Labour’s Great British Energy Sham
By Paul Homewood
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It sounds like it is the SNP who have really rumbled Starmer’s Great British Energy sham:
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LABOUR’S plans for a “home-grown energy company” have unravelled spectacularly after Keir Starmer was forced to admit Great British Energy was “not an energy company”.
The SNP have branded the flagship pledge a “sham” after Starmer dramatically scaled back Labour’s plans during a visit to Scotland on Friday.
Speaking to BBC Good Morning Scotland, Starmer admitted the publicly-owned company would be an “investment vehicle” to pump money into the private sector.
He said: “It’d be an investment vehicle, not an energy company, it’s an investment vehicle in the energy of the future.
“The money going into it would be public money but used to trigger private investment alongside it.”
The Labour leader said he expected it to be profitable and that it would create jobs.
Challenged on whether Labour’s plans to issue no new oil and gas licences and extend the windfall tax on energy giants could lead to job losses, Starmer said: “No, I do reject that analysis, in fact I’m absolutely convinced that the transition can bring more jobs to Scotland and those will last for decades.”
He insisted that oil and gas would “be part of the mix for decades to come” and that would not be “turning off the pipes”.
SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn said: “This interview showed Keir Starmer is utterly clueless about the Scottish energy industry and his only Scottish policy has completely unravelled.
"His damaging plans for so-called ‘GB Energy’ are a sham.
"Starmer has been forced to admit it isn’t an energy company, it won’t produce or sell energy – and it will rely on the same private investment that his policies are putting at risk.”
Flynn , who is the SNP candidate in Aberdeen South, said that industry experts had predicted Labour’s plans could “destroy 100,000 Scottish jobs and deter billions of pounds in investment”.
The Aberdeen and Grampian Chamber of Commerce is among industry leaders who have warned against Labour’s plans to increase the windfall tax on energy firms – who posted record profits due to the war in Ukraine.
Earlier this year, the body said Labour’s plans to hike the tax up to 78% and extend it until 2029 would result in “redundancies on a scale not seen in this country since the pit closures of the 1980s”.
Flynn added: “It’s no wonder Starmer has given up campaigning in the north east of Scotland when he knows his plans are so damaging and unpopular.”
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/labours-gb-energy-plan-branded-103314068.html
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GBE will initially be capitalised at just £8.3 billion, and the extra revenue available from the North Sea windfall tax will be minimal, as Labour only plan to raise it from 75% to 78%, given that global oil prices have been fallen significantly since their 2022 peak. Even assuming Labour’s levy does no reduce investment and output, the proposed increase in the Energy Profits Levy from 75% to 78% will only yield an extra hundred million or so a year. (OBR currently forecasts £9 billion total revenue from the EPL over the next five years.
The SNP are therefore perfectly correct in describing Starmer’s farce as a sham. If it relies just on the extra windfall tax, as he claims, it won’t have enough money to make the slightest difference. And even if Labour borrow more money, which is more than likely, a capitalisation of £8 billion still will barely scratch the surface.
And none of this addresses the real issue – that whether the government or private sector builds wind and solar farms, their electricity is still more expensive than gas, and still needs backing up with dispatchable power.
As for Miliband’s grand hopes of £28 billion a year to spray around on wind farms, insulation, carbon capture and grid infrastructure, they have gone up in smoke. As for his hopes of nationalising the big energy companies, that was always a non-starter.
I think the take home message of all of this is that Starmer’s announcement today is simply a worthless sop to Miliband and the far left greens in the party. Without it, Miliband would probably resigned in a fit of pique.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
The best thing that Starmer could do is to get Miliband to resign. The man has no idea at all.
Yes, but who would want to replace him as our series of mild winters must end at some point and a repeat of the 2010 winter would lead to rolling blackouts God help us if we have a 1947 or 1963 style winter. We then have most if not all of the AGRs closing by the end of the next parliament leaving just the PWR at Sizewell B as it wouldn’t surprise me if the designed to fail project at Hinckley point C is still under construction. I suspect there will be a number of unhappy consumers who were missold heat pumps, electric vehicles and defective cavity wall insulation.
I also suspect the trust the unquestionable settled science types will need to explain why over the last 20 years £100s of billions was spent on wind farms dependent on yet to be invented storage technology like a racket that when if your concern was CO2 a like for like replacement (60 GW+) of nuclear generating with an existing proven design built as a standardised series like France PWRs & to some extent Ontario with the CANDU would make more sense especially when most nuclear reactor designs have a 60+ year lifespan vs 25 years (if we are being generous) for wind.
