We do grasp how political rhetoric works. String together a few phrases that test well in the focus groups and thereby gain power over everyone elses’ wallets. Been happening since Ur of the Chaldees and we doubt it’s ever going to change much. But it would be nice if the compound message - rather than just the collection of pretty words - made sense.

Apparently we’re to:

Ed Miliband is to add up to £1.5bn to energy bills as part of a record investment in Britain’s offshore wind industry. 

….

“This will restore the UK as a global leader for green technologies and deliver the infrastructure we need to boost our energy independence, protect bill payers and become a clean energy superpower.”

We’re to protect bill payers by charging them an extra £1.5 billion? That’s an interesting proof - as in the real meaning, to test - of the contention that renewables are oh so cheap.

But it’s the thing about power there. This is usually referred to as being able to direct the activities of others - as politics has over our wallets. But absolutely everyone is currently spending and subsidising to the same point. That energy shall be produced at home with nowt coming from Johnny Foreigner. If we’re all to be autarkic on our energy systems then no one will have power over another and therefore it’s not possible to become a clean energy superpower, is it?

We mean, sure, it’s possible to argue against Palmerston and his gunboats, we probably would ourselves, but they did actually project power. Whereas a windmill, you know, what do we do, send it to loom over someone? Mince their birds? Or keep them awake at night with the “whoom, whoom”?

Yes, we know, forlorn hopes and all that but before we even get to the discussion of whether politics and planning is the efficient or even feasible method of gaining the goal could we at least all agree that the goal itself has to make sense? #

Tim Worstall