Some people believe in fairies but can we afford fantasy in government?

If you are not competent, or perhaps if you are dishonest or delusional, then you may not realise that you have to face the consequences of your actions.

That in the end, you must face the facts of life, but if you are in a ministerial position, other people really do have to face the consequences of your decisions in the here and now.

GB News just issued a piece quoting the former chief executive of Energy UK saying that Ed Miliband’s plans won’t decrease the price of UK energy, although they may improve price stability. You can read the article in full by clicking here

She is quoted as saying the following: “I often think that either he lives in a complete sort of cloud cuckoo fantasy land of fanatics, or he actually is knowing that in many respects he is not really telling the people of this country the truth.”

I think that both these statements in this quote are probably true and that in general, this Labour government is not honest with the people of this country about what the consequences of their policies are (including the consequences of the Renters Rights Bill).

They say they will do one thing, but they do things that have the opposite effect; they behave like the fictional government in George Orwell’s 1984! They dishonestly pursue some higher purpose that serves their own cabal, rather than meeting the needs of the people they govern.

Many landlords are looking at Labour’s proposals to mandate moving all BTL properties from e.g. EPC Band D, to EPC Band C+, and they know that the cost of doing this is far higher than Labour’s ‘estimates’ (for estimate, you may prefer to read ‘preferred lies’).

Many owner occupiers are looking at the same thing, realising that if they install solar panels they may only get paid £160 PA to send energy to the grid, that the real cost of an EPC upgrade with everything that you need to make it effective is probably tens of thousands of pounds, versus the cost of a new gas boiler which is probably not much more than £2K. They are perhaps now waking up to the fact that the government taxes electricity more than gas.

Our government is missing the point, which is that the solution really is the tax system. There are lots of things that both landlords and owner occupiers could do to reduce their reliance on energy from the grid or to generate their own energy. If they knew that they could offset the cost of doing that against their tax bill. The solution is to change the tax system such that it empowers people, families and businesses to solve the energy security problem, rather than disempowering them.

But labour ministers don’t want to hear that, they seem to prefer the carbon-capture fantasy spun to them by the representatives of industry, schmoozing them and possibly buying them lunch. They prefer anything that empowers them and their groupthink fantasists rather than measures that truly empower their electorate. Some people in Ireland and Iceland believe in fairies, and they are entitled to believe this, but people like this shouldn’t be in government in Britain.

The real solution to carbon capture is probably various measures to enhance soil regeneration, such as improving biodiversity and embracing regenerative farming, not Ed’s favourite fantasy. Sun, soil and water do a pretty good job of capturing carbon if you let them do it because they’ve got billions of years of practice in the real world, unlike your average labour politician. And you don’t need to give sun, soil and water a gold-plated public sector pension and flexi-time to do it.

The real solution to energy security and price stability is the tax system and empowering the citizens, families and small businesses of the UK to fix the problem, but empowering the electorate is not something that comes naturally to left-wing politicians. They would rather disempower families via the IHT system, and they clearly don’t like small businesses, the engine of the economy, or have any real understanding of it. And why would they? Most of them have never run a small business.

Lots of children believe in fairy stories, but in the end, they have to grow up and face facts. Most of us have realised that we don’t want to live in fantasy land or fairy land by our teens. And in the end, the facts of life that we have to face are death and taxation.

Also that if you can’t offset your investments in energy security against your tax bill, then your death will come before you ever get your money back from that investment. And when your death comes, the wicked stepmother will take the enhanced value of your residual assets from your offspring via the inheritance tax system.

We all want a better world, but this government isn’t going to deliver it. What do Property118 readers think?

P.S. This contribution to Property 118 is offered with an apology to everybody who believes in fairies and fairy stories.

Thanks,

Jeremy