The following year the Labour government established the Department of Energy and Climate Change (with Ed Miliband at the helm) and passed the Climate Change Act, which committed the UK to cutting carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions by 26 per cent in 2020 and 80 per cent by 2050. It also established a peculiarly British quango, the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), composed of august chaps who knew in advance what sort of advice they must offer the government.

The advent of the Coalition government in 2010 only accelerated the process, with Liberal Democrats in charge at the DECC, and the Tories largely maintaining the blue-green line established by David Cameron when in opposition.

The result has been a bonanza for investors in wind generated power, and stagnation elsewhere. Unable to rely on the signals emanating from government, private industry has contented itself with soaking up the renewable subsidies, while deferring investment in the only serious medium-term solution to the looming power crisis, combined cycle gas turbines.

The more renewables are connected to the grid, the higher the overall level of subsidy that needs to be paid by consumers: prices rise as a result, which creates a new political imperative, namely cheaper energy. Government has responded by blaming the energy companies, and implementing, in the usual British way, a series of official inquiries.

It has been a constant theme of the propaganda — sorry, analysis — emanating from DECC and the CCC that world market prices for gas and oil are going to rise steadily over the coming years and decades. In fact they have fallen, which means the subsidies for green energy — and the hideously expensive new nuclear plant at Hinkley Point — will have to increase.

Scenario planning is a normal part of business life. All big companies do it, but most of them recognise that their scenarios are constantly being bent out of shape by events. The British government on the other hand elevates its scenario planning to the level of policy, and then slavishly implements it, whatever may be happening to change the real world scenario around it.

In technical terms, the decisive energy development of the 21st century has been successful and cheap fracking. It has wrecked everyone's scenarios. Along with a vast potential increase in global hydrocarbon reserves, fracking has seriously cut oil and gas prices. The recent $35/barrel (30 per cent) drop in crude prices is a taste of what may come as the United States ramps up shale hydrocarbons production and becomes a net exporter of oil, gas and coal.

Unlike the US, Britain has singly failed to exploit its clearly very considerable shale resources. There are legal reasons — ownership of the substrate is different here — but mainly it is because politicians are unwilling yet to face the wrath of the anti-frackers. Backing shale would also be a vote for a new source of carbon-based fuel (albeit a relatively clean one), and that would contradict the entire thrust of energy policy. To make it happen, HMG would really have to throw its weight behind shale exploration and turn on the Green Blob that has dictated policy for the past ten years.