- Bishop Hill blog

There are a couple of interesting reactions to yesterday's Energy Bill debate this morning. Christopher Booker in the Mail stands back and surveys the scene of devastation that the government was wrought:

Sadly, most people still have very little idea just how dangerously crackpot Britain’s energy policy has become, not least because so few people in positions of influence — MPs and journalists much among them — have been prepared to do enough homework to ask precisely the sort of searching questions which Mr Davey thinks we shouldn’t be allowed to ask.

Meanwhile, Richard North examines a little-noticed detail of the bill,

However, while [the threat of Yeo's amendment] was very publicly seen off, creeping under the radar is the concept of Negawatts, aimed at getting us to use less electricity.

This comprised a central part of Greg Barker's speech to the Commons, delivered shortly after the Yeo amendment was defeated by 290 votes to 267 (spool to about halfway down).

Update on Jun 5, 2013 by

Bishop Hill

Meanwhile, Roger Helmer has written an open letter to Tim Yeo, wondering about the latter's conflicts of interest:

Will you now resign from the lucrative positions which you reportedly hold in “green” businesses, if their raison d’être is in doubt? Will you apologise to taxpayers and electricity users on behalf of yourself and your committee for the eye-watering amount of money which you will have wasted, if anthropogenic emissions of CO2 are not to blame? Are you just flashing some ankle? Or will you now call on the government to reverse its disastrous energy policies which are driving industries, jobs and investments off-shore, and forcing households and pensioners into fuel poverty?