I’m buying a generator. Who would want to invest in blackout Britain?

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Ed Miliband’s energy policies risk an energy crisis this winter, warns Allison Pearson - Getty

It’s been another nail-biting week in Mad Ed’s Blackout Britain! No wind and colder temperatures caused an upsurge in demand for power. Who could have predicted that? What is this “winter” of which they speak? I am seriously thinking of buying a generator and I’m not the only one.

John writes: “As a professional geologist in oil and gas, I personally have a stash of six gas bottles in the garden, an LPG/petrol generator, a wood burning stove and four tons of wood.” Quite a lot in his field expect blackouts this winter, reports John. “If you think toilet paper made people crazy during lockdowns, I dread to think how very cold people, or people without charged phones, will react when the power goes off. Hopefully, they’ll take it out on Ed the Bacon Mangler.

By delightful coincidence, it was on the day of Sir Keir Starmer’s investment summit that the country’s Blackout Prevention Plan was activated. Why would all those super-wealthy power-brokers at the Guildhall want to put their money into a country with the most expensive electricity in the developed world? A nation, no less, which could be plunged into darkness should President Macron throw un peu de hissy fit and switch off the interconnector that sends us the power we should be making ourselves. Our energy security is non-existent.

Just to make us even more attractive to the international investor, Big Ange, the deputy PM, and Lou Haigh, she of the public-sector-pink hair, thought it was a good time to extend employees’ rights so fresh-faced new recruits are entitled to the same Ts&Cs as experienced members of staff. In future, you can get maternity leave without the faff of getting pregnant. Yay!

If there was a company left in the UK that was still prepared to hire a young person, Rachel Reeves was on hand to stop them with her touted increase in employer contributions to National Insurance. Following Labour’s manifesto pledge not to increase taxes, including NI, on “working people” the Chancellor appears to have taken the bold decision to exclude employers from the category of “working people”.

That’s odd. In 2021, there was this woman with a black bob and a foghorn voice who warned the Commons that rises to employers’ National Insurance will “make each new recruit more expensive and increase the costs to business.

“The decision to saddle employers… with job taxes takes money out of people’s pockets when our economic recovery is not yet established or secure and only adds to the pressure on businesses… When all other costs are going up – the costs of energy and supplies – these tax rises are only hitting them harder.”

If only *checks notes* Rachel Reeves could have a word with, um, Rachel Reeves. She could still add up back then.

Meanwhile, a friend who attended the investment summit texted me updates on the PM’s performance that were almost Tim Stanley-esque in their glorious, soaring witty despair. “Am five minutes into Starmer’s speech and you would think from his tone that he is having to rebuild the country after a nuclear war. It’s like listening to a priest at a funeral. I fully expect him to finish with ‘Now please join me in saying the prayer our father taught us…Our father, who art in heaven’ and then to give notice of the next Bible study group.”

A few minutes’ later, my friend reported: “This is so embarrassing… Starmer’s just said his majority means his decisions will be measured ‘in years not months’. He is reading the autocue and making a mess of it. He hasn’t got a clue. He hasn’t mentioned anything specific at all. Just generalist, big-picture rubbish. Mr Platitude!”

And finally: “Utterly useless. Starmer was schooled by [former Google CEO] Eric Schmidt. As much of a confidence builder as a general sending troops over the top at the Somme.”

Sounds like another roaring success for our new Labour government and with Rachel’s Budget of Doom arriving imminently to crush any lingering signs of hope in the economy.

I would conclude by saying: “Would the last wealthy person to leave the country please turn out the lights.” But there won’t be any lights to turn out. Not in crazy, net zero-pursuing Blackout Britain.

PS: In my Mad Ed’s power cut sweepstake – feel free to enter! – the smart money is moving to Christmas Day. If that came to pass, it wouldn’t just be the turkey that was cooked. The Bacon Mangler himself would be stuffed.