In response to the 10% hike in energy prices this winter, the media last Friday was graced by two stunningly misleading statements, by Claire Coutinho and Ed Miliband, one after the other.

Claire Coutinho, said that cheap, non-renewable energy should be prioritised over carbon reduction targets to help struggling families this winter. This is the truth turned upside down and inside out.

To start with, perhaps Coutinho hasn’t noticed that the increase in energy prices this winter is being caused by increases in the prices of oil and gas. These are “non renewable” not cheap, and getting more expensive. Ceratinly more expensive than renewable sources.

Renewable energy became cheaper than fossil fuels as long ago as 2020.

Moreover, Eco experts reports that the IEA reported that in 2023, an estimated 96% of newly installed, utility-scale solar PV and onshore wind capacity had lower generation costs than new coal and natural gas and three-quarters of these new wind and solar PV plants offered cheaper power than existing fossil fuel facilities.

And renewables are becoming cheaper, while fossil fuels are becoming more expensive. Very profitable for that reason, however. Which is why Coutinho – formerly a senior fellow at fossil fuel funded right wing think tank Policy Exchange – wants to promote them.

So, doing what Countinho wants would increase bills, not reduce them and force struggling families to struggle even more. She either doesn’t know this, and is just a fool, or she does, and is cynically carrying on the Great Conservative Johnsonian tradition of bare faced lying, in the hope that if she brasses it out with enough self confidence no one will point out that she is speaking gibberish.

In an attempt not to be outdone, after rightly saying that this increase is partly a result of the Tory failure to invest sufficiently in renewables – assessed by Carbon Brief as now costing the average household around £40 to £60 a year – Ed Miliband went on to say that the prices are also going up because the UK is at the mercy of international markets controlled by dictators.

This trips off the tongue as one of those off the peg soundbites that requires no thought at all, and slides effortlessly along the the simplistic Foreign Policy groove shared by both front benches, and in so doing hides the fact that the increase in both oil and gas prices is caused by wars driven by Western allies; as it is designed to do.

• the increase in oil prices is caused by fears of wider war in West Asia caused by Israel’s assassination of the top Hamas negotiator in Iran and several Hezbollah commanders in Lebanon; which at the very least sabotages ceasefire negotiations for Gaza, and at the most, could lead to a war across West Asian as the “democratic” far right government in Israel seeks to carry out the Samson doctrine on an apocalyptic scale. It pretty much an iron law that when US aircraft carrier task forces mass in the Eastern Med’ and Persian Gulf, oil prices go up in case there’s trouble ahead.
• the price of gas started rising again this year because NATO is sustaining the Ukraine war instead of looking for a negotiated peace, and given an extra boost when the Ukrainian armed forces launched their reckless and doomed offensive into the Kursk region of Russia, further threatening gas supply. As the Financial Times put it The latest increase in the price cap is also connected to the war in Ukraine, with wholesale prices climbing over the past few months because of uncertainty over Russia’s remaining gas supplies to Europe. My emphasis.

The top suppliers of imported gas to the UK are Norway (by pipeline) and the USA (very expensive LNG, much of it fracked which has a carbon footprint as bad as coal).

Go green. End the wars. Cut the prices.