Go, Ed, Go! (But without your nuclear shackles)

I'm loving the Ed Miliband Show! The curtain went up on July 5th, and it's been one reveal a day since then. Leader writers at the Telegraph and Mail have already run out of manufactured rage; Clare Coutinho (Shadow Secretary of State at DESNZ) comes across as a bleating numpty, which is exactly what she was when she held the job herself; the NGOs are loving it, but don't want to be seen to be too nice to Ed – in case it all goes pear shaped down the road.

I don't think it will, but it might. Especially if Ed persists in his nuclear fantasies.

He might just be that crazy – or that beholden to some of Labour's more brutish trade union paymasters. But what a telling contrast he himself dished up last week in this regard.

On Friday, he brought forward the Bill to establish Great British Energy (GBE), a cornerstone of Labour's manifesto and its Net Zero ambitions. The one thing that grabbed everyone's attention was the new partnership between GBE and the Crown Estate to unlock £60 billion of private investment in offshore wind – with a view to securing 30 GW of electricity before 2030 (enough to provide electricity for 20 million homes). To help make this happen, another Bill was introduced to overcome some of the barriers that the Crown Estate currently faces in expediting investment at that scale. Serious stuff!

The GBE Bill also referenced another partnership – with Great British Nuclear, with the emphasis on “exploring how Great British Energy and Great British Nuclear will work together”. And end more of the same kind of meaningless blather!Let me elaborate a bit by way of contrasting these two strategic partners.

1. The Crown Estate

This is a powerful organisation that knows what it's doing, does it with a real sense of purpose, and has been leading the charge on offshore wind for the last decade. It has a tried and tested CEO (Dan Labbad), formerly CEO of property developer Lend Lease here in the UK), a proven sustainability champion, deal-maker and job-creator.

Other big players in the energy sector get this kind of proposition and are already coming forward with their “in principle” commitments.

2. Great British Nuclear

Great British Nuclear’s life started out as a Boris Johnson publicity stunt to get some cheap headlines, and it's been downhill since then. It took two years to set up (civil servants at DESNZ kept asking what this particular Bojo wet dream was all about, and are still waiting for an answer), has no proper governance arrangements, is run by a bunch of nuclear non-entities, and so far has had only one task: to run “the competition “to see who will be the recipient of pots of taxpayers’ money to bring forward our “world-beating” Small Modular Reactor programmes.

It's struggled with this somewhat limited remit (already nine months behind schedule, with at least another six months to go), even though everybody already knows that the Government's favoured SMR black hole will be Rolls Royce – there's nothing worse for ministers than having Tufan Erginbilgic (Rolls Royce’s powerful, whining bully of a CEO) making trouble for you.

So, Ed, where are you going to go with all this? Both the Crown Estate and Great British Energy will, theoretically, help you “de-risk” prospects for critical private sector investors. The Crown Estate will do it for real, reducing the cost of capital, smoothing planning consents, securing supply chains, creating jobs – and, in due course (if not before 2030) – making offshore wind significantly cheaper. Exactly as has happened in Denmark. Great British Nuclear will suck you in, suck you dry, and do none of that.

So, my advice, Ed, is to keep your wonderful show on the road by keeping Rachel Reeves on your side!

The Treasury has always been less enthusiastic about nuclear power than the rest of government. It won't object to a few more tens of millions bunged at Rolls Royce or a few more well-paid nuclear wastrels at Culham (emphasising the links with our inconceivably costly nuclear weapons establishment). But the tens of billions that will be required to de-risk private sector investment in Sizewell C – that's another matter. This is the time, surely, to let Sizewell C die under the weight of its own monstrous irrelevance.

Sizewell C will obviously make literally zero contribution to the 2030 target that Labour has for decarbonising the grid. As it happens, Ed shouldn't really be worrying too much about 2030 anyway. This isn't going to happen (full marks to those sad gits at the Telegraph for spotting this!), but it really doesn't matter. The key date is 2029, the date of the next election, not 2030.

And if Labour has got to 75%/80% by 2029, generating tens of thousands of skilled jobs, establishing secure supply chains, and demonstrating beyond the reach of that rump of right wing loonies, that this is how best to drive growth, ensure energy security, and keep bills down – then Rachel is going to love you!

Precisely because you will have become a very big part of securing that all-important second term.

I often think that politics isn't as difficult as politicians seem to make it. Even smart ones.

So, Ed, keep your eyes on the prize: making people feel good (and possibly even a bit excited) about the UK's low-carbon future – in terms of jobs, skills, supply chains, lower bills and so on. Deep down, you must know as well as I do that's all about prioritising real delivery partners (viz the Crown Estate), not about preposterous pipe-dreaming fantasists in the nuclear industry.

Jonathon Porritt