Jean-Claude Juncker, of all people, summed up the current state of politics: “We all know what to do. But we don’t know how to get reelected once we have done it.”
Costing the UK taxpayer billions so far, many of Britain’s national targets linked to combating climate change are too often liable to arbitrary change themselves.
Johnson’s defenestration and the war in Ukraine have fatally undermined the push for decarbonsation. But increasing our domestic energy supply will prove just as difficult.
Footnote: abstentions are to be treated with caution. If a Tory MP doesn’t vote with the Government, one mustn’t presume that he is deliberately failing to support it – since he may be ill, abroad, or otherwise engaged.
The UK must reduce its dependence on gas by promoting nuclear energy and renewables, Tory leadership candidate says.
The Manchester hustings showed 1400 Conservatives behaving in a benevolent and thoughtful way, characteristics almost impossible to dramatise.
The Prime Minister asked for a “grown-up” approach to energy. Here are the policies required to deliver it.
Managing costs, appeasing consumers, and diversifying our energy supply are all crucial to ensuring the target can be met with voters’ consent.
The Government’s ‘Energy Security Strategy’ may well deliver long-term energy security. But it will do almost nothing for squeezed households right now.
Furthemore, the Government’s forthcoming strategy offers little prospect of lower bills any time soon.
It should remain a long-term aim but ensuring that we can generate the energy we need without a reliance on overseas sources should come first.
Putin has pulled the rug out from under the feet of a complacent establishment which has been picking the wrong fights.
Ministers must be prepared to use the Conservatives’ big majority, or there is no point having won it.
We aren’t sitting on an invisible shale gas store that we can turn the taps on for at a moment’s notice.
Unfortunately, UK energy policy over the past two decades has been marked by inconsistency, particularly in relation to taxation.