There Is No Energy Shortfall

Not if we reopen access to this country's vast reserves of coal, and develop other secure, high-waged, high-skilled, high-status jobs for working-class men in the form of hundreds of the nuclear power stations long demanded by the relevant trade unions. Neither side of this is possible without enormous State action, in practice necessitating public ownership. It is either that or this. Which is it to be?

Like the coal on which this island very largely stands, nuclear power is absolutely vital to defending our sovereignty, not least by keeping us out of wars that ought not to concern us, while cementing the Union and while securing the high-wage, high-skilled, high-status male employment that is the economic basis of paternal authority in the family and in the wider community.

Nuclear-generated electricity would be so cheap that it might not even need to be metered. But there is absolutely no need for the price to be paid in increased electricity bills in the short term. China will be using the coal ash from her coal-fired power stations to provide the uranium necessary for her nuclear power stations. There is a reason why some countries last and some do not. China has been China for five thousand years.

This perfectly beautiful programme has been developed in partnership with Canada, the source of much of our uranium, which we also obtain largely from Namibia, and from Australia when the government is not made up of the ecomaniacs who have, alas, taken over the Australian Labor Party and disenfranchised its natural supporters. Who says that Commonwealth ties no longer matter? The ruling faction of the ALP is as anti-monarchist as it is hostile to the proper jobs and the energy security that nuclear power provides. That makes sense.

Apparently, British coal is too high-quality to deliver uranium. Just as well that we have the Commonwealth, then. But the right sort of coal is abundant in Spain, Germany and Poland. Good luck to them. And good luck to the Japanese, who are looking into extracting uranium from seawater. Yes, seawater. Have we any of that? Yes, we have.

Reverse privatisation. Renounce climate change hysteria. And restore the proper jobs that ground proper communities, the economic basis of paternal authority, the national sovereignty that is energy independence and public ownership, the binding of the Union that is public ownership, the Commonwealth ties on which our uranium supply depends, and the freedom to stay out of wars over other people’s oil or gas. All guaranteed by the State, since that is what it is for.

Our society needs to reassert paternal authority, and thus require paternal responsibility. That authority and responsibility require an economic basis such as only the State can ever guarantee, and such as only the State can very often deliver. And that basis is high-wage, high-skilled, high-status employment. All aspects of public policy must take account of this urgent social and cultural need.

Not least, that includes energy policy: the energy sources to be preferred by the State are those providing the high-wage, high-skilled, high-status jobs that secure the economic basis of paternal authority in the family and in the wider community. Nuclear power. And coal, not dole.

Ed Miliband, having told a hundred thousand people and the television cameras at the Durham Miners’ Gala that you were going to reopen the pits, over to you. After all, who else is going to do it? The collectors of Margaret Thatcher memorabilia led by the collectors of Ayn Rand memorabilia?  I don’t think so.