Let Them Drink Methane

Given that our country consists of various islands, surrounded by sea on all sides (except, at the moment, for the side where it would do the most good); and given that wind and waves are a more or less frequent occurrence on the sea; and given that the sun has been beaming sweatily down on us for the past few weeks like an escaped blob of Boris Johnson's self-esteem - given all these subtle hints as to where we might find new sources of energy, it is only natural that the prevailing religious orthodoxy should decree shale-gas and sustainable uranium as the inescapable way of the future. The Government's choice of today for the annunciation that Cuadrilla can frack the northern proles as much as conscience allows is of course purely fortuitous: it has taken seven years for the Conservatives to lower the relevant standards sufficiently for Cuadrilla to be comfortable in them, and it would be grossly uncharitable to suspect that today's position at the fag-end of the parliamentary session, with no time for questions in the Commons and a convenient plethora of other disasters competing for the media's ever more piscatorial attention span, exerted any influence whatsoever.