Ed Miliband’s Net Zero Delusion: A Self-Inflicted Wound Bleeding Britain Dry

 

Today, February 25, 2025, Britain wakes to yet another gut punch: Ofgem has hiked the energy price cap by £111 annually, pushing the typical household bill to £1,849 from April. For businesses, the sting is even sharper, with industrial electricity costs already the highest in the developed world—four times those in China, according to industry analysts. 

This isn’t a blip; it’s a slow-motion catastrophe orchestrated by Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, a complicit Ofgem, and their shared obsession with a Net Zero fantasy that’s torching the UK economy and our industrial backbone. The damage is self-inflicted, the solutions are ignored, and the costs—both financial and environmental—are staggering.

 

The Price Tag of Madness

Let’s start with the numbers. For the average household, £1,849 a year is a 50% leap from pre-Ukraine war levels, with forecasts suggesting another £85-100 rise by spring, courtesy of Cornwall Insight and government insiders. That’s £750 more than in 2022—an extra burden Miliband promised to ease during Labour’s campaign, only to deliver the opposite. 

 

For industry, the picture is bleaker. Electricity prices for UK businesses hit 25-30p per kilowatt-hour in 2024, dwarfing the 6-8p in the US or China. Steelworks, chemical plants, and manufacturers—once the pride of Britain’s industrial might—are buckling under costs that make them uncompetitive globally. Tata Steel’s looming closure of Port Talbot and Vauxhall’s shuttered Luton plant are just the latest casualties.

 

This isn’t a global crisis we’re helplessly caught in; it’s a British own-goal. Miliband blames “surging gas prices” and “petrostates,” but gas futures have dipped 10% since January. The real culprit? Net Zero levies—subsidies for wind, solar, and other renewables—piled onto bills via schemes like Contracts for Difference. Miliband’s own department admits these “drive up retail electricity prices,” yet he doubles down, claiming clean energy will “lower bills.” Tell that to the 22 million households and countless firms staring at bankruptcy.

 

The Highest Energy Prices in the World

Britain now boasts the dubious honour of the world’s priciest electricity for industry—a crown won not by accident but by policy. While the US drills for “liquid gold” under Trump and China powers its factories with coal, the UK shackles itself to renewables that can’t deliver when the wind doesn’t blow or the sun doesn’t shine. Last year, we paid £270 million to Chinese-backed wind farms to switch off because the grid couldn’t handle their output. Meanwhile, our steel industry gasps its last breaths, our chemical sector fades, and AI firms—vital for future growth—eye relocation to energy-rich Georgia, USA, where 20 gigawatts of new demand is being met head-on, not stifled by green dogma.

 

A Crippled Economy and Industrial Base

The economic fallout is brutal. De-industrialisation isn’t a theory—it’s happening. Jobs vanish, investment flees, and emissions simply shift overseas, mocking Net Zero’s supposed environmental gains. Ineos boss Jim Ratcliffe warned in January that “chemical manufacture has the life squeezed out of it” by these prices. The Treasury loses £30 billion in potential revenue from stalled North Sea projects like Rosebank, blocked by Miliband’s ideological veto despite Starmer’s alleged assurances to Norway’s Equinor. Growth? Forget it. Reeves might whisper about abandoning Net Zero for economic sanity, but Miliband’s zeal drowns her out.

Self-Inflicted Wounds

 

This is all avoidable. Britain sits on untapped North Sea oil and gas—enough to ease supply pressures and slash import costs. Rosebank alone could yield 300-500 million barrels of oil, covering 7% of UK production over its lifetime. Using it would cut shipping emissions from LNG tankers crisscrossing the Atlantic and Pacific, a dirty irony Miliband ignores. Instead, we spurn our own resources, hike taxes on a dying offshore sector, and lean on Chinese tech—solar panels and EV batteries—tainted by coal-fired plants and slave labour. Miliband’s “energy independence” is a farce when it swaps Putin’s gas for Xi’s renewables.

 

Ofgem: A Toothless Puppet, Not a Watchdog

Ofgem, meant to protect consumers, is no independent arbiter—it’s a Net Zero cheerleader. Its “Consumer Interest Framework” prioritises a “low-cost transition to Net Zero” over affordable bills, a mandate Miliband exploits to push his sprint to decarbonise the grid by 2030. Today’s price cap hike proves it: rather than challenge the renewable levy burden or force suppliers to absorb costs, Ofgem rubber-stamps rises and parrots green rhetoric. Miliband’s urgent letter to its CEO, Jonathan Brearley, demanding “faster mitigations” is theatre—Ofgem’s too busy redesigning regulations for a utopian grid to care about today’s pain.

 

The Real Fix: Ditch the Delusion

Energy prices would fall if we drilled our own oil and gas, not shipped it in. The Climate Change Committee admits we’ll need fossil fuels even post-2050 Net Zero—why not use what’s under our feet? It’s cheaper, cleaner than imports, and keeps cash in the UK, not Beijing or Qatar. Instead, Miliband bets on wind and solar, propped up by Chinese tech we can’t control and grids that can’t cope. Global emissions won’t budge—China’s coal plants and Trump’s drilling dwarf our cuts—but Britain’s economy will crater.

 

The Verdict

Ed Miliband’s Net Zero crusade, abetted by a spineless Ofgem, is a masterclass in delusion. It’s driving up costs for families and firms, gutting our industrial base, and chaining us to foreign powers—all while pretending it’s for the planet. Today’s price hike isn’t a surprise; it’s a symptom of a policy that’s not just failing but actively harming us. Time to wake up, ditch the green fairy tale, and start powering Britain with reality.