In the quiet corridors of policy-making, where the technocrats and lobbyists whisper sweet nothings about ‘Net Zero’ and ‘sustainable transitions’, ordinary folk are left holding the bill. Recently, Britain’s energy regulator Ofgem slipped out plans to hike standing charges on electricity bills, a fixed fee that punishes the small and the thrifty.
The result? A £3.7 billion windfall for the Treasury, courtesy of SMEs subsidising the energy hogs like steel mills and data centres. Hospitality bosses, already battered by wage hikes and National Insurance squeezes, called it ‘unacceptable’. Kate Nicholls of UKHospitality nailed it: the energy market is ‘completely broken’.
Sound familiar? It’s the canary in the coal mine – or should I say, the wind turbine on the Central Coast – for Australia’s own energy fiasco.
Here, we’re told renewables are the future, yet blackouts loom, prices soar, and the bill for propping up the grid lands squarely on households and small businesses. The Albanese government’s obsession with emissions targets ignores the human cost, with families choosing between heating and eating, and cafes closing doors under the weight of subsidies for Big Solar.
If Britain is the harbinger, Australia is the echo chamber, amplifying elite delusions while the rest of us foot the bill.
But if rising cost of electricity is a slow-burn outrage, the media’s selective outrage on security threats is a full-throated farce. Consider the horror that unfolded in Manchester on October 2, during Yom Kippur no less.
Jihad Al-Shamie, a 35-year-old who was reported to be on bail after being arrested on suspicion of rape, allegedly rammed his car into worshippers outside Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation synagogue, then stabbed a security guard to death.
Two Jewish lives snuffed out in minutes of terror.
Eyewitnesses spoke of ‘immediate bravery’ from congregants, barricading doors against the blade-wielding fanatic. Counter-terror police declared it a terrorist incident within hours, MI5 went on high alert, and arrests followed swiftly.
When it comes to covering the story, the media have moved at a glacial pace. Initial reports from the BBC and others focused on ‘a man’ and ‘fears of violence’, even though the attacker’s type of crime strongly suggested terrorism. Tributes poured in, but qualifiers abounded. Was it ‘linked to wider tensions’?
Only days later did the full picture emerge. Contrast this with the East Sussex mosque fire just days prior: no injuries, but police probed it as a ‘hate crime’ from the jump.
Or the Taunton mosque vandalism. Windows smashed, appeals for info, and the hate crime banner waved before the dust had even settled. A man with a knife at a Portsmouth mosque? Jailed for a ‘hate crime incident’ quick smart.
How is this not a double standard? In one breath, a synagogue bloodbath is ