Authored by Mary Gilleece via The Daily Sceptic,
Bunking off school used to be called truancy, but now 'Emotional Based School Avoidance', or EBSA, has joined the ever-growing list of supposed mental health conditions afflicting the nation's youth...
What used to be known as 'truancy' has had a smart rebrand to EBSA. Pronounced ebbsah, EBSA stands for Emotional Based School Avoidance. It is the latest woolly mental health acronym to proliferate amongst education-dodgers and those seeking to profit from them.
As nearly nine million children return to school in September there are over 200,000 children who remain at home, generally in their bedrooms scrolling on their phone or gaming. In 2025, 2.12% of pupils were severely absent, missing 50% or more of school. It's a troubling figure that continues to climb.
What was introduced as a term by West Sussex Educational Psychology Service (WSEPS) in 2018, has mushroomed across the education and mental health sectors. WSEPS defined Emotionally Based School Avoidance (EBSA) as: "A broad umbrella term used to describe a group of children and young people who have severe difficulty in attending school due to emotional factors, often resulting in prolonged absences from school."
Professionals, GPs, parents and social workers now authoritatively state that so-and-so 'has EBSA' even though it is not an officially diagnosable medical condition. Though it does not appear in any medically approved diagnostic manual, EBSA has somehow gained the imprimatur of respectability.
Parents of school-avoidant children have enthusiastically embraced this new 'condition'. Google searches for Emotional Based School Avoidance have increased by a breakout 5,000% in the past five years. The BBC has a parenting tips page dealing with the issue.
The theory around the pseudo-diagnosis of EBSA is that a child is anxious and upset about going to school; attending school is detrimental to his or her mental health; therefore he or she does not attend.
The local authority, however, is still legally obliged to provide education for that child. A wrap-around service of Alternative Provision, Non-School Education Providers or home tutors is arranged. The majority of Alternative Provision providers servicing the needs of so-called EBSA are privately owned, and their employment by county councils has escalated sharply, costing councils billions of pounds.
I work for one such operation. However, the figures for such children attending even these gentle alternatives are even worse than school attendance. Official figures report that overall absence rose in Alternative Provision to 41.35%, up from 40.94% in autumn 2024-25, with both persistent and severe absence continuing to climb.
This tallies with my experience. Every morning I will look at my timetable and see I am set to visit three children that day, but invariably I will receive such messages from parents as: "No session today, she's feeling overwhelmed." "He's still sleeping so won't be awake for session." "Not feeling it today."
The tragedy about the whole non-medical confection around EBSA is that there are indeed a great number of children who are anxious and do not enjoy going to school. They generally have a collection of conditions around them: ADHD (attention deficit and hyperactive disorder), PDA (pathological demand avoidance), ASD (autism spectrum disorder), anxiety and of course EBSA. The children that I work with live very narrow, limited lives within the terrifying space of the internet and their own minds. Their suffering is real even if the description of it is not.
The EBSA enthusiasts have it the wrong way round. The way to improve mental health is to attend rather than avoid school.
A widely ignored study conducted by Loughborough University and the Office for National Statistics revealed that absence from school causes deteriorating mental health. Based on a sample of 1.1 million children, the study reports:
The probability of presenting at hospital with mental health issues more than doubles (increases from 1.82% to 3.77%) when absences increase from 0% to 20%, and nearly triples (increases to 5.27%) at 30% absence.
Rather than saddling children with yet more spurious medical terms, it would be refreshing if educators, GPs, teachers, social workers and parents addressed the real issues that are enabling over 200,000 children to avoid school. Significantly: lack of sleep caused by phones and gaming kit in bedrooms, and insufficient exercise and nourishing food. Most importantly: lack of meaningful connections with real-life human beings. In other words: friends. These can be found at school.
Tyler Durden Fri, 09/18/2026 - 07:20Update(1755ET): While the White House has signaled it wishes to see 'quiet' in the Strait of Hormuz and de-escalation when it comes to Iran, it doesn't seem heavily sanctioned-Tehran is yet willing to see it that way. Another foreign vessel has reportedly been hit, via Sepha News:
IRGC says Togolese-flagged tanker 'Trend' was hit and stopped after a fire, while it stated the tanker violated Hormuz rules and that the US instigated the transit.
Below is a machine translation of the IRGC statement that was released on Telegram:
Last night, the offending tanker Trend, flying the flag of Togo, attempted an illegal passage through the Strait of Hormuz under the instigation and deception of the child-killing U.S. military; it was struck and came to a halt after a fire broke out on board.
