Securing the Future for Somebody or Other

The Bullingdons' hapless token filly at the Department for Energising Climate Change has a delicate balancing act to perform between energy security, affordability and climate change; and when a token filly learns delicacy from the Bullingdons, of course, she learns it from the best. Under orders from the Chancellor, Amber Rudd has announced that she will protect our energy security by handing it to Gazprom and the Heathen Chinee; that affordability will be assured subject to the requirements of the fracking companies; and that keeping the planet habitable will just have to wait until rich people start getting their feet wet. The Government has no particular problem with phasing out coal-burning power stations, because most Conservatives are still vaguely aware that coal has something to do with miners and Arthur Scargill; but the need to do more with less has naturally led Rudd to abandon such unreliable and non-sustainable energy sources as wind, water and solar, and to concentrate on those that provide a decent post-parliamentary career for ex-ministers whose qualifications consist mainly in being as honest as Nick Clegg and as intelligent as Owen Paterson. Still, credit where it's due: she has found a way to recycle Ed Davey, her department's former Deputy Conservative doormat, by blaming him for the muesli-chugging profligacy of the previous Conservative government.