Viking Pillaged

Even in the era which has brought us the Brexit vote ("increase trade by cutting off the Continent, rah rah") and the Boris landslide ("elect a chancer and get rich quick, rah rah"), connoisseurs of applied Britishness may soon have grounds for yet further rejoicing. The National Johnson's former chancellor, who supported Brexit and who seems to think the best way to control inflation is to starve the National Health Service to death, has proclaimed it "economically illiterate" to withdraw investment from oil and gas, on the grounds that the Britishness of our world-beating net-zero policy is sure to keep the country dependent on fossil fuels for decades to come. Accordingly, a new onshore windfarm in the Shetland Islands, which could generate enough energy for nearly half a million wholly expendable hovels, may instead be put to the worthier purpose of helping a foreign company greenwash its shareholders' latest fossil-fuel bonanza. The only flaw in the scheme, in terms of its attaining truly consummate Britishness, is that as much as twenty-five per cent of the windfarm's output may still be left over once the oil-rigs have taken their plunder.