The Economic Illiteracy of UK Energy Policy is a Sight to Behold

Ed Miliband's under-secretary claims there is "no material difference" between the country importing oil and drilling for it itself

It seems that economic illiteracy is now a job requirement for leadership positions in the country’s energy policymaking. Few spectacles rival the ongoing comedy of errors that is the United Kingdom’s energy strategy under the stewardship of Michael Shanks, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy since July 2024, and his superior, Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, Ed Miliband. Mr Miliband has been derisively dubbed 'Mad Ed' by those who see through the haze of eco-utopian rhetoric. Mad Ed’s economic and energy illiteracy has already been the subject of several articles in these pages (here and here).

Mr Shanks’s recent claim that there is “no material difference” between importing oil and gas and producing it domestically in the North Sea is not just a misstep; it is economic illiteracy, a statement so divorced from basic economic principles that it would make an Econ 101 student blush. This is not merely a gaffe but a symptom of a deeper malaise: a leadership that prioritises ideological posturing over the prosperity and security of the British people.