Challenging Reform nonsense in the Sheffield Star

I’ve had two letters in the Sheffield Star recently. The first was in reply to K Martin, whose long pro-Reform letter is at the foot of this post.

Dear Editor

Sadly, K Martin has accepted the propaganda being pushed by Nigel Farage and his billionaire friends in the oil industry about the climate crisis.  (Sheffield Star 22.05.26). I hope everyone will consider what the truth is, because the urgency of the climate crisis requires us all to act together. 

I only have space to address the misinformation on climate change.

K Martin writes about “biased reporting” and “scientists with alternative facts that never get heard”. They never get heard because there aren’t any! The scientific community agrees that we are experiencing man-made climate change. If anything, broadcasters are biased in failing to inform us of how dangerous climate and nature collapse is.

K Martin says climate change is “more to do with a natural phenomenon”.  Earth’s climate has changed throughout history. In the last 800,000 years, there have been eight cycles of ice ages and warmer periods, with the end of the last ice age about 11,700 years ago marking the beginning of the modern climate era — and of human civilisation. Most of these climate changes are attributed to very small variations in Earth’s orbit that change the amount of solar energy our planet receives.

The current warming trend is different because it is the result of human activities since the Industrial Revolution. These have produced the atmospheric gases that have trapped more of the Sun’s energy in the Earth’s system. This extra energy has warmed the atmosphere, ocean, and land, and widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere, and biosphere have occurred. When I was born, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere was 316ppm. This was higher than it had been for at least 800,000 years. Yet now the level is 432ppm and still increasing.  

The first duty of any Government or political party is to keep the public safe.

The Climate Change Committee could not be clearer. On our current path, by 2050, nine in ten homes could be at risk of overheating, and 40°C heatwaves may become common across the UK. Reform UK  ignore this threat to us all and plans to accelerate its impact by drilling even more climate-changing fossil fuels from the North Sea, even though it is far cheaper to produce energy from renewables.  

Graham Wroe

Someone called Lee replied to this.

I replied

Dear Editor 

Lee tells us (Sheffield Star 29.5.2026) “There are more questions than answers”, but actually “The answer, my friend, is Blowing in the Wind!”

Lee wants to know why our bills keep going up if renewables are cheaper. In the UK, the most expensive power source sets the price for all electricity. Most of the time, that expensive source is gas. This means even when the vast majority of our electricity comes from cheap renewable energy, even a tiny top-up of gas can make the whole bill expensive. As we move away from fossil fuels and expand renewables, this old system has kept our prices unfairly high. But thanks to Greenpeace, this is changing. 

Martin Lewis, founder of Money Saving Expert, wrote: “The wholesale gas rate is a prime driver of UK electricity prices. When there is conflict on the global stage, our bills spike because we are still so heavily dependent on international gas markets we don’t control.” Putin’s war on Ukraine and Trump’s war on Iran have caused massive spikes in all our energy prices.

Greenpeace led a campaign called the Great Gas Rip Off, which demanded that the Government break the link between gas prices and renewables, and the Government has responded. 

Many new renewable projects sit outside of the complicated pricing system – years ago, the government started giving new renewable projects ‘set prices’ for their energy so they wouldn’t be affected by fluctuating fossil fuel prices. Now, they are moving older, renewable and nuclear plants into this same system. This means that more electricity than ever is capped at set prices, meaning less of the electricity we need to meet demand will be affected by high and volatile gas prices.

Unfortunately, renewables will never be free. All renewable projects need maintenance and investment and employ people. We need to pay for the grid to distribute it. But the price of renewables is far less than that of fossil fuels. 

The Government should go much further by nationalising the energy companies and stopping them from making obscene profits while ordinary people can’t afford to heat their homes. But at least change is moving in the right direction.

Graham Wroe

I was grateful to Dr Andrew Blewill, who also replied to some of the other points in the original letter.

Here is the original letter from K Martin, which appeared with Julian Brigg’s excellent letter about Solar Grazing.

Some of the points I didn’t have room for in my letter

Immigration is not out of control and is falling. We need people to work in our hospitals and care homes as our population ages.

Overseas Aid has been drasticlly cut by the Labour Party. In February 2025, the UK Government announced that UK aid spending will be “gradually reduced” from 0.5% of gross national income (GNI) to 0.3% of GNI in 2027. The reduction is intended to fund an increase in defence and security spending, which will reach 2.6% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2027.

These cuts will come back to bite us. Preventing disease at source is one of the smartest investments we can make to protect patients in Britain. The current Ebola epidemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo could spread much further if it is not tackled at source.

Dr Arshad Rizvi wrote in the Guardian, “Investment in global vaccination, disease surveillance and research helps stop outbreaks of infectious diseases before they spread internationally and place pressure on health systems. Making that case clearly – that protecting health abroad helps protect patients at home – is essential if the UK is to make sensible decisions about development spending.”

Then the welfare system. Most people on benefits would love to work, but many are not able to due to health or disability or lack of opportunities. Cutting benefits would tip many over the edge, leading to more demand for health services, more extreme poverty, more crime and an even more unequal society. It would cost society more than the savings. The problem is not those on benefits, it is the millionaires and billionaires who don’t pay their taxes and keep their money in tax havens. But these are Reform’s friends, which is why Reform gets most of its funding from them.

Finally, K Martin thinks I’m brainwashed for wanting to rejoin the EU. Of course, it’s not perfect, but its parliament is far more democratic than ours, elected by PR. Most of the problems we face, from the collapse of climate and nature, the threat of war and international terrorism, falling food supplies, the rise of AI and unaccountable tech companies, blockades to international trade such as the Straight of Hormuz, all need international cooperation and partnership. We are far better off working with the EU than trying to tackle all these things by ourselves.

It’s concerning that so many people are falling for the misinformation from Reform. Its understandable that many people are completely fed up with the traditional parties, but Reform offer absolutely no solutions and if ever given the chance, they will make things far worse for ordinary people in this country.