Power and Energy

The new Australian submarines will at least demonstrate a preference for nuclear over diesel. Much of the gas that is used in Britain comes from Qatar, the host and sponsor of the Taliban, but world shortages of either gas or oil ought not to concern us.

Instead, we need an all-of-the-above energy policy based around nuclear power and this country's vast reserves of coal, as well as its increasingly evident reserves of lithium, and as well as its own oil and gas reserves, not least the Cambo oil field west of the Shetland Islands.

Among other things, that would make possible an all-of-the-above transport policy with public transport free at the point of use, plus electricity free at the point of use up to really quite a high level of usage, with only a nominal charge thereafter. This is why we have a State.