Labour's Case of Gas Under Attack

This is an instance of 'no good deed' going unpunished, even in the face of the obvious benefit ratio being onehunnertpercent in a decision's favor.

The continuing sclerotic ineptness of the British Labour government, seemingly unimpeded by a swap of Prime Ministers, was momentarily snapped yesterday by a decision that directly impacts the British people in a positive manner. So they are catching hell from all sides.

Back at the end of July, when Andy Burnham was, as I said, 'selected not elected' as the new prime minister, there had been a lot of happy speculation thanks to his teasing about tentatively reopening some shuttered plans for fossil fuel operations.

...The new prime minister is already causing a wicked case of whiplash as far as his energy policies go. Not two days ago, there were tentative, hopeful squeaks coming out of those who depend on the North Sea for their livelihood and those in the UK who have had to pay the price for Miliband's insane climate cult militancy that those days might be over.

Burnham to announce plans for new North Sea oil and gas drilling

Andy Burnham will announce plans for new oil and gas drilling in the North Sea after he becomes prime minister, the BBC has been told.

The Labour Party's 2024 manifesto - which the new leader said he would follow - had pledged to issue no new licences but to honour existing ones.

At the heart of the debate are two oil and gas fields in Scotland - Rosebank and Jackdaw - which regulators approved in 2022 and 2023 under the then Conservative government, but were overturned in 2025 after a legal challenge...

The heart attacks began immediately...

...Well, the Labour lunatic pressure started building. Everyone and their mother was quoting that dang 'Labour manifesto pledge' again.

Burnham risks Labour backlash if he reverses ban on new oil and gas drilling

Party manifesto pledged to honour existing North Sea exploration licences but not issue new ones

Andy Burnham risks his first confrontation with Labour MPs if he announces new oil and gas drilling licences when he becomes prime minister, insiders have warned...

... and seemed to have scared him off, even as the national system operator went through a summer of near-blackout conditions, various emergencies or near-emergencies, having to beg France for more electricity through trunk lines, and having the overburdened British public pick up the tab for all of it.

Then there have been other, not-so-sterling administration distractors like the ongoing RAF Fairford cluster, a huge fight over revamping the pension system and going after bank profits, and now word that Russian 'fishing' trawlers have been basically parking over top of vital UK undersea communication cables at will, with some 500 recorded incidents so far.

Putin sends fishing trawlers to spy on Britain

Telegraph analysis finds 500 incidents of Russian civilian vessels loitering above vital undersea cables

Russia is deploying fishing trawlers to spy on the UK’s critical undersea cables, The Telegraph can disclose.

Civilian vessels are being tracked by Nato as they carry out espionage for Vladimir Putin in waters around Britain.

Ministers have confirmed that Moscow is using “commercial proxies” to threaten vital undersea infrastructure.

On Thursday, the Government will lay out plans for cable saboteurs to face lengthy jail terms and unlimited fines as part of a security crackdown.

Analysis by The Telegraph has uncovered more than 500 incidents in which Russian trawlers loitered above vital communications cables linking Britain with Europe and the US, or followed their routes for miles.

It suggests that Russian vessels are mapping the precise locations of fibre-optic cables carrying billions of pounds of economic activity every day, potentially allowing them to be attacked in a future conflict with Nato.

Such a move would risk paralysing the country by disrupting banks, hospitals, the transport network and mobile phones.

Britain really needs what's called a 'navy' to combat this. I'm sure they'll get around to it eventually, but the Labour defense budget is a bit of a mess, so that's going to have to wait.

Labour has cut £2bn from front-line Army equipment as John Healey tries to fill a defence spending black hole in his first Budget.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has dropped plans to develop three new battlefield vehicles, including one that would have been capable of recovering Britain’s Boxer armoured vehicles if they were damaged in combat.

Wes Streeting, the Defence Secretary, has been warned that scrapping the project means Boxers could be left “stranded in full view of the enemy” with no means of recovering them.

