Ann Treneman
There was a spooky moment on the Today programme when Ed Davey, broadcasting from the very wet nuclear power plant site of Hinkley Point C in Somerset, suddenly disappeared.
“We seem to have lost the line to Ed,” said presenter Sarah Montague.
Silence.
It was like the Bermuda Triangle, only it was glowing green. Moments later, after the BBC political editor Nick Robinson also “disappeared”, Ed popped back up. “This is what happens when you don’t invest in our energy infrastructure!” he crowed.
No, Ed, this is what happens when you are in charge. In the Commons, the Curse of Ed Davey struck again. Labour’s Caroline Flint, who is always sparky, as her name decrees, had also disappeared. It seems there were severe disruptions on the line between Doncaster and London, owing to a power failure.
I had visions of Caroline in a dark train, the lights off, sparking away. I regret to say Mr Davey was very much present. It was left to a Labour MP with the special name of Tom Greatrex to note that, while Ed Davey insisted Labour can’t freeze electricity prices for 18 months, he had just done exactly that for nuclear for 35 years.
Mr Davey spluttered that Labour was “economically illiterate”. He also denied he’d said that we should all wear jumpers to ward off higher energy bills. I peered at Mr Davey’s lilac shirt: he may not be wearing a jumper but did I spy an undershirt?
Or, perhaps, a hairshirt? For Mr Davey is a convert to nuclear (though, being a Lib Dem, he could change again at any time). Yesterday he faced down Labour derision. The Lib Dems, all five in the Chamber, just glowered (radioactively) at everyone. The Tories were jubilant. “Can I welcome your Damascene conversion, which grows by the minute!” chortled one.
Mr Davey bristled (easy to do in a hairshirt). “I say to you gently that I hope everyone on the Conservative benches will also understand why I have changed my mind: because of the threat of climate change.”
Silence. We were back in the radioactive Bermuda Triangle. Now Tory Nigel Evans, vocal after resigning the deputy speakership, noted that many converts become zealots: “I hope you are turbo- charged in your zealotry. Anything that protects England’s green and pleasant land from the invasion of yet more wind turbines has got to be good!” “HEAR HEAR!” cried the Tory benches.
Mr Davey re-adjusted his undershirt. “The one thing I’m a zealot about isn’t nuclear, or onshore wind, or any renewable technology, it’s about climate change!” Silence from the Tory benches. Did I see Ed start to fade away? Ed, are you out there?
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