Published: | Updated:
Disappointingly but unsurprisingly, the initial signs that Andy Burnham had heeded Kemi Badenoch's advice to 'stop faffing about' on North Sea drilling proved premature.
Yesterday began on a positive note with the news of the Government's green light for work to begin at the Jackdaw gas field. Hours later, it emerged that Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh - whose devotion to the Net Zero creed is absolute - looks set to refuse approval for the Rosebank oil field.
Yet the ultimate blame for this shambles belongs at the door of the dithering Prime Minister, who appears incapable of making his mind up on the issue.
The decision to give the go-ahead for Jackdaw opens up the prospect of cheaper domestic heating bills in the near future. It paves the way for thousands of well-paid jobs and the hope of energy security. But it is also a tacit acknowledgment that Labour's blinkered approach to North Sea exploration had been a mistake all along.
The PM has yet again shown himself to be incapable of the steady, coherent and principled leadership that the nation needs in these uncertain times
So why on the earth would No 10 give the thumbs-down to the far bigger Rosebank project and the promise of hugely lucrative fuel exports? Only Mr Burnham knows the answer, but the most plausible suggestion is that he is terrified of alienating environmental hardliners on his own party's Left as well as losing support to the discredited Greens.
The PM has yet again shown himself to be incapable of the steady, coherent and principled leadership that the nation needs in these uncertain times. And he is woefully lacking in political judgment if he thinks a ragtag mob of eco-zealots will be enough to save him when election day comes around.
Deepening debt
Standing for the first time at more than £3trillion, Britain's national debt is so large as to be almost unfathomable.
Yet there are smaller - although by no means insignificant - sums that illustrate the scale of the problem in stark terms. The interest alone on the debt is running at £330million per day - and of every £1,000 received in income tax, one estimate suggests £93 goes towards paying it off.
Data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reveals that borrowing climbed to £24.5billion in September, an increase of £1.8billion on the same month last year. It also shows that while the Treasury's revenue grew last month, spending rose at a faster rate.
It doesn't require a PhD in mathematics (or economics) to get to the root of the issue. Put simply, the PM is spending and borrowing far more money than is coming into the Government coffers.
The warning signs have been there from the start. Almost the first thing he did on reaching Downing Street was to start throwing public money around on a range of attention-grabbing gimmicks.
Worse still, he has made it clear that he has no real appetite for tackling the Benefits Street culture nurtured on Labour's watch. If Mr Burnham is concerned about the welfare bill topping the amount raised in income tax during the last fiscal year, then he has yet to suggest a way of addressing it.
Little wonder that the national debt is getting bigger and the interest is accruing. For as long as the PM continues to behave with the financial prudence of a sailor on shore leave, it is only going to get worse.