Miliband certainly has no idea at all about energy and electricity provision in Britain, he is a zeolot and a dangerous one at that. His idea that the electricity grid can be “carbon free” by 2030 is just make-believe but I fear we’ll suffer blackouts while he painfully, and slowly learns this truth – and for a long time beyond because of the damage he will do to our generating capacity unless he is stopped.
Maybe a week without power in winter anywhere in the country is what it will take to eject Miliband and his Labour colleagues. My generator is ready for them.
And only last year R. Reeve lied “These policies could save a typical household up to £1,400, generating savings not just for one year, but for every year to come.”
So I get free energy then?? Mind you if the electricity prices (or gas taxes) reach the levels suggested by the current strike prices I can expect my bills to exceed £1,500.
Having managed (against all the odds) to survive as long as I have – I think now I’ve earned the right to state ANY pre-election promises made by ANY mainstream political party are worth about as much as a used prophylactic floating down the Thames past Westminster bridge.
It’s Friday – and it’s the end of a particularly trying month.
I’m past caring…
Loved your analogy. I truly despair of all these idiots on all sides of the political coin. It makes me quite depressed if I dwell on it for too long. Outside of Westminster we all know our energy is going to cost us even more the more we rush down this Net Zero route.
I’m nearly 80 and couldn’t agree more.
It’s part of the published electoral blather:
Click to access Make-Britain-a-Clean-Energy-Superpower.pdf
They failed to update the drafting
References:
4 https://twitter.com/DrSimEvans/status/1562433136025550848?lang=en
5 https://envirotecmagazine.com/2023/06/15/comment-offshore-wind-needs-to-increase-by-265-to-meet-govt-targets/
The price spike was in 2022, and gas cost is now way below renewables.
GBE is not the only vehicle for wasting money
Another one of those money wasting trigger words – “strategic”.
If I can paraphrase Adam Smith from ‘Wealth of Nations’ in a style I think (hope) he would approve of:
“Ay, yon politicians – get ye the fuck out of business ya gormless, feckless baw-bags ye..Prithee – thy leave it to people who know what they are deeing”
“The Labour leader said he expected it [GBE – a renewable energy wagon] to be profitable and that it would create jobs.“
Not a chance! The only ‘profits’ made are by the renewables grifters like Dale Vince who soak up the subsidies.
”I think the take home message of all of this is that Starmer’s announcement today is simply a worthless sop to Miliband and the far left greens in the party. Without it, Miliband would probably resigned in a fit of pique” – and the Nations that make up the UK would be 100% better off without this failure of a politician- a man who brought a new art to the simple task of eating a simple sandwich, an attempt to appear normal, one of us- just like his Ed-Stone, big, thick and useless, however the block of stone once broken up would make a fine sub-base unlike its originator who would be declared damp and in need of serious remedial works.
the Great British Energy Company is too be an investment company “leading” the way for private equity- and who is going to be assessing the “investment” opportunities- pray that it is not the unCivil Service, the losses will be on a scale unseen in modern times but written off as unforeseen market conditions working against the prevailing sentiment. Oh well, it does not matter, it is after all Other Peoples Money.
Vallance, by the sounds of it.
The Conservatives have cocked things up big time. It’s hard to imagine any other party doing any worse, but here we are.
Labour must not win this election.
Have you seen GBE’s logo? It looks like a light bulb of unknown gender.
Anyone should know that when a politician says “investment” the meaning is wasting taxpayer money.
The role of GBE is to pour subsidies into projects that are completely unviable financially – floating wind, hydrogen hubs etc. It should be killed at birth: let’s save the £8bn initial price tag and the £80bn cost overrun.
Future comment
“I found out today that it is an immutable fact that it takes more energy to produce hydrogen than that hydrogen then contains”, said Mr Miliband, “but that doesn’t mean it’s not the right thing to do”
Perhaps for older readers only, memories of “The Groundnut Scheme”. Another Labour Govnmnt waste of OUR money.
I don’t have a full understanding of the purpose of Great British Energy, but it does seem to be structured to funnel taxpayers’ money -> private sector.
… funnel tax-payers’ hard-earned money to ‘friends’ in the [notionally] private sector.
Is that Fa5ci-sm, or something rather too close to it?
Auto, asking for a pal called Millipede …
Is that Fa5ci-sm….
The belief in dangerous AGW is the core element of a belief system. Fascism, communism and religions are also belief systems.
Miliband is the son of a Marxist academic so it’s hardly surprising he wants everything under state control. The only skill he possessed was shamelessly shafting his brother.
The Unions knew which Miliband to back…..