What does sound like a win-win - making money whilst saving money for British rate payers - would naturally be bringing in some of that schweet oil and gas industry cha-ching.

Yesterday, Burnham took a deep breath and finally made the move. He had his Energy Secretary announce they were opening the Jackdaw North Sea natural gas field to a roar of approval from the American president.

Being the timid types, they're still dithering over a decision on the other field in question, Rosebank. You have to take what you can get with these people.

Trump tells UK to ‘go full blast’ after North Sea drilling approved

Energy Secretary backs Jackdaw licence as gas prices hit four-year high

Donald Trump has urged the UK to “go full blast” after the Government approved new drilling for gas in the North Sea.

Miatta Fahnbulleh, the Energy Secretary, granted approval for the Jackdaw project on Wednesday morning after months of delays.

She has yet to make a decision on the future of Rosebank, the UK’s last major untapped oil reserve, which she said was a “different proposition” to Jackdaw.

Mr Trump hailed the decision as “great news for the wealth and prosperity of the United Kingdom” on his Truth Social platform.

“The UK has started drilling in the North Sea, one of the greatest and most prosperous areas of oil in the world,” the US president said. 

“They should go FULL BLAST!!! This will make the UK very wealthy again. Take down the costly and ridiculous windmills!” he added.

The government has given the go ahead to gas extraction from the Jackdaw field in the North Sea. Environmentalists have condemned the move, saying it will contribute to global-warming carbon emissions. Ministers have announced a new fund to funnel North Sea tax revenues into green energy schemes and said the platform could start to supply British homes within weeks. The approval ends months of speculation over whether the scheme would be given approval, while owner Adura said Jackdaw could be responsible for about 6% of UK North Sea gas production.

— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) October 21, 2026

...Ministers have announced a new fund to funnel North Sea tax revenues into green energy schemes and said the platform could start to supply British homes within weeks. 

The approval ends months of speculation over whether the scheme would be given approval, while owner Adura said Jackdaw could be responsible for about 6% of UK North Sea gas production.

What makes it even more insane that either Labour administration took so long to approve Jackdaw as the country slipped into a crippling vise of skyrocketing energy prices in the face of plummeting dispatchable capacity production? Jackdaw won't take years to provide relief from both high prices and shortages of natural gas on demand during high usage periods. 

They're talking gas flowing possibly within weeks, and the Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, ripped Labour leaders for Jackdawing around.

The Government approved the Jackdaw project on Wednesday morning after months of delays.

Gas prices hit their highest level since December 2022 on Tuesday, and energy bills were expected to rise by hundreds of pounds this winter because of the war in Iran.

In the UK, gas is selling for 210p per therm – more than double what it cost this time last year. It remained below the peak of the energy crisis in August 2022, when prices briefly hit 640p per therm.

Jackdaw has the potential to meet around 6 per cent of the UK’s gas demand and provide enough fuel to heat the equivalent of 1.4m homes.

The Conservatives first granted permission for drilling of the field – 150 miles east of Aberdeen – in 2022, but the project was ruled unlawful after a court challenge by climate activists.

...Kemi Badenoch criticised the length of time it had taken to reach a decision on Jackdaw, accusing Labour of spending two years “faffing” about a project already approved by the Conservatives.

“If they’d done this in the summer, we’d have had that gas heating British homes this Christmas,” the Tory leader said. “An unnecessary waste of time and money by a party that puts its own interest above the country’s.”

Thanks to Labour's timidity in approving the project, Britain will face another winter short on natural gas stores and with an electrical grid already perilously compromised.

Britain’s Low Gas Storage Raises Winter Energy Security Concerns as Europe Enters the 2026–27 Heating Season With Tight Gas Supplies

...Britain Enters Winter With Limited Gas Storage 

Britain is entering the 2026–27 winter with limited gas-storage capacity as the country prepares for higher seasonal demand and continued reliance on imported gas. The UK government says Britain has 1.7 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas-storage capacity, equivalent to around seven days of average winter demand, while storage supplied 5% of total Great Britain gas use during winter 2025/26 and is expected to contribute a similar amount this winter. The country relies on a combination of domestic production, pipeline and interconnector imports, and LNG infrastructure to meet demand. 

