Green energy boondoggles are generally Beege's beat, but I am allowed to have a bit of fun too, right?
What set me off was this exchange between Allison Pearson, a columnist for the Telegraph (a great but expensive paper), and UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham on his new proposal to accelerate the expansion of green energy in Britain and get the green energy transition back on track.
Allison was set off by the same thing I was: Burnham's use of the phrase "I want to be honest" as a prelude to a big pile of complete bull excrement.
Burnham wants the British public to believe that the push to Net Zero is not the main reason that UK industrial consumers pay the highest rates in the industrialized world, nor why residential consumers are groaning under the expense of power. Instead, he goes straight to the same boogeyman that all leftists go to: rapacious capitalists.
Dear Andy, you do know this is untrue, don’t you? Highest energy bills in the world are due to: * Reckless pursuit of net zero * Blowing up our coal-fired power stations * Failing to exploit our own fossil fuels * Insane dependency on foreign oil and gas. The phrase “over a barrel” springs to mind * Paying Norway £20 billion plus a year for oil and gas we could get out of our own North Sea * Subsidizing renewables to the tune of billions by slapping green taxes on bills * Putting an eco-cult and leftist ideology before the comfort and warmth of the British people * Allowing good jobs to be lost in pursuit of all of the above * Claiming your government wants to “reindustrialise” while creating conditions no manufacturer could succeed in * Closing refineries and gas storage so the UK is uniquely vulnerable this winter and likely to have serious power cuts. You’re welcome. @andyburnham
— Allison Pearson (@AllisonPearson) October 3, 2026
Sorry X truncates, so here are the post and response in full.
I want to be honest about how we’ve got to a place where British billpayers are paying some of the highest energy costs in Europe.
Over the past 40 years, we’ve given up control of our necessities, outsourced our essentials and privatised the basics. Water, transport, housing. And of course, energy.
Now the public are paying the price. We haven’t invested in the infrastructure we need. Conflict overseas has pushed up energy costs and it’s hurting our businesses and families.
That’s why we need to take back greater control of our energy system.
This week, I announced Great British Grid, which will speed up connections and push down bills.
We’re also giving mayors, local leaders and communities a stronger role. With funding for People’s Power projects, communities will be able to build solar panels on libraries and town halls, hydro schemes in rivers or publicly owned windfarms on local land.
But it’s not just energy we need stronger public control over. It’s also water, housing, transport and care.
So we’re repealing the ban on public ownership of water companies. We’re building more council homes than this country has seen since the end of World War Two.
We’re reforming the leasehold system so families aren’t squeezed for every penny. And we’re opening up home ownership for first time buyers who can’t rely on the bank of mum and dad.
This week I also announced my determination to introduce a National Care Service, to put people above profit and to give pensioners peace of mind.
Together, we’ll rewire the country from top to bottom so that it works for all people in all places.
That is the only way to put Britain back on the right path. It’s the only way to put power back in people’s hands. And it’s the only way we will bring hope again.
He basically blames Margaret Thatcher and privatization for Britain's current rush to deindustrialization and consumers falling behind their peers, and any sane economist would point out that perhaps the first place you would look is the fact that the government has been shutting down cheaper power sources, sending energy jobs overseas, strangling natural gas production, and imposing high taxes on those companies he is blaming.
Dear Andy, you do know this is untrue, don’t you?
Highest energy bills in the world are due to:
* Reckless pursuit of net zero
* Blowing up our coal-fired power stations
* Failing to exploit our own fossil fuels
* Insane dependency on foreign oil and gas. The phrase “over a barrel” springs to mind
* Paying Norway £20 billion plus a year for oil and gas we could get out of our own North Sea
* Subsidizing renewables to the tune of billions by slapping green taxes on bills
* Putting an eco-cult and leftist ideology before the comfort and warmth of the British people
* Allowing good jobs to be lost in pursuit of all of the above
* Claiming your government wants to “reindustrialise” while creating conditions no manufacturer could succeed in
* Closing refineries and gas storage so the UK is uniquely vulnerable this winter and likely to have serious power cuts.
You’re welcome.
Allison doesn't hold back, and a quick fact-check (yes, I did one) shows she is absolutely right. Jobs are being lost by the bucketful as fossil fuel companies shut down jobs; factories are being strangled by outrageous electricity prices; coal plants literally are being blown up, as Germany did with nuclear plants; and Net Zero policies are causing chaos and misery.
British consumers are feeling the crunch, even though the government has shifted to hidden subsidies to keep bills below the real cost. If consumers saw the real bill, they would be closer to a revolt.
The Great British Grid Burnham announced will only make things worse by accelerating the costs of bringing green energy online. Burnham will talk about green power being cheaper in the long run, but that's only true if you leave out everything that makes it expensive. "If you leave off all this expensive stuff we need, it's cheaper" is not being honest; it's hiding the ball.
Offshore Energy UK's numbers show that a thousand people a month in the industry are losing their jobs, but in Burnham's world that doesn't count. They can just install solar panels or something.
Again..." we're reindustrializing, except for all the jobs being lost to our policies" is not honesty; it's a shell game. As refineries close, oil industry jobs are lost, factories close because of high energy costs, and consumers shudder at their bills, Burnham blames Thatcher and socializes the industry that Labour has been ruining.
Burnham wants to go back to the 1970s in economic policies, with the added burden of mass importing foreign wards of the state and shutting down energy sources that work.
Net Zero plus socialism is a recipe for accelerating a decline that both parties have presided over. It's good to see that Reform, Restore Britain, and even Braverman's Tories are pushing back hard.
Let me be honest: Burnham is a disaster, as expected.
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