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Community Give me strength Strong and stable leadership, that's what this country needs. What? Where did that thought come from? Disconnector has no idea – it just sort of sponta- neously appeared. Very weird… What the great man was actually pondering this week was utilities and geopolitics, specifically the little reported fact that within months the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania will have disconnected their electricity grids from Russia in favour of the European Union. Some years ago it was mooted that the three former Soviet bloc countries should plug in to Europe by 2025 to guarantee their electricity supplies against the threat of Russia plunging them into darkness. It should be noted the Kremlin never threatened any such action, but maybe they were watching Putin's treatment of Ukraine with more concern than US president Donald Trump evidently feels. Initial talks ground to a halt over whether the link should be through Poland or Finland and everything went quiet – until this week, when Estonian prime minister Jüri Ratas announced that it had been decided that Poland was the practical choice and that it would all be sorted by the end of the year. No official indication was given as to why the project was brought forward by almost a decade. Maybe Ratas was just show- ing strong and stable leader- ship, thinks Disconnector. Flushing out the criminals It is commonly known that a steep increase in electricity usage can be a tell-tale sign of someone setting up a make- shi cannabis farm in their home, but it turns out that the sewer network can also lead the police to your door. This is what happened in the Texas capital of Austin when hundreds of condoms clogged a city sewer pipe – leading police to raid a massage parlour and arrest two people for prostitution and other crimes, it emerged last week. A real estate agent who had just taken over the property notified police of the block- age at Jade Massage Therapy. He told them other tenants believed the business was a front for prostitution, a police arrest affidavit said. A police raid followed, leading to the arrest of Juan Wang and her husband Joseph Emery. Truth and lies It was Joseph Goebbels who first claimed that people will believe any lie as long as it's big enough, and that certainly seems borne out in modern politics. Aer all, Donald Trump's political career thus far has been littered with porkies. But, wonders Disconnector, will it be a small lie that ulti- mately does for him? The great man ponders thus on reading an interview the prez gave with The Economist last week in which he claimed to the reporter to have invented the phrase "priming the pump" as a metaphor for his economic policy. In truth, of course, the phrase has been in use since the 1930s, and in fact most people would be hard pressed to describe what pump priming meant in any other context than economics. For anyone else in high political office, such a gaffe would invite ridicule and derision, but such is Trump's record of gob-smackingly outrageous behaviour that it barely registers. Big lies may have won him the presidency, but it could be the small ones that render him simply too ridiculous to keep it. Y'know what the US needs? Stable leadership – strong or otherwise. 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If we are unable to resolve your complaint, or if you would like more information about IPSO or the Editors' Code, contact IPSO on 0300 123 2220 or visit www.ipso.co.uk Jonathan Gaventa @jonathangaventa Alternative idea: build the wire to Moorside, but then keep going - to link to offshore wind + Irish onshore (cf http://www.islesproject.eu/ ) Ann Robinson @AnnRobinson8 Lots of vested interests trying to put damper on energy cap. It is necessary to provide addl. protection and I believe it can be done soon. Paul Massara @paulmassara Does £1,000 cap mean people with large homes and swimming pools get subsidised by low users. What happens when the energy market moves? Nick Robinson @bbcnickrobinson Tories say energy price cap not same as Labour's as set by regulator not ministers. Raises Q - Is there any guarantee prices won't rise? Ed Miliband @Ed_Miliband .@GClarkUK As far as I can tell, no guarantee that energy prices won't rise next year under Tory policy. Is that right? Asking for a friend. William Marchant @richonlyinname It's not a good idea, but I wouldn't kid yourself that energy renationalisation is unpopular. It even polls surprisingly well among Tories. Chris Vinson @MrChrisVinson Labour's plan to nationalise water companies is utterly ideological and would cut invest- ment and place our environment at risk #brainless Thomas Edwards @TomHenryEdwards Labour to nationalise Grid & DNOs through changing licence obligations, we estimate market value of National Grid is ~£34bn MyGridGB @myGridGB BREAKING- in Britain this year there have been more hours without coal power than in the whole of 2016. A milestone! And coal use down 35%. Top Tweets UTILITY WEEK | 19TH - 25TH MAY 2017 | 31