DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Self-inflicted misery of our energy insanity
It was the blackest of days for Britain. Yesterday, the fallout from a near two-year global economic shutdown began to bite – and agonisingly hard.
There can be no sugar-coating the bad news: Millions must steel themselves for immensely difficult times ahead.
And as the great purge of Downing Street advisers started following Partygate, didn’t the grave plight facing almost every household make the Left’s fixation with cake and drinks appear very trivial?
For the Bank of England governor had warned the biggest fall in living standards since records began in 1990 was looming.
On what was fittingly dubbed Black Thursday, the gloomy news came thick and fast. It’s hard to know where to start.
Typical gas and electricity bills will skyrocket by a wince-inducing £700.
For ordinary families, this feels less a cost of living crisis, and more a brutal mugging. (Pictured: Chancellor Rishi Sunak)
Inflation is forecast to hit 7.4 per cent – a level not seen for a generation. Food, fuel and transport prices are spiralling.
To fight this fire, the Bank put up interest rates – a painful blow for many mortgage holders and home-buyers. And all this before crippling tax increases kick in.
For ordinary families, this feels less a cost of living crisis, and more a brutal mugging.
To his credit, Rishi Sunak announced emergency support to soothe the pain.
Every household will receive up to £350 including rebates to help with bills.
Like all chancellors, though, he deployed smoke and mirrors. Not all the money will arrive in time for bills landing on doormats in April and most must be repaid.
But wouldn’t a better way – a more Conservative one – of helping struggling families be to scrap the unpopular national insurance hike or axe VAT and ludicrous ‘green’ subsidies on domestic fuel? That would leave more money in their pockets.
It’s true that the trigger for this crisis has been the sudden surge in gas demand as the global economy reopens. But by bungling its energy policy, Britain has left itself especially vulnerable to shocks.
Successive governments ignored warnings about the insanity of having no long-term strategy to safeguard energy security. Now the chickens have come home to roost.
How unnecessary this is. For Britain sits on an energy goldmine. We have vast unexploited reserves of oil, gas and shale. And we had the chance to expand nuclear power.
But hypnotised by the apocalyptic alarmism of eco-activists, our politicians have pursued an aggressive green agenda, shunning these abundant power sources.
It means we are left at the mercy of unreliable renewables and importing high-priced energy to stop the lights going out.
While Boris Johnson burnishes his credentials by recklessly committing to go further, faster, than anyone else to net zero – causing great suffering to consumers and businesses – China continues building coal-fired power stations, adding a UK’s-worth of carbon dioxide emissions every year.
The Mail believes passionately in the obligation to safeguard the planet for future generations. But energy security and economic growth should be the embattled PM’s number-one concern.
Yesterday, hardship-threatened Britons saw with their own eyes the miserable consequence of him treating those priorities as afterthoughts.
Lockdown addiction
The Daily Mail has long raised the alarm about how prescription pill addiction is a major problem in the UK.
So it is shocking that hospital admissions for opioid overdoses have soared 50 per cent in the past decade, sparking fears of a US-style tsunami of dependency.
With so many patients waiting in pain for treatment in the Covid backlog, experts warn the crisis will only get worse.
This silent epidemic of health misery is another stark illustration of the devastating collateral damage of lockdown.
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