A Matter of Principle

That nice Mr Huhne, in his capacity as Deputy Conservative excuse for an energy minister, is giving his masters a bit of a snigger by going to the court of appeal over the Government's plans to cut feed-in tariffs for domestic solar panels.

Of course, just as the Deputy Conservatives' vote to increase tuition fees was actually a vote to reduce tuition fees, and just as the Deputy Conservatives' vote to privatise the NHS was actually a vote to protect the NHS, so the Deputy Conservatives' reduction of support for the solar industry is in fact a gesture of support for the solar industry. A ruling in December backed the claim by two solar companies and Friends of the Earth that the cuts would create "huge economic uncertainty" and would "tend to undermine the confidence of those participating in the market for small solar systems"; but according to that nice Mr Huhne and the Department for Petroleum and Climate Catastrophe, this judgement is based on a misunderstanding. Just as with the education system, the pensions system and the health service, the Whole Point of the cuts is to clarify, facilitate, ensure, encourage, benefit, securify, generositise and fairnessitate. Quite apart from state subsidies being a Bad Thing in themselves, an excessively generous return when the industry is just starting out would lead inexorably to severe depletion in the future, when the industry will be self-sustaining and thus all the more in need of the kind of welfare state that now exists for banks, oil companies, war profiteers and other friends of the earth.

In characteristic style, the Government has shown how many figs it gives for the solar industry and its customers by proposing to backdate the cuts to the middle of the supposed consultation period. Nevertheless, the court ruling was premature as, despite the urgency of the situation, "no decision has yet been taken, and a decision will only be taken after a full analysis of the responses to the consultation". So you see - that nice Mr Huhne isn't even appealing about a real cut, only about a theoretical one which he may or may not choose to implement in the name of stability, sustainability and Shell. That nice Mr Huhne, if you'll just stop sniggering for a moment, is appealing on a matter of principle.