Fact of the Day
The USA has a population of 349m with 535 representatives in Congress all of which are elected.
The UK on the other hand has a population of 70m with 1455 representatives in parliament, 650 are elected and 805 unelected. Some democracy.
The government's new "British energy security strategy", a remarkably short document, can't bear the weight of it's title. It's no more than a slight beefing-up of the "green industrial revolution" (2020) and "net zero carbon" (2021) policies, rebranded with a "security" tag.
It's too late now to take out an energy insurance policy for 2022 when the threat is already present. A meaningful security strategy for right now would include measures to address the worst out come should it befall. In that case, although the document is entirely silent on the matter, there is no doubt whatever, that energy rationing will be needed.
Transport secretary Grant Shapps airily says ministers don't want that. Maybe not - but then again, they're too young to remember how the energy crisis of 1973-4 was managed. Oil rationing took place on national and global levels. If Putin cuts off the gas and oil, or if western buyers boycott him there will be nothing else to do, and rationing by organised means has certain societal advantages over the alternative, which is rationing by price (aka letting granny freeze).
At the same time, the document rehearses existing policy for improving energy efficiency and home insulation - one of he very few things that might make an immediate contribution (Eye 1570). But government ineffectiveness on this is neatly illustrated by one of the statistics cited, namely that "2,300 social housing homes are in the process of being improved". That's out of a total of just under 4m!