The IRGC Navy warns once again that illegal passage through the Strait of Hormuz will result in nothing other than the destruction of the offending vessel.
President Trump has still insisted the US can negotiate with the Iranians at any time, and that they are "begging" for it.
BREAKING: Just moments ago, Iran struck a tanker in the Strait of Hormuz attempting to cross via the Omani Route.
From Iran’s perspective, it is absolutely CRITICAL that they prove their ability to keep striking vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz given the shutdown of the… pic.twitter.com/oZpxq3ZmIU
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Update(1325ET): Some key lines of President Trump given to Axios on Thursday...
He told the outlet he is at a "critical juncture" regarding the war in Iran, weighing whether to launch massive new attacks or pursue a different path to end the conflict.
He has previously indicated his belief that war will continue through the November midterm elections. Trump has newly said:
"I have a big decision coming up. Do I want to go in and annihilate them [the Iranian regime] or do I not? It's a big decision. Anything could happen with me."
The war is increasingly unpopular among Americans, and Trump's rhetoric has appeared a bit more honest on this of late. What's the end game? After six months of conflict, Epic Fury has looked like a bombing campaign in search of a strategy. According to more of Trump's talk with Axios:
The situation of global energy transit has over the past week become much more complicated with the Houthis advance across Yemen's Red Sea coastline, and drone damage to Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline. The US looks to be staying on the sidelines of Yemen fighting, for the time being. New via Al Jazeera:
A senior US official told Al Jazeera: We are focused on ensuring navigation in the Red Sea and allowing our partners to manage security challenges.
And yet "partners" like the Saudis and its government in Sanaa are clearly not doing so well.
BREAKING: Yemen's Houthis have dug roughly 20 km of trenches in the mountains above the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, visible on Sentinel-2 imagery, with positions overlooking the strait's narrowest point near Dhubab and Perim.
The Houthi fighter filmed on the Murad coast last week said… pic.twitter.com/0kgmg3FiPE
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Oil prices are falling on Thursday on some headlines signaling potential de-escalation moves out of the Saudi-Yemen conflict, both via Reuters:
US crude futures have extended their drop to fall back below $100/bbl. This also comes amid continued reports of better-than-expected recovery in Gulf infrastructure, as Saudi Arabia is claiming it is able to restore half the capacity of its East-West pipeline within merely days. The optimism could prove just wishful thinking, however - and the coming week will tell.
Starting last week, when the Houthis made their lightning-fast advance along the Red Sea coast, fragmenting the positions of the Saudi-backed coalition government, Riyadh turned to Beijing for help, the Thursday Reuters report indicates.
"Chinese officials did not issue any explicit threats or indicate that Beijing would seek to pressure Tehran economically if it failed to use its influence over the Houthis, the three Iranian sources said," the report adds.
The Chinese foreign ministry has responded to knowledge of the diplomatic maneuvering getting out that "China does not wish to see regional tensions further spill over into Yemen and the Red Sea. Escalating regional instability is not in the interests of any party".
"The sovereignty and security of all countries should be respected, and facilities vital to people's livelihoods must not be targeted. China calls for an end to actions that further complicate the situation and urges resolving issues through dialogue and negotiation," it said.
A senior Western diplomat in the region was separately quoted as saying "Beijing is one of the few capitals that can still press Iran to rein in the Houthis."
Given that the Iran-aligned Shia group has often shown a willingness to cooperate and coordinate action to Tehran's benefit, Ansar Allah leadership may listen if it gets a signal to de-escalate from Iran.
🇾🇪🇺🇸 Ansar Allah fighters put American anti-tank missiles on display after seizing them in recent fighting. pic.twitter.com/DKs3QpjeUq
— The Saviour (@TheSaviour) September 16, 2026According to to some Thursday and latest developments via Al Jazeera:
On the Yemen front, Al Jazeera writes, "The fighting is continuing and government forces are claiming that the Ansarullah Houthis have suffered a lot of casualties in the clashes that are occurring on a number of fronts, mainly in western Taiz and also in Kahbub, which is a mountainous area with strategic importance as it overlooks Bab al-Mandeb."
Throughout the conflict, both the Iranians and the Houthis have at various times said they are willing to grant China and other "friendly" countries like Russia "special considerations" when it comes to water transit and paying "fees" - the latter case related to the Strait of Hormuz.
Tyler Durden Fri, 09/18/2026 - 06:45How taxes, regulation, refinery closures, sanctions and declining domestic production turned a geopolitical shock into a diesel-price crisis
Do not blame diesel prices on the Iran war or the disruption of the Strait of Hormuz. The geopolitical risk premium attached to oil prices is relevant, but the market was already weakened by policy choices.
