Those who, like myself, experienced life behind the Iron Curtain understand instinctively that centrally planned economies beholden to an ideology do not bring benefit to the majority of the population on whom they are imposed. A few top-level individuals prosper, but the citizen finds himself and his aspirations crushed by the diktats of central government. The state itself is similarly confined by a set of ideas which are presented as self-evident truths which constrain its policy–making and exclude challenge.

That Iron Curtain model describes pretty accurately the UK’s energy policy, driven as it is by the ideological pursuit of net zero and the diktats required to implement it. Thus: I will be forced to buy an electric car, should I want to replace my (petrol) model, in ten years’ time; I will be pushed to replace my efficient gas boiler with an electric heat pump; and if I do not ‘freely’ choose to do so I will be forced in my energy bill to cross-subsidise the government’s preferred technologies. What is this if not a command economy familiar to Soviet-era nomenklatura setting targets and timetables for tractor production or blocks of concrete flats? In Great Britain? How has it come to this?

But more serious by far than the state’s interference with my freedom of choice in my private life, obnoxious as that is, is the destructive effect of net-zero policy on the nation’s national security. It is an even greater threat to my freedom and yours.

Renewables generate electricity intermittently, only when the wind blows or the sun shines, and they are more expensive than the firm-power grid that any advanced industrial economy requires. Without state intervention, the market would never invest in renewables. In order to subsidise the drive to net zero we have some of the highest energy prices in the world. This leads to de-industrialisation which only helps our enemies such as China.

That is bad enough. But by doing this we are furnishing our enemies and our competitors with a permanent and unnecessary economic advantage, and ourselves with a severe disadvantage. We are neglecting the development of our own energy resources, and we are hampering – indeed sabotaging – our economic growth. Abundant gas and oil, essential to our energy security today and for decades to come, are left in the ground in favour of expensive imports. More real jobs vanish and their skills with them and so-called ‘green’ jobs do not materialise.

Compare our energy costs with those of France, which has base-load nuclear in abundance. Its rate of inflation is currently a fraction of ours and we import electricity from them. Indeed, interconnectors to France, Norway and beyond have advanced from being occasional to essential components in the British electricity supply mix because of the decision to prioritise net zero.........

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