Inside The Mind of Ed Davey

The gasman cometh...

So, our Energy Secretary, Lib Dem Ed Davey, is to deliver a rant today (the plan appears to be for it to be a sort of spontaneously angry one) in which he will attack climate change deniers in the Tory Party as "wilfully ignorant, head-in-the-sand, nimbyists" whose "diabolical" dealings have left us prey to the vicissitudes of the extreme weather events of recent weeks. These are, Mr Davey will screech, the result of the global warming that these Tories deny.

Well, indeed, except Mr Davey needs to take a step back and rather than criticise the allies he and his party have been making common cause with for the last four years, perhaps he should take a look in the mirror. What goes on inside that head? How can one man face so many ways at the same time?

He decries the corporate power of the Big Six, but then defends their right and need to make huge profits. He talks about supporting green energy, but puts obstacle after obstacle in its way while signing up to "incentives" for dirty fuels, whether loans for French owned EDF to build nuclear plants, or payments to local councils and communities to encourage fracking to take place.

But of course Mr Davey, as covered here last year, has expressed his amorous feelings for shale gas most fulsomely (see "Having it both ways") and under his watch and with his blessing, the Coalition have now opened up England to be fracked into oblivion by French oil companies and Tory Party donors. Plans are in motion to release around 130 billion tonnes of shale gas into the atmosphere (via various uses) from English wells over the next four decades and beyond. Not only will this damage the countryside, it will do nothing to reduce our carbon emissions - the very cause of man made global warming he professes to be so concerned about.

In addition, the Government under his stewardship of energy policy (and that of his former party colleague Chris Huhne) has committed to building a whole series of new and long term oil and gas powered electricity power plants. This "dash for gas" ties us  in to continuing to burn massive quantities of carbon fuels for decades into the future and makes it nigh impossible to meet our carbon reduction targets for 2050 - a vital milestone if we are to play our part in the global struggle to contain warming at levels that don't threaten to overwhelm humanity.

Similarly, Mr Davey's department has slashed funding and the feed-in tariff for community owned renewable energy schemes (a sharp contrast to the fracking premia). And his "green deal" scheme for energy conservation, as well as having its funding cut, has been a disaster - a Green Party scheme adopted by the local council in the single district of Kirklees had as of last year insulated over 50,000 houses to barely a dozen under the national Government scheme.

So Mr Ed should perhaps calm down - and get some help for his shale addiction before he turns on the dinosaurs in the Tories - after all, some of them almost certainly will in time form the base material for future shale gas, so a little more respect please. Moreover, unlike many of these corporately sponsored backbenchers, he clearly understands the need for action on global warming and as Energy Secretary is just ever so slightly better placed than most of us to do something about it.

Except that he hasn't. And if fact, his actions are likely to have made things that bit worse.

On the other hand, maybe if we can harness the gales of hot air that is so frequently emitted in large quantities from this man's mouth, we could slash our fuel requirements at a stroke.

Lib Dems & Fracking - Having It Both Ways

"I love shale gas" - Lib Dem Energy Secretary Ed Davey, 10 July at the APPG on unconventional gas and oil."It is fantastic for energy security...and the environment."

"In recent years, shale gas production has transformed the energy market in the US, though at the cost of significant local environmental damage and pollution of water tables...(Because of different geology and fiscal policy)there is no realistic prospect, therefore, of a 'shale gas revolution' in the UK." - Lib Dem official policy paper, Green Growth & Green Jobs, 24 August.

The fracking controversy in the UK is driven by one key factor - after some years of refusal or at least prevaricating on a decision, late last year the Government decided to permit it to go ahead, and it has increasingly featured as a key component of planning for future enrgy supplies. As blogged before, the Coalition's claim to seek to be the "greenest Government in history" has long since fallen by the wayside as it cut the renewable energy feed-in tariff and virtually abolished community-owned clean energy schemes. Using vast quantities of water to force shale gas and oil out of the ground beneath our feet has become a major objective of Government energy policy as we follow the United States in seeking out yet more carbon fuel, seemingly oblivious to the environmental impact.

To date, the only significant UK-wide political party to oppose fracking has been the Greens - the Green MP, Caroline Lucas, was arrested for blocking the road during a peaceful protest at the Balcombe test site earlier this week. Green leader, Natalie Bennett, has also spoken at the site and Greens across the country have been involved in arguing against fracking. By contrast, with a few, largely self-interested local exceptions, Tories, Labour and UKIP have welcomed the process, awed by the massive development of it in the USA and dismissive of the impact of both extraction and use of yet more global warming gases.

And as for the once supposedly "greener-than-the-Greens" Liberal Democrats?

Well, today, as a poll shows massive public opposition to fracking (with three times as many preferring wind farms to those supporting fracking), the Lib Dems have finally issued a statement condemning fracking. It turns out that, although they are part of the Coalition, they are opposed to this particular policy.

Now, at least. They didn't say anything earlier, perhaps waiting to see which way the wind blew in terms of popular opinion.

As for tomorrow, who knows where they will stand? Presumably, we will get a clearer idea of what they actually think after they have expelled the Energy Secretary Ed Davey from their party. After all, it was Mr Ed (Lib Dem) who gave the go-ahead for fracking, just as his predecessor, Chris Huhne (Lib Dem), approved new nuclear power stations after years of saying they didn't work, were too expensive and too dangerous. Mr Davey sees fracking as "useful" and thinks it it is "fantastic for energy security...and the climate." Although he has said the environment should be protected, it isn't clear how and he has signed up to trying to bribe local communities with a share of fracking revenues to try to stymie opposition.

