When Ed Miliband took the podium at the Good Growth Foundation’s National Growth Debate in Westminster last week, he did not disappoint his audience of the faithful. Flanked by the economist he has long revered, Miliband delivered a speech that could serve as a textbook case of what I have elsewhere called the economic illiteracy of UK energy policy. Yet to dismiss it as mere stupidity would be a mistake. There is a method to Miliband’s madness — one honed over years in the cloistered halls of 'woke' Oxford and the Fabian-inspired London School of Economics and now supercharged by the 'mission'-obsessed theories of Professor Mariana Mazzucato of University College.
In that speech — republished by the New Statesman — Miliband declared that “the era of fossil fuel security is over, and the era of clean energy security must come of age”. He credited “the godmother of missions, Mariana Mazzucato, who’s with us," for the intellectual scaffolding of Labour’s clean energy push.
The mission, he said, established in opposition and now in Government, has “two parts — driving to a clean electricity system but also electrifying as much as we can as we decarbonise the wider economy”. Informed by the “lessons” of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the latest crisis over the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Miliband insists Britain must “double down” on Net Zero, tax North Sea oil and gas investments punitively and “electrify everything” while rejecting any new exploration and development of domestic hydrocarbons.
Pernicious political elite
Discussion
Comments
This week across the site:
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to the Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
The UN told us the purpose of the mission: enforced Socialsim.
https://www.climatedepot.com/2017/05/24/global-warming-is-not-about-the-science-un-admits-climate-change-policy-is-about-how-we-redistribute-the-worlds-wealth/
“Global warming’ is not about the science – UN Admits: ‘Climate change policy is about how we redistribute the world’s wealth’
The job she has been tasked with, she does not need to.
Britain must “double down”
Isn’t that a gambling expression?
Don’t compulsive gamblers always go broke?
‘her call for government to move from “fixing market failures” to actively creating markets
through “moonshot” ambitionthat fail.’Now that seems more accurate than her drivel. When I see that somebody has a PPE degree and yet has no understanding of economics, am I the only one to wonder if they skipped all the E lectures and just did the PP? I would love to know what the retarded Ed did for his Masters in economics. And finally, no, economics is no more a science than social sciences are.
Thank you for explaining this outbreak of economic illiteracy in Western governments. As I always say, “net zero” refers to the IQ of it’s proponents
Even if the science wasn’t pure bunkum, the cost of ‘clean’ energy will always be greater than fossil fuels, because every watt of clean’ must be backed up by a watt of instant power, for when the ‘clean’ produces ‘eff all.
Put simply ‘renewable’ energy will always be near double non renewable……and then consider you are doing that based on utter rubbish.
And if all that wasn’t stupid enough, what is the great growth market opening up, right now…AI and what major characteristic does that have , massive energy demand….which our current energy policies guarantee we cannot be a part of, tks to their ridiculous price.
No wonder President Trump thinks we are morons.
But the so called clean energy only provides electricity, and electricity is only one fifth of energy needs. I recall the head of the National Grid (Steve Holiday) a few years ago saying “We are going to have to get used to using electricity as and when it is available”. ——This is the absurd future of energy use in this country, where we will not have enough energy to go around, and it will be rationed via the smart meter and On Demand Pricing.
The core problem with all this “mission” and “moonshot” stuff is we don’t know what we want until we see it. The product and technology comes first – the market then decides which ones we can make use of and which ones not. Most products fail, and the ones that succeed are ones used in a way that was not originally envisaged. Free speech, innovation, free market, failing early and rewarding success are key to progress. These are the very things this government is trying to stamp out.
How can they possibly be “homegrown renewables” if all the components have to be made, mined or felled anywhere but home.
It may be that many solar PV products are made in China, but some are made elsewhere. I’ve got some at home, where the roof mounted panels were made in Malaysia, and assembled in France, but the inverter was made in China.
Slightly related: tomorrow the global propaganda channel (BBC World Service) is broadcasting a story about a proposed nuclear power station in Poland – 09:32 and 20:06 BST.
You could make an argument that the Fabian desire to march towards a Socialist Utopia is not making the progress ‘expected’. There have been a number of tools used to bring on that glorious day (sarcasm) the working man, the march through the institutions, feminism, the breakdown of the family, climate change and Net Zero. None have landed a telling blow although they have caused disruption.
And yet a fundamental feature of ‘markets’ is that some people will suffer and some products/services fail – and this allows room for the markets to seek a more desirable outcome. Markets enable flexibility, state control stifles flexibility.
Left to the state we would still be using phones with a round dialer. I’ll correct that, we wouldn’t have phones.
That socialist utopia might have to come via a social credit system to give us the full enjoyment of it.
I think it is the general public and not the intellectuals who don’t understand how markets work.
Most people see a corrupted, manipulated, highly regulated market (basically most of them) and think they are looking at a free market, just because there are nominally some private sellers and private buyers.
Communist intellectuals like this lady know perfectly well markets are corrupted, manipulated and highly regulated. They strive hard to make it so in accordance with their ideological belief.
They use the ignorance and gullibility of the public against them. They point to failures in the market and tell them it’s the free market causing the failures and that more regulation is needed, when the failures are actually being caused by all their regulation.
Miliband and his “godmother” know perfectly well what they are doing.
I agree that economic illiteracy is rife. I think there are a few reasons why it might have got worse: We have achieved such prosperity that we can afford to support millions of people who produce nothing, and still have comfortable lives. So the link between work and prosperity is broken in many people’s minds. Also because of specialisation and the emergence of huge enterprises, the connection between what each person does and prosperity is weak. I find people who are self employed or run small businesses have a much better grasp of all this because they have to make their own success and if they don’t work they don’t get paid.
It’s the relentless indoctrination since 1945 of Socialism – all about “class struggle” the workers versus the bosses.
Capitalism is the enemy, private property and profit is greed.
You are right about the economic illiteracy of so much of the British population. This was exhibited yesterday in the report that showed how out of touch people are with the real income and financing of the businesses that serve them, the belief that supermarkets, for instance, make over fifty percent margins, when actually they are nearly at break even. It carries on with the lambasting of the profits BP have just revealed, with the expression of horror that we, the British public, are being ripped off and the dog whistle tweet from Miliband that he will tax them in punishment. This ignores the fact that only fifteen percent of BP income is from the UK, much of that fine margin forecourt business, so hardly any of the huge profit is at the expense of the UK public. Historically, there is the frothing at the mouth about privatisation, selling the family silver, which ignores the reality that the silver was rubbish base metal, worth nothing, that needed investment at a level no government in the 1980s could have afforded, whether in energy, water, transport or ports. Privatisation allowed that investment, it was regulations that failed. Nationalisation is not the fix… Read more »
The government has ‘its thumb on the scale’ in so many ways it’s criminal – it’s nothing like a free market…