Western Morning News (Saturday)
If the lights go out will there be riots?
Ian Handford warns Rishi Sunak that he needs to tread and react very carefully
CHIEF Executive Officer John Pettigrew of the National Grid this month warned there could be a need for the grid to impose cuts in the electricity supply, should we start to experience really cold weather from January to March in the New Year.
In advising consumers about what he calls “rolling power cuts” during 2023, this would however still require the approval of Parliament and King Charles before they become legal.
It is appalling to me that after five decades of talking about climate change and its effects, we are still faced with possible power cuts repeating those suffered in the 1970’s. Having been in business for over 30 years, during which I retained the role of voluntary nonparty political adviser for the Federation of Small Businesses, this gave me access to the highly paid civil servants of government and at Whitehall, who deal daily with policy issues that are a statutory duty. The first duty is to keep our nation safe and then, as highlighted in my past features, advise the “powers that be” on all issues of policy.
The problem with today’s civil servants is that, in general, they are unqualified and unprepared to carry out the tasks given. Most come straight from university with little or no experience of what we in the private sector call “the real world”. Having recently experienced the worst pandemic in history (Covid) you may recall Sir Patrick Vallance (scientist/adviser) on your TV nightly partnering Boris Johnson in his No 10 presentations concerning the pandemic. Sir Patrick has now admitted publicly how he was forever frustrated at finding himself wasting a lot of time educating officials of Whitehall, on what he termed “science basics”.
His comments only confirm what others knew, that few officials in government are qualified to tackle experts, seeing their role as mainly objecting to processes used. In auditory terms you could say – but if officialdom is unable to question auditors, who audits them?
Years ago it was realised paid officials rarely get censured or named for failure, and with no accountability/transparency wrong decisions are hidden. As we saw in the TV comedy Yes Minister, generally speaking inefficient officials are just moved on.
In my article headed “It’s not just the lights going out that should worry us” nine years ago, I examined how an announcement on a new National Policy sought to close down gas, oil and coal powered electricity generating systems. The EU Large Combustion Plant Directive had just passed through Parliament and without any public consultation just seven days later two of our largest coal fired power stations closed. Fortunately, we later left the EU and perhaps might have expected Whitehall advisers would slow down the pace of change, in the hope that consumers would never be threatened by a loss of power. It was 2013, a time when climate change activists and the Green Party were on the up and today the same activists are more visible and powerful when overseeing our use of fossil fuel around the UK. Yet many third world countries are still increasing their use of fossil fuels and yet experience no resistance from any climate change activists.
Sadly, our anti’s seem to win most of the arguments about our use of fossil fuels, yet still seem to accept the construction of evermore offshore or land based windfarms and ever larger so-called solar panel farms built on farmland. It never ceases to amaze me activists can actually support the use of the UK’s most valuable finite resource – farmland – when knowing we need to produce more food for an ever increasing population.
Another sadness has been the recent U-turn on fracking by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who has overturned the recent decision of Prime Minister Liz Truss, who saw fracking as a way of offering cheap energy, within months. Had gas and oil fracking gone ahead the possibility of a failing grid would have been greatly reduced. If we now experience “blackouts”, the new nightmare comes at exactly the same time as consumers are faced with new rising utility costs, as already announced. Some estimates suggest £900 extra per household. I would not be overly surprised if we saw a repeat of the 1990’s Poll Tax riots, which ultimately brought about the resignation of Prime Minister Thatcher. Our latest Prime Minister, still enjoying his first 100 days, will need to tread and react very carefully, say I!
Monday: Columnist Judi Spiers starts the week with her popular slant on life’s varied highs and lows