What, they aren't going to expel Mr Davey? And they're not going to change the Government's policy? No, because, in spite of the rhetoric, the Lib Dems continue to support "limited" fracking - but of course, do nothing to explain what limited means. Watch this space, depending on where you are in the country.

Surely the Lib Dems aren't trying to have it both ways by pretending to be in Government and in Opposition at the same time?

Et Tu, Davey?

Cassius Cable and  Praetorian Davey - yond men hath a lean and hungry look! 

Nick Clegg's beleaguered Lib Dems gather in Green Party-run Brighton this week for their annual Federal Party Conference, their third since they entered the Coalition Government with the Tories and began to implement perhaps the most right wing fiscal and social reform agenda in British history - much to the chagrin of many of their members and the likely permanent alienation of swathes of their former voters.

Clegg's personal ratings are at an all-time low and the party's have plunged by two-thirds since the 2010 election - today, two opinion polls (Opinium & Survations) have them on just 8% and 10% of popular support, in fourth place nationally behind the UK Independence Party - others are a little kinder, but still show UKIP breathing down the Lib Dems necks close enough to raise the hackles of fear. With hundreds of councillors culled at the local elections last May and more losses likely in spring 2013, Clegg's own position is increasingly rumoured to be at risk, at least in the longer-run. As leading pollster Peter Kellner of YouGov has warned, on current trends, the party will lose 80% of its MPs in the 2015 election.

For now, the party rank-and-file have shown an almost lemming-like willingness to follow Clegg over the cliff, but cracks are beginning to show as the leader's desperate strategy of trying to emphasise differences with his Tory partners fails to make any electoral impact. Likewise his attempt to apologise for voting to raise student fees in full defiance of a pledge to vote against any such thing (note, "vote against" - whether in Government or not) has fallen on deaf ears.

Mr Clegg is facing two potential challengers - interestingly both from former SDP members who may be seen to represent a slightly less full-on charge to the right by Clegg and his Orange Book ally David Laws (now returned to the Cabinet table in a rather odd arrangement as he is not a full-member).

The first is the Secretary of State for Business and Enterprise, Vince Cable. Cable, a former apologist for the Shell Oil company, has enacted some pretty right wing changes to employment law while in office, but he still laughingly tries to pass himself off as the "Marx of the Lib Dems" - though he could do with clarifying whether he means Karl or Groucho. His hubris is boundless, and fuelled by a finding that Lib Dem ratings could soar to as high as..12%!, he has told the Sunday Times that he does not rule out being leader of the party - one day. Soon, we might imagine him whisper under his impatient breath.

The other rumoured challenger is Ed Davey, the Energy Secretary. He is closer to Clegg politically, but views himself as a credible challenger to Cable. The Mail on Sunday produced an article today covering his ambitions to succeed Clegg. On Channel 4 News this evening, he hotly denied the article's veracity - he is, he claimed "one of the Praetorian Guard surrounding Nick Clegg".

Now, Mr Davey could either be being opaquely clever here or alternatively betraying his lack of historical knowledge: for over two and a half centuries, the Praetorians were the bodyguards of the Roman Emperors. So he might be suggesting that he would take a political bullet for Emperor Cleggie, so deep is his belief in him. Alternatively, given the Praetorians' propensity for bumping off Emperors (on one occasion even putting the throne up for auction), he could instead be giving a coded signal that he may bury the knife in Caesar's shoulder-blades any day soon. Notably, when invited several times by the C4 interviewer, Davey repeatedly avoided saying "No" to the question of whether he wants to be leader.

Either way, the third-going-on-fourth party, faces a dismal time ahead - yet doggedly still clinging to the belief that nuanced changes to party pronouncements (the latest being that parents can use their pensions towards their kids mortgages!) will somehow win their lost legions of followers back. If Vince Cable is all their "left-wing" has to offer, they may as well shut up shop and follow their National Liberal ancestors in the smothering bosom of their Tory Masters.

A third candidate for the leadership is rumoured to be Lurcio, currently the MP for Westmoreland and Lonsdale. Oh don't ye titter!

Nuclear Nonsense - do you trust them?

The British Government is extending the life of our existing 16 nuclear reactors. This in part helps them fudge the divisions within the Coalition on nuclear as a component of future energy production; but the prospect of even older reactors continuing to produce more and more radioactive waste is concerning. All the more so when you consider the repeated assurances by Government Ministers and industry "experts" that the systems used are safe - and yet, time and again, everything from technical failure to human error raises new concerns.

We have the potential to develop the most powerful offshore wind and wave energy production in Europe; this would be clean, risk-free in terms of waste and safety. Yet one of the first acts of the Coalition Government was to drop plans for manufacturing and installing offshore wind farms in the North Sea that would have created thousands of jobs, made Britain a contender in the alternative energy market (where we are far behind the likes of Germany) and given a massive boost to clean energy.

This was done in the name of austerity; but the extension of the life cycles of ageing nuclear power stations means that the Government will find billions of extra pounds to subsidise this inefficient, dirty and dangerous technology. The public support wind farms by a margin of over 2 to 1, contrary to the claims put up by the right wing press - and if the concentration is on offshore, this would be even higher. Wind alone is not the answer - no green campaigners have even claimed that; but it is a vital part of the mix, and one that Britain could readily harness.

Isn't it time we demanded the Government's investment goes there instead of continuing the massive subsidy of nearly £4 billion per year to run and, eventually, decommission nuclear reactors (let alone store and protect the waste for several thousand years)?