Ed Miliband unmasked as full cost of his net zero madness emerges – it’s truly terrifying
Ed Miliband is pushing through one of the most expensive policies in British history. He’ll bankrupt us.
Ed Miliband doesn’t want voters to know the true cost of the damage he’s doing (Image: Getty)
It’s hard to grasp the scale of the damage our own Energy Secretary is doing to the country. His zealous dash for renewables is driving up household energy bills, killing industry and loading a vast burden onto taxpayers for a generation or more. PM Keir Starmer tried to curb his swivel-eyed lunacy, but failed. Miliband is now running rampant. Today, we finally have a realistic price tag for what his renewables drive will cost the UK, and it’s more terrifying than even his fiercest critics feared.
Miliband stands accused of pursuing “one of the most expensive policies in British history”, while justifying it using “misleadingly low figures”. That’s the verdict of a new briefing paper from the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA). Worse, Miliband is “shutting down serious democratic debate” to hide just how much money the UK is squandering on his clean energy superpower fantasy.
The IEA has done the sums, and they’re beyond frightening. We’re not talking billions here, or even hundreds of billions. The bill will run into trillions, all to satisfy Miliband’s vanity. He imagines other countries will applaud him. Instead, he’s encouraging them to do the opposite, to avoid bankrupting themselves.
Here’s the reality. The IEA’s analysis suggests the gross costs of net zero could exceed even the highest official forecasts of £7.6trillion. It could top £9trillion. Let’s put that into perspective. The UK’s entire annual economic output is £3trillion. The whole country would have to work flat out for three years just to cover the cost of Miliband’s obsession, without spending a penny on anything else.
The IEA says official estimates are driven by “fantasy assumptions”. Public bodies systematically underestimate the cost of renewables, heat pumps and electric vehicles, while assuming implausibly low borrowing costs. In its briefing paper, The Cost of Net Zero, energy analyst David Turver examines figures from key public bodies such as the Climate Change Committee (CCC) and Treasury.
These bodies claim net zero is getting cheaper. But their figures can’t be trusted as Turver found they’ve changed methodologies. Astonishingly, the CCC has slashed the projected cost of achieving net zero between 2025 and 2050 from £1trillion to just £108billion.
How did it manage that? By adopting “implausibly low projections” and assuming the UK can borrow at well below market rates.
Turver’s own modelling suggests we’re on the hook for £9trillion, or even more given offshore wind failures and higher financing costs. He warned: “Britain has embarked on one of the most expensive economic transformations in its history without honest accounting or proper scrutiny.”
He said voters must be told the true scale of the costs and trade-offs involved in the dash for renewables. Miliband won’t do that. Instead, he’s burying the numbers.
Former energy secretary Claire Coutinho ordered government officials to produce a full costing of wind and solar, including grid upgrades, payments to switch turbines off, and gas back-up when the wind fails. Officials dragged their feet. Miliband scrapped the costing the moment he took power.
If the public knew the real cost of this ideological charge, they’d be up in arms. So Miliband does what Starmer’s ministers do best: twist the truth, hide the numbers and tell fairytales.
The bill will land eventually, and the British people will pay. But they’ve never faced anything on the scale Ed Miliband is lining up for them.
