It was only on Christmas eve, on the matter of rising energy bills, we remarked that the consequence of this full spectrum policy failure is a collapsing gas retail sector, massive liabilities for the taxpayer and household bills that could see the elderly forced to choose between heating and eating. Labour will no doubt call for funds to be made available so that the poorest need not freeze, but Labour’s energy policy is still directed by Ed Miliband – who is one of the original architects of this disaster under Gordon Brown. They will cushion the symptoms of their failures but won’t fundamentally rethink their approach.

Right on cue we get this from Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor:

“Right now people are being hit by a cost of living crisis which has seen energy bills soar, food costs increase and the weekly budget stretched. That’s why Labour is calling on the government to immediately remove VAT on household heating bills over the winter months. We need a sustainable and ambitious approach to energy, which is why Labour would also ramp up ambition with our plan to retrofit 19m homes, making our energy supply chain more secure without hitting household savings”.

As expected, we see no plans to reform our broken energy sector, and instead we get more tinkering around the edges, and yet another spending programme for insulation. Presumably the Easter bunny is paying for that. But they’ve not once queried whether this is even the right approach for Britain.

All parties are agreed we should spend on insulation because that’s the Westminster bubble groupthink, but the trend towards energy-efficient houses has been found to cause a range of undesirable health problems such as lung cancer and cardiovascular diseases due to lack of proper ventilation.

Poor indoor air quality traps air pollutants that were also found associated to worsen allergies and asthma symptoms, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and airborne respiratory infections. The pollutants were produced from substances used in cooking, cleaning and aerosols like hairsprays. Moreover, in British housing, the concern is as much dampness as cold. What people are often not told by insulation installers is that warm air holds more moisture, and this has got to go somewhere. If insulation means this water vapour cannot escape through walls or ceilings, it sinks into the fabric of the building, or its contents.

As an island nation, Britain has a distinct climate and its older housing stock is simply not suited to Net Zero solutions. The drive for insulation can only lead to yet another government subsidised scam resulting in yet another large scale compensation scheme when householders realise they’ve been had. We can say much the same of the ineffectual heat pumps favoured by Boris Johnson.

This is all very depressing when you think about it. Back in the early days of nuclear power the great ambition was abundant energy that was too cheap to meter. Now we’re told to use less fuel, travel less, eat less meat and make our homes less habitable. Net Zero means colder, darker and poorer.

Now more than ever, Britain needs an energy revolution, but it can only happen with radical and urgent change in political culture across the entire establishment. Across the civil service and the energy sector we find the bosses are marinated in Net Zero dogma, who see the national grid as a weapon of social engineering rather than a means to power homes and industry.

There was a time when energy bosses would be accomplished engineers – but no more. As leading climate sceptic blogger Ben Pile notes in this uncharitable but entirely accurate thread, the chief executive of Energy UK is now a youthful telegenic green activist with an MA in English Lit.

“In the current era of politics, it is ideologically-driven policy wonks who are considered “experts”, not people with practical experience of making things happen. There is a revolving door, between corporations, NGOs, quangos, the civil service… And these idiots pass between them, with ecological utopianism spreading among them like VD at a festival in the ’60s.” You’re not allowed to be an ‘expert’ in today’s ‘expert’ class, if you were a grammar school boy who spent five decades+ designing and managing the grid and its plants. You have to be a posh girl, an arts grad, with the right views. Because that’s diversity”.

The priority for these overpromoted PR girlies is not the security, reliability and affordability of supply. Rather it’s bringing the energy grid in line with the climate and diversity priorities of virtue signalling elites. These political commissars can be found in just about every silo of government and the NGOcracy, and can usually be found on twitter with gender pronouns their bios. This is usually a 100% accurate predictor of all their other views on matters such as Brexit, immigration and Covid lockdowns.

When the commentariat talk about following “the science” and demands we “listen to the experts”, they mean they want a government as weak as Starmer’s Labour, (or Johnson’s Tories for that matter) who will roll over and implement the agendas of the wonkocracy without question. It's narrative conformity they want, not innovation.

Only Ukip is offering a sensible and pragmatic energy agenda, but even if the Tories realised their Net Zero agenda was a lame duck, they still have to take on the woke blob in Whitehall, Westminster and the energy industry. Which they won’t do.

Over the last three decades there has been a quiet takeover in the establishment, and we are (in effect) an occupied country. Our national infrastructure is now the plaything of green ideologues and globalists. We may have left the EU but the prevailing technocratic dictatorial mentality is still deeply rooted, and without a counter-revolution Brexit won’t make much difference to the way things are done.

The penny is already dropping that the Tories won't deliver on immigration, and reform is being blocked for much the same reason as our energy bills skyrocketing. The traditional parties won't pick a fight with the establishment. They get paid the same either way. If you're serious about change then it's time to come back to UKIP.