The only way the Tories can show they care about the North is to permit fracking in Sussex

David Howell never really succeeded as energy and then transport secretary in Mrs Thatcher’s governments. After she sacked him in 1983, Thatcher wrote that ‘he lacked the mixture of creative political imagination and practical drive to be a first-class cabinet minister’.

If she were still alive and writing now, she might have added that he has the sensibilities of a rhinoceros on Valium. His remark this week that fracking is more acceptable in the north-east because that part of the country is ‘desolate’ has rightly been condemned. No politician should go about insulting parts of his own country, least of all a part of the country that his party is widely thought to disdain.

Lord Howell’s comments add grist to the arguments of those who complain that the government only supports fracking when it is well outside Conservative constituencies. This is an impression which the government needs to correct very quickly by supporting the case for fracking in Sussex — where this week celebrity protestors have joined locals to oppose an exploratory test bore for oil and gas (not yet involving fracking) — every bit as much as it supports fracking in the Labour heartlands of Lancashire.

It will never be possible to win over the extremities of the nimby tendency. But by tackling the misinformation spewed out by groups claiming to speak on behalf of the environment, a large majority of Sussex residents, as well as those farther north, can be won over. Far from requiring a desolate, lightly inhabited landscape, fracking is quite capable of being carried out in intimate areas of countryside such as the Sussex Weald without ill effect. Fracking does naturally involve a certain amount of fracturing. But this is only required while establishing a well.