Europe has taxed motor fuels heavily, imposed escalating regulatory and carbon costs across the supply chain, closed refining capacity, sanctioned major sources of refined-product supply, and discouraged investment in domestic oil and gas production. Today's refined product system is smaller, less flexible and more import-dependent, and, as such, every geopolitical disruption produces a larger price shock.
Diesel prices rise faster than crude because diesel suffers its own supply constraints, and these are politically imposed, not due to a war.
In the United States, retail diesel reached an all-time high of $5.85 per gallon on 4 September 2026. At the same time, the U.S. Gulf Coast diesel crack spread, the benchmark measure of diesel relative to crude, surged to multi-year highs. Therefore, the problem was more the availability of middle distillates rather than crude alone. U.S. refineries were operating at about 98% utilisation, leaving little spare capacity to offset another outage.
Globally, the impact is significant. Current supply losses include refinery disruption in the Middle East linked to the Iran war and reduced Russian diesel availability following Ukrainian attacks on refining infrastructure and export restrictions. All these elements add to the geopolitical risk premium, but they are magnified by the absence of spare refining capacity and the limits to regional supply.
Middle Eastern refinery disruptions have risen to almost 3.0 million barrels per day. Saudi Arabia's Jizan refinery, with a capacity of 400,000 barrels per day, was one of the facilities where exports slumped. Additionally, Russian exports have plummeted. Russia was one of the world's largest diesel exporters, but its seaborne diesel exports in June 2026 fell to 426,000 barrels per day from 827,000 barrels per day a year earlier. Refinery damage, domestic-supply priorities and export restrictions all affected the stability of an already fragile market.
However, these disruptions explain the timing of the latest surge, but they do not explain why importing economies entered the shock with so little capacity to absorb it. That is where interventionist policies have created the biggest damage.
European motorists do not pay diesel prices driven by crude, refining and logistics costs. The biggest driver is a tax-and-regulation-heavy final price. Direct taxes alone represented an average of 52.1% of the final price of Euro-super 95 petrol in the European Union, with several countries above 55%. Consumers pay more in fuel taxation than for the crude oil, refining and logistical components combined.
Diesel taxation varies by country, but the same structural tax burden remains. When we add excise duties and VAT, governments have created a large, rigid fiscal floor to fuel prices. When crude rises, the tax-inclusive base increases the final bill. However, when crude falls, large fixed tax components mean that the price paid by households and businesses does not fall proportionately.
The real policy burden is wider than the excise duty displayed at the service station. Costs are accumulated throughout the chain. From royalties and taxes on production; environmental compliance; energy costs and carbon charges at refineries; corporate and local taxes; regulated fees for storage and infrastructure; labour levies; financing costs created by regulatory uncertainty; and compliance costs for distribution and retail, the energy chain is a massive cash machine for governments. Many of these costs are not always shown as "fuel tax," but they are passed through to the final price. Furthermore, the effect is cumulative.
Europe has not merely taxed fuels at the point of sale, it has piled fiscal and quasi-fiscal costs from exploration and importation through refining, storage, transport and retail distribution. That makes the retail price structurally less responsive to lower crude prices and more vulnerable to supply shocks.
The second structural problem is the loss of refining capacity.
The United States did not lose refining flexibility because of one executive order or one EPA rule. It was a cumulative policy tsunami. Obama's air-quality regulations and renewable-fuel mandates added compliance and capital costs, while Biden retained and expanded renewable-fuel obligations, restricted small-refinery relief and reinforced a policy environment in which long-lived petroleum investments faced greater regulatory risk and higher costs. The clearest consequence has appeared in California, where stringent state regulation, expensive compliance and mandated energy-transition policies have coincided with the closure of major refineries. The result is not lower dependence on fuels in the short term, but less domestic capacity to produce them, and greater vulnerability when global diesel supply is disrupted. Fortunately, the United States is not suffering an enormous diesel shortage problem as Europe's, because total U.S. crude-oil refining capacity did not fall between 2008 and 2026, standing at 18.16 million barrels per day.
In Europe, on comparable tax-inclusive retail prices, the EU average is about $8.90 per U.S. gallon, versus $5.97 per gallon in the United States, or 49% higher. Several European markets were close to $10.70-$10.90 per gallon as of September 11th, 2026.
Between 2020 and 2024, European refining capacity fell from about 15.3 million barrels per day to 14.7 million barrels per day, a reduction of nearly 600,000 barrels per day. Europe has lost more than 20% of its refining capacity since 2009. Refineries have been shut, converted to import terminals or biorefineries, reducing conventional crude-processing capacity just when global diesel supply has become more problematic.
