Lincolnshire Forward: Surviving Global Crisis Locally
Opinion
How do you survive a convergence of catastrophic changes that affect the whole globe?
Population Collapse
Demographic catastrophe on the doorstep: the world is getting older and we are nowhere near replacement birth rates. In the UK each female produces 1.3 babies, way short of the 2.1 needed to replace the people we lose, worse we had 10 workers for every retiree in 1960, today that’s 2.9 spelling doom for social care programmes, healthcare provision and pensions.
A Lack of Energy
It is not just about Iran: The world was in energy crisis even before Iran, now it is a catastrophe. Climate change is real, debating the causes is just politics, but the UK’s fanaticism with Net Zero at all costs has caused us to become the world’s energy basket case. Miliband is wrong to not use fossil fuels while we prepare for the future. Tice is wrong to dismiss the role of renewable energy, not just because it is a solution but because it brings jobs and income to Lincolnshire.
We Solved Food Production
Famine will be the new norm: America is lucky, it has vast areas of fertile land that due to a lack of agriculture pre-1800’s means they still retain good soil. They are an outlier, the UK’s soil has been harvested for so long it needs help to support edible crop growth, for that you need fertiliser. China, once a major supplier has now put an embargo on exports, many other countries are going to be bidding to get what is left int eh market, prices are already up 20% then Trump invaded Iran and all hell broke loose.
We Will Fight them on the Beaches
The US will protect us, until they won’t: The special relationship is over, Trump has made sure things are unlikely to ever return to the new norm and we are on our own when it comes to protecting our land. Sadly we can’t even protect our borders and our armed forces have been hollowed out to the point of absurdity and Starmer would prefer to lock our troops with his lawyer mates than really invest.
STATS
The colonial extraction of Lincolnshire…
Lincolnshire is currently being treated as a resource colony for a distant and indifferent capital. The numbers don’t lie: while we provide the nation’s fire and calories, we are rewarded with the lowest public spending in the United Kingdom. In 2024/25, the East Midlands received just £12,158 per person—a staggering £3,000 less than London. When it comes to the infrastructure that actually moves a county—roads, rail, and the grid—the abuse is even sharper: we receive just £1,065 per head in capital investment, roughly half of what is poured into London.
But the true ‘heist’ is happening off our coast. Last year, the Crown Estate reported a record £1.1 billion net profit, driven almost entirely by the wind farms and subsea cables landing on our shores. Every penny of that billion is siphoned straight to the Treasury to fund ‘Net Zero’ fantasies and London transport projects, leaving the Lincolnshire coast to deal with the visual blight and the strain on our local services for zero direct return.
We process 70% of the UK’s seafood and grow 30% of its vegetables, yet we are left with a ‘Dental Desert’ and the longest NHS wait times in the country. We are the nation’s life-support machine, yet the government treats us like a nuisance to be managed rather than a powerhouse to be invested in. The message from Westminster is clear: Lincolnshire is for harvesting, not for helping.
