Why the Tories must face the truth about energy bills

One influential figure on the centre-left told me recently that he isn’t bothered about who wins the Tory leadership contest. He argued that the tsunami of problems waiting to hit the new leader – rising energy prices, inflation and a creaking NHS, to name but a few – means the Tories will be in trouble regardless of whether it’s Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak who triumphs.

These issues are enough to sink any government, but especially one that has been in power for 12 years. Given how Boris Johnson dominated politics, whoever succeeds him will to some extent feel like a fresh start. But they won’t be able to pull off his trick of presenting their administration as entirely new.

This is a particular problem for the party as mistakes made, or things not done, since 2010 have compounded the looming energy crisis. It was clearly an error to let the UK’s gas storage run down: Centrica shut the Rough storage site off the Yorkshire coast – which once accounted for 70 per cent of Britain’s natural gas storage capacity – in 2017. It was deemed too expensive to maintain and the government wasn’t prepared to support keeping it open. The belief that it would always be possible to buy gas on the spot overlooked the potential for market shocks.

It was also an error not to ensure that the UK’s power grid infrastructure was upgraded. If there are blackouts this winter it will be, in part, because of congestion on the grid. And it was a terrible mistake not to take action to deal with the fact that much of the UK’s nuclear energy was coming offline; Hinkley Point B, which provided 3 per cent of the UK’s power, was turned off just this week. Shortly before he resigned, Johnson attempted to pin the blame for the lack of nuclear planning on the last Labour government.