Developing our remaining reserves creates employment opportunities and generates much-needed tax revenues as we transition to alternatives.
The danger is that the conflict slowburns into a wider one, with hostilities between Israel and Iran’s proxies accelerating, and knock-on consequences for inflation and Putin’s war in Ukraine.
It can’t create the conditions for stability in Gaza and work towards a two-state solution with the present Prime Minister in place.
At least 13 members of his front bench are in open revolt. As I write, that’s sustainable. As matters develop, it may not be.
Meanwhile the bigger picture looks troubled, with the World Cup mired in controversy and the very future of the Commonwealth Games in doubt.
The sum total of all this is that Hunt’s wiggle room for tax cuts this Autumn is shrinking even further.
Netanyahu may have said: how would you feel, were you lectured by countries without an independent judiciary, let alone the free press, minority rights and fair elections that we have in Israel?
And the UK must counter Tehran’s attempts to harm the Abraham Accords by using our extensive and historic ties in the region to expand its list of signatories.
Biden’s policy would have the perverse effect of strengthening the regime just when it is under most pressure, leaving it free to fund Hezbollah, supply drones to Russia and otherwise destabilise the region.
A better future is always possible. But it cannot not involve an impoverished Britain pleading for a cut of hydrocarbons from a regime which cares nothing for its own citizens, never mind ours.
The current protests are economic in nature, but build on discontent and cynicism with a monarchy that stifles debate while failing to deliver improving living standards.
Iranians have risen in rebellion against the petro-dictators of the Islamic Republic.
It at least gives hope that, after the chaos and corruption of the last decade, some limited change and political accountability might at last be possible.
Any sincere reading of the British economy since 2010 need acknowledge one basic thing: that the essential problem with the modern economy isn’t income inequality, but a lack of income.