Ed Miliband’s Oil Blockade is a War of Attrition Against the British Public

As President Trump tries to regain control of the crisis created by his war of choice in Iran, much of the rest of the world is in a struggle to secure energy resources. In Britain, pressure on the Government to drop its commitments against North Sea oil and gas production is intensifying. The debate no longer divides on Left-Right, Labour-Conservative lines, with Chancellor Rachel Reeves, unions and even a caucus of Labour MPs putting the spotlight on Ed Miliband, on whom the Prime Minister has said the decision rests. While we wait for a clear answer from the Government about how rising energy prices are going to be managed, it’s worth repeating the point that greens from all parties have blocked vastly more energy than any mad mullah has.

This crisis puts me in mind of earlier energy crises and their causes and the lessons that ought to have been learnt from them. The first I can remember properly is the fuel protests around the turn of the century in response to rising taxes impacting UK logistics firms. There have been other energy shocks and today’s is being compared with those of the 1970s. But crises emerge out of particular circumstances that are often much longer in the making. Since the 90s, it has not been angry truck drivers that have blocked energy infrastructure: it is European governments and the EU.


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blunt instrument
blunt instrument
3 days ago

The title suggests that at last the Sceptic has realised what many of us have been saying for years: that the government is waging war on the people. None of it was ever stupid mistakes.

Free Lemming
3 days ago

Quite. And the only real question left is who’s batting for whom? 2030 looks to be the year their societal and economic step change will be fully implemented.

john1T
3 days ago

Covid was a massive wake up call for me. For the first time I was able to find out what is going on with the globalist elites, hand in glove with our own politicians. The idea that our politicians were incompetent was easy to accept, the idea that they had an agenda contrary to our own interests was honestly an eye opener, and you are correct, none of it was ever stupid mistakes, it has been gaslighting from the start.

Hardliner
2 days ago

A little harsh. The Sceptic has been saying the same thing certainly as long as Labour has held the reins, and to a mixed extent (‘cock-up or conspiracy?’) during the Tory years. With Boris as leader it was very hard to judge what was deliberate and what was just his usual chaotic style of scientifically illiterate policy

JohnK
3 days ago

No doubt there are many solar panels made in China, but the ones I have on my roof were made in Malaysia and assembled in France.

stewart
3 days ago
Reply to  JohnK

Which means their production was powered by fossil fuels and nuclear.

Hardliner
3 days ago

It’s a classic case of “Is (Miliband) more dangerous (to Starmer) inside the tent pissing out, or outside the tent pissing in?”
To drill or not to drill now is purely about Labour Party management and internal politics, and bugger the British population. It wouldn’t be quite so annoying if it wasn’t the dilemma of a dying man having to choose between being put out of his misery by being shot, or being hung…

News for you Starmer: – you are OUR misery, we don’t care how the PLP ends, but make it quick

st27
st27
3 days ago
Reply to  Hardliner

Absolutely – the PLP’s priorities, tensions and squabbles have completely drowned out any interest outside that bubble.

It’s why I hold out little hope for the result of an Ides of March for Starmer. Whoever comes out on top of the ensuing catfight, it’ll still have sod-all to do with actually changing policy.

James.M
James.M
3 days ago

Why don’t journalists and net zero critics attack the science behind Net Zero? We all know the science doesn’t stack up. All these arguments about ‘energy security’ and resources are redundant if the PsTB wake up to the fact that the whole ‘saving the planet’ narrative, using less fossil fuels = less CO2 = no catastrophic climate change etc., is completely false. The reason there is this endless argument over energy security, who is right or who is wrong, goes up in smoke once the correct science is established.

Marcus Aurelius knew
Reply to  James.M

TheCorrectScience™ ?

😉

kev
kev
2 days ago
Reply to  James.M

Objective science = reality!

It is very difficult for net zero critics to get anything printed in anything remotely mainstream.

We never need to seek out the other side of the argument (to us), because its all you ever hear 24×7 on MSM, sometimes in the most unexpected places.

They will claim they provide evidence, but mostly it will be based on models, so is proof of nothing, an extrapolation at best! Models are terrible at “predicting” the past, if they were accurate in their predictions, they would be perfect, we already know what happened, at least in the more recent past.

When they provide graphs, they may be based on real data, but they have a tendency to cherry pick the range in a way that favour’s their claim.

Jack the dog
Jack the dog
3 days ago

What an excellent piece.

It is staggering the extent to which our plight is the result of gross incompetence and meddling by the political classes that has been going on for decades.

It is time for a revolution a literal one with barricades, burning cars, shooting and hanging of the perpetrators.

Why should we tolerate any longer the subjugation of our nation and the immiseration of our people?

jsampson45
jsampson45
3 days ago
Reply to  Jack the dog

Because we don’t have an alternative. None has been developed.

Jack the dog
Jack the dog
3 days ago
Reply to  jsampson45

We need to make an alternative.

st27
st27
3 days ago

I have to try to look on the bright side of this whole Iran/Hormuz business. The bright side is that Milliband has been outed as The Messiah(*) just a naughty boy.

(*) in his own mind…

Monro
3 days ago

‘Stories about foreign tyrants and mad mullahs excite neocon warpigs’

What is a ‘neocon warpig’ and why are they excited by foreign tyrants, mad mullahs?

stewart
3 days ago

In other words, government should get out the way and let human inventiveness and initiative free to solve the issues, as it has always done throughout history. The less constrained the entrepreneurial spirit is, the more progress we get.

john1T
3 days ago

“Who needs enemies with a government like our”- quote of the day!

varmint
2 days ago

What this eco socialist buffoon is doing is TREASON. ——–The meaning of which is———The betrayal of allegiance toward one’s own country, especially by committing hostile acts against it or aiding its enemies in committing such acts.

Richard Lyon
Richard Lyon
2 days ago

The prospect for major new oil finds is rather more limited than Ben suggests. Those who are interested in the details from a Petroleum Engineer’s perspective might find this chapter summary for my forthcoming book “The Energy Trap: Why the Renewable Energy Transition Can’t Work – And What Can” useful: https://richardlyon.substack.com/p/chapter-3-the-depleting-oil-inheritance

This is not to disagree with Ben’s overall thesis that we should drill. But it is to emphasise that oil is what we build any new energy system with, and is rapidly depleting. It has to be used very wisely.