I try not to make things personal when criticising this misfiring Labour government. There’s usually no need. Just looking at what its ministers do makes my blood boil. Focusing on the arrogant and ignorant ways they go about it would send me straight to A&E. But Ed Miliband is different. I can’t help it.
He first annoyed me way back in 2010, when he sneakily stole the Labour leadership from his far more electable brother David by cosying up to the unions. Ed might have been vindicated if he’d swept Labour to power, but he blew it. That family betrayal and political failure didn’t dent his preening self-regard one bit.
I assumed we’d heard the last of him, until he reappeared on social media just before the last election, prancing about with a ukulele and singing the virtues of wind turbines. I’m not making that up. It’s on the internet. But it will hurt your eyes.
Now he’s back in power and instantly lifted the ban on onshore wind and launching a frenzied war on the countryside, whose beauty he’ll vandalise forever by plastering it with turbines, pylons, battery plants and solar panels.
Offshore wind? Fine. Solar panels on warehouses, office blocks, car parks and data centres? Good idea. Just keep them off our beautiful, productive land.
But the damage isn’t just aesthetic. Miliband is an economic disaster. His mad, vain NetZero charge could cost the country £14billion a year, and possibly a lot more than that.
Miliband blocked future North Sea oil and gas drilling, making us poorer without helping the planet. We’ll just import the same fuels from countries like Qatar and Norway instead. They’re already far richer than us. And they’d never let a man like Miliband anywhere near their energy policy.
Oh, and he still hasn’t apologised for claiming net zero would cut £300 off energy bills, when household bills have surged instead.
Like all wannabe Marxists, he’s an authoritarian at heart. Miliband has stripped councils of the power to block 800-foot turbines. He’s using the courts to force huge solar farms over arable farmland and trying to bully through unwanted heat pumps on households.
Before the election, he routinely talked about creating 600,000 green jobs. Where are they Ed?
He’s destroyed thousands in oil and gas industries though, especially in Scotland where they hate Labour now. Miliband doesn’t give a damn. He’s a frothing, fuming fantasist
He’s also destroying British industry and manufacturing, as companies are forced to go out of business or shift work abroad, because our energy costs are too high. Now we face blackouts too.
Miliband is also spending tens of billions sums on unproven carbon capture schemes, while insisting the world is desperate to follow Britain’s lead. It isn’t. Most countries won’t touch policies that would cripple their economies.
Which brings me to his latest flash of madness.
Last week, Miliband posted a clip of himself in the Commons, responding to a Conservative MP who asked how much it would cost to subsidise a promised £150 reduction in energy bills. Jabbing his finger and brimming with virtue, he ducked the question altogether. Instead, he self-righteously declared that Labour was proud to have raised taxes on the wealthy to cut bills for millions.
That’s nonsense.
In the Budget, Rachel Reeves extended the freeze on tax thresholds for another three years, to 2031. That’s the single biggest tax rise she announced. The £12,570 personal allowance stays frozen.
So this is Miliband’s definition of “wealthy”. Anyone earning more than £12,570 a year.
Next year, pensioners on the new state pension will be pushed over that threshold for the first time. Are they rich? Reeves says those living solely on the state pension won’t pay tax, but anyone with even modest extra income will. That includes millions of pensioners on very low overall incomes. And of course anyone else earning more than £12,570.
Watching Miliband boast about soaking the wealthy, while celebrating a tax raid that hits people living on just over £12k a year, was staggering. He’s a national liability. He’s helping push policies that cost hundreds of billions, possibly trillions, yet still can’t grasp the basics. I can’t stand much more of this. Neither can the country.