by It has a smart logo and a flashy website.
When Sir Keir Starmer launched the Labor Party’s plans for Great British Energy in Scotland earlier this week, it was meant to be a watershed moment.
The state-led energy giant that would reduce the UK’s carbon emissions to zero and cut everyone’s energy bills and create thousands of “well-paid green jobs” finally began to emerge.
There were only a few snags.
It turned out that the logo was bought off the shelf for £35, and was already being used by other companies, and Sir Keir flew a private jet up to Scotland to make the announcement.
Then there is the issue that Labor has now confirmed that Great British Energy will not be a retail energy company, as many believed.
It will own, manage and operate clean power projects alongside private firms. This appears to be all that remains of the plans we were once told would deliver “green prosperity” and cost the taxpayer up to £28bn a year by the end of the decade.
It is surely emblematic of the folly of the entire net-zero project.
At the very least, it could be praised for the kind of “fiscal prudence” that shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves always displays.
Instead of hiring a proper graphic designer, it turned out that GB Energy had bought a ready-made logo and a free website.
However, that hasn’t stopped Sir Keir Starmer from making some pretty bold claims about the state-owned energy company.
“Our clean power mission with Great British Energy will take back control of our destiny and invest in cheap, clean domestic energy that we control,” he said, “We will turn the page on the cost of living crisis.”
Well, maybe.
According to the party, Great British Energy will provide much cheaper power, replace the oil and gas lost by refusing to allow any new developments in the North Sea, make the UK self-sufficient for the first time in a few years, and it will prove. plenty of jobs at the same time.
The trouble is, the party has retired on a full scale in the last few years.
It started out promising that £28bn a year could be pumped into Great British Energy, but in the last 12 months that has been scaled back to just £8bn during parliament – less than £2bn per year.
And the promise of saving families £1,400 a year from all the energy it would create has mysteriously dropped to £300 a year. That might even be a mirage.
Although she constantly reminds us that her time working for the Bank of England means she knows “how to run the economy” – an odd claim given her recent history – Rachel Reeves has failed to explain how even realize those small savings.
Indeed, there are three major problems with Labour’s plan for Great British Energy.
First, Labor has over-promised and looks set to under-deliver.
Despite the claims made by some elements of the green lobby, there is insufficient evidence that wind and solar power are cheaper than traditional energy sources. And when maintenance and backup costs are properly factored in they can be more expensive.
After all, if it were really much cheaper investors would be happy to support it anyway, and there would be no need for a subsidy.
Subsequently, the capital allocated to the new company is reduced to such an extent that it will not have the money to scale up.
Generating electricity is an expensive, capital-intensive business – just look at the debt incurred by French giant EDF, Europe’s biggest electricity supplier.
A few billion a year won’t get you very far.
Finally, the record of nationalized industries, particularly in the UK, remains very poor.
They were plagued by cost overruns, poorly managed, union dominated, and subject to political oversight they failed to adhere to any sort of coherent strategy.
It is very hard to believe that Great British Energy, in whatever form it takes, will break that terrible pattern.
And yet this energy company is only part of a bigger problem. The whole drive to create a net zero economy is running into trouble.
Sales of electric cars are in free fall as their costs become apparent.
Punitive tariffs have had to be imposed to prevent China from taking over the entire industry, making it very difficult to know whether governments want to switch to battery-powered vehicles or was … not.
Key technologies such as heat pumps have stalled, often because they do not generate enough power at a feasible cost despite billions in Government subsidies.
ESG investing, which was meant to finance the transition to clean energy, is failing because it is not generating anything close to the returns promised to investors.
The list goes on and on.
The net-zero project might have been fine when it was just on paper. As soon as specific plans come into contact with reality, it starts to fall apart.
Most people understand that climate change is a serious issue, and that carbon emissions must be reduced over time.
But that doesn’t mean we won’t still need reliable sources of energy, or transport systems, and it doesn’t mean that whole parts of the economy can suddenly be handed over to state control at great cost.
If he wins the election next month, Labor will be forced into a series of humiliating climb downs before finally being forced to come up with some serious plans for energy security, the electricity grid, and the Kingdom’s transport infrastructure United.
It is a shame that it will be a long learning process, and a very painful one for consumers.
Perhaps we should be grateful that Labor spent less than £50 on the logo. If only he would take a sensible approach to the whole project.
