It will create lots of well-paid jobs, especially in Scotland. It will reduce our electricity bills. And it will make sure the lights can still be switched on regardless of what is happening in the rest of the world. Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has made a big pitch today for ‘energy security’, promising to rip up planning rules for onshore wind power and create a state-owned green energy giant that will provide all the power the UK needs, as well as hitting all our targets on climate change. But hold on. On closer inspection, it seems that Sir Keir knows barely anything about energy security.

His backbenchers, and definitely not the Liberal  Democrats he may well depend on for support, won’t let him build wind farms across the country

In fairness, Sir Keir has got one thing right. Our energy supplies remain very fragile. Over the past couple of weeks the price of natural gas in Europe has risen by 50 per cent as traders bet on huge shortages over the coming winter. We got lucky last winter, with relatively mild weather, and with plenty of LNG from the United States shipped across the Atlantic, but it may not be so easy once the cold weather is back. The blunt fact remains that we don’t have enough energy, and we can’t rely on current supplies, and that is as true of the UK as any other country.

The trouble is, Sir Keir clearly has no idea how to fix that. As it happens, it could be relatively easy for the UK to move towards self-sufficient in energy. There is still plenty of oil and gas left underneath the North Sea, and we could be drilling for that, but Sir Keir has committed himself to a  complete ban on new licences. Even President Biden, hardly a right wing climate change denier, has allowed new fields in Alaska, figuring you might as well drill for your own oil rather than importing it, but that is too much for the Labour party. Or we could start fracking, developing a huge new industry as they have in Canada, hardly a far-right country. But instead, Labour supports a total ban on the industry.

Meanwhile Starmer’s plans will come to nothing. His backbenchers, and definitely not the Liberal  Democrats he may well depend on for support, won’t let him build wind farms across the country. And activist lawyers, who Sir Keir instinctively supports, will hold up the process for years in the courts. Likewise, GB Energy, the planned state-owned green energy company will be about as efficient as all the nationalised conglomerates of the 1970s. In truth, Sir Keir can talk about energy security. But his actual plans would make our position more fragile than ever – as he may well discover when he is sitting in the dark in No. 10.