The scandal that’s even bigger than the Post Office – people dying of cold as green Tories get richer
It took an ITV drama to humanise the abandonment of almost a thousand blameless Post Office sub postmasters by our political class. Initially, Paula Vennells became a lightning rod for popular anger but this has since transferred to Sir Ed Davey who enriched himself by consulting to the law firm that had led on prosecuting sub postmasters while ignoring those in his own constituency. Failing to take a meeting with Mr. Bates is, in these febrile times, the political equivalent of killing Bambi.
As the Met Office issues a yellow weather warning for “disruptive snow and ice” this week with temperatures falling as low as -5C, we need the ITV drama commissioners to repeat the formula with people dying of cold against a backdrop of all the main political parties hurtling at various speeds towards Net Zero.
It shouldn’t be hard to find real-life characters for the basis of the drama. A couple appeared in The Guardian’s write-up last week of a focus group of former Tory voters in the “red wall” seats of Heywood and Middleton, Great Grimsby and Dudley North:
‘Energy costs had become so bad that Dale, a train supervisor, and Steve, a pensioner, had taken to living as much as possible from their beds to reduce heating costs. Jordan worried at the end of almost every month whether his salary would last.’
What have Dale and Steve received in return for voting Tory? Years of wilful blindness in which Alok Sharma has tweeted joyfully pictures of coal-fired gas stations being blown up while supplements on energy bills transfer wealth to subsidised providers of renewables.
In spite of all the warnings of “global boiling” we know from numerous scientific studies that deaths from cold outnumber those from heat in this country by a factor of 15 to 20. It is hard to attribute individual deaths directly to green surcharges or chronic failure to secure low-cost energy for the UK (by eminently achievable means such as nuclear or fracking). However, if people are staying in their beds now, imagine the impact of -5C for those that cannot afford to turn on the heating.
I am uneasy with online mobs calling for resignations and rescinded honours but if a lightning rod is being sought for this particular scandal, one need look no further than Chris Skidmore, the architect of the Conservatives’ decision to commit the UK – by law – to hit net zero by 2050, regardless of cost or the affordability for ordinary people. Of course, setting itself a legally enforceable target with no clear idea of how to get there means that the government will need expert help, hence the flourishing of environmental consultancies. Two of these, Emissions Capture Company and Global Insight Exchange each paid Skidmore £80,000 last year. On top of his ministerial salary, this will have gone some way to ensuring that he can keep the heating on this week. And if he’d not burdened the national purse enough already, he just added a £250,000 bill for the totally unnecessary cost of the by-election he has caused by flouncing out of the Commons on a confected matter of principle. To add insult to injury, his constituency was to be abolished after the next election due to boundary changes.
Sir Ed Davey is, as the planet Earth is described in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, “mostly harmless”. I think of him as a symptom rather than a cause – one of a succession of Lib Dem leaders, two of whom were Post Office ministers, that failed utterly to push back against the blob while at the same time showing contempt for people that needed their help. Once he’s resigned, however, the public may want to turn their attention to Chris Skidmore and his fellow green Tories – their luxury beliefs are far from harmless.
https://www.spiked-online.com/video/why-renewable-energy-is-rubbish/
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/01/15/crucial-gas-supplier-britain-qatar-stop-red-sea-shipments/
So much for Net Zero's celebration of detonated power stations. Skidmore et al, have a lot to answer for.