The situation has renewed attention on Rough, operated by Centrica and the UK's largest gas-storage facility. Centrica says Rough accounts for about half of Britain's gas-storage capacity and can store up to 54 billion cubic feet (bcf) of gas. In September, Centrica warned that the UK's limited storage leaves the country more exposed to supply disruptions and price volatility, while reporting that Rough had not been refilled over the summer without a government support framework.

So the largest nat gas storage facility in the country has not been refilled over this past summer.

Way to go, central planning.

And they depend on Europe for more and more every year. Gosh. What could go wrong?

...The UK’s Gas Supply Is Diverse but Increasingly Dependent on Imports 

Britain’s energy-security challenge is not caused by dependence on a single gas supplier, but by a changing supply mix and the growing importance of imported gas. According to the UK government’s latest security-of-supply assessment, UK Continental Shelf production accounts for about 43% of Great Britain’s gross annual gas supply, while gas from Norway contributes 35%. LNG provides a further 21%, with interconnector imports from Belgium and the Netherlands contributing about 1%, based on a five-year average.  

The system is supported by extensive import infrastructure. Great Britain has two gas interconnectors with mainland Europe and three LNG import terminals, giving it around 368 million cubic metres per day of total import capacity, including approximately 135 million cubic metres per day from Norway, 83 million from Belgium and the Netherlands, and 150 million from LNG. The UK government describes these connections as an important source of flexibility when demand increases. 

As UK gas production declines, Norway, LNG and European interconnectors are becoming increasingly important to Britain’s gas supply. In 2025, the US supplied 74% of UK LNG imports, while Norway remained the largest overall gas import source. This makes Britain increasingly exposed to international gas prices and supply disruptions, particularly during periods of high winter demand.

We’re paying a fortune for energy, and it’s taken Burnham over three months to decide to open Jackdaw gas field. Now he’s ruling out opening Rosebank. Talk about indecisive and negligent, Labour are punishing the British people to satisfy weird Ed Miliband’s Net Zero madness. https://t.co/KXGngAZTeY

— Simon Danczuk (@SimonDanczuk) October 22, 2026

None of these concerns matter one whit to the hard-core Labour climate cultists, the Greens, or any of the radical environmental whacko groups in the UK who have held sway over energy policy for so long.

I am furious that the government approved Jackdaw - a gas field that will do nothing for jobs, bills, or energy security. This climate vandalism has to stop. The answer is No To Rosebank. https://t.co/ytYlmXDxPr

— Carla Denyer (@carla_denyer) October 22, 2026

They are losing their collective green grifting cookies over this decision, frozen old ladies and the lights on be damned.

Polanski is the Green Party leader and just a revolting individual.

We have already extracted more oil and gas than we can burn in our lifetimes and still have a habitable planet. The Labour Government is lying to us about the climate disaster. And this same energy secretary admitted earlier in the year this will do nothing to lower our bills.

— Zack Polanski (@ZackPolanski) October 21, 2026

They live in such a protected unicorn-fart bubble.

@PolitlcsUK Leave it in the ground and we just ship the same gas in from abroad, losing the jobs and the tax that come with it. That's not saving the planet, it's just moving the problem somewhere else. Why is that so hard for the Greens to see?

— British father 🇬🇧 (@EnglandUK) October 21, 2026

Hopefully these experts in the art of wishy-washy will stay the course, and soon have some of their own beautiful gas onshore, instead of inviting a Russian trawler to take out not a cable, but a pipeline in some convenient dead-of-winter international commercial fishing accident.

I know - DON'T TALK CRAZY TALK!

There's certainly enough of it to go around.

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