A refinery may appear unnecessary during periods of large imports and open trade routes. However, it becomes strategic when imported diesel is disrupted. Closing a refinery does not eliminate domestic demand for diesel. It converts domestic production capacity into an additional need for imported product and foreign refining capacity.
The EU's decision to restrict Russian petroleum products did not eliminate Europe's demand for transport, agricultural and industrial fuel. Now diesel must be delivered from more distant suppliers, with longer routes, high freight costs and more exposure to congestion in the Red Sea or the Strait of Hormuz. Sanctions may have created an indirect boomerang effect, making Europe more dependent. In January 2026, the EU also banned imports of petroleum products refined from Russian crude in third countries, closing the so-called refining loophole. That restricted available supply even more.
Sanctions are justified as a geopolitical tool. But they became very expensive, especially when the EU's policy framework disincentivizes refining investment at home. Restricting a key supplier while shrinking local refining capacity is a dangerous combination, and governments cannot expect consumers and businesses to be shielded from a global refined-products shock. Thus, the EU has created a suicidal combination instead of a security of supply strategy.
Another important aspect is the limits to North Sea production. The North Sea is a mature basin, and its production decline is a reality. UK North Sea oil and gas production fell by 72% between 1999 and 2025. However, natural decline does not make policy irrelevant. High windfall taxation, uncertainty over fiscal terms, restrictions on new licensing and the broader political message that hydrocarbon investment is not desirable reduce incentives to maintain infrastructure, pursue incremental projects, explore and develop viable resources. Such policies may not change next month's global diesel price by themselves, but they have an important impact on supply, investment and infrastructure available.
UK government policy confirmed a ban on new licences for new North Sea oil and gas fields, while allowing some exceptions linked to existing fields and infrastructure. The strategic impact is still clear. A country facing declining production and shrinking refining capacity becomes more dependent on imported oil and refined products at the time when global trade routes are closing.
Domestic crude is not the same as domestic diesel. However, domestic output is essential, as it reduces import needs, supports regional infrastructure and refining optionality, improves the balance of supply during disruption and limits exposure to external suppliers. Thus, abandoning this capacity without a truly scalable substitute is a policy decision with massive security-of-supply consequences.
Europe's policy framework adds more restrictions. Refining is capital-intensive, energy-intensive and emissions-intensive. Carbon taxes, environmental mandates, compliance obligations, high electricity and gas costs, and regulatory risk make investment unviable and closures more likely.
Can it get worse? The next step of the EU framework could add another direct challenge. The ETS2 emissions-trading system is scheduled to apply to fuels used in buildings and road transport from 2027, subject to its implementation rules and safeguards. It is designed to place a carbon price on suppliers of those fuels. This makes a market already burdened by high excise duties, VAT and supply constraints will face another structural cost layer.
The Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism does not directly tax diesel at the forecourt, but it will raise costs for carbon-intensive inputs such as steel, cement, aluminium, fertilisers, hydrogen and imported electricity. Those costs are essential for refinery maintenance, tanks, pipelines, and transport infrastructure. All these political decisions raise the cost of keeping Europe's energy system functioning.
Diesel is not a discretionary consumer good. It is the engine of the real economy. Without affordable diesel, freight transport, farming equipment, construction machinery, industrial logistics, emergency services, parts of mining and maritime activity, and parts of distribution are going to add more inflationary pressures.
The diesel shock does not end at the service station. Higher diesel costs will raise the cost of moving food from farms to warehouses and supermarkets; carrying inputs to factories; delivering medicines and manufactured goods; and operating machinery at construction sites. Businesses already suffering weak margins will pass those costs into final prices. Policy-created diesel inflation creates an economically disastrous second-round effect. This will hit transport, food, goods and services even after the war ends.
A logical energy policy should be focused on affordability, availability, and security of supply. Dismantling the physical capacity that keeps the economy supplied during an energy transition just demolishes the economy and achieves the opposite of what politicians want. The West becomes more dependent and poorer.
Europe cannot tax, regulate and limit the energy system across every stage of the value chain, close the industrial assets needed to process fuels, limit investment in production and then act surprised when diesel becomes scarce and expensive. Developed economies should preserve and modernize strategic refining capacity rather than treating it as a disposable legacy asset, eliminate the cumulative tax, carbon and regulatory burdens that destroy energy competitiveness, and support domestic energy production.
Tyler Durden Fri, 09/18/2026 - 06:30