate of 100,000 cases of people a week catching swineflu. Quite different from 'all action necessary will be taken'. So who is the lightweight now?

There will be a vaccine available soon, it is due to be released by the end of the summer, just in time for the round of flu injections that the elderly and susceptible people (of which I am one - susceptible that is!) receive every year. Will it help? Probably.

But Brown has put himself in a position where he is dependant on other people to rescue the situation, in this case those people are in Germany I believe (which is where the vaccination against the virus is being prepared).

Brown does seem to be politically very naive. He makes statement that often sound OK but they are often soundbites only, they are clearly not thought through. And then he gets caught up with trying to salvage the situation which tends to make him and the government look incompetent.

Lets hope that these people ouside the UK who are preparing the vaccine can get it to us in sufficient quantities before the flu season arrives.

(vaccine won't affect me, whole family had swineflu last week, not over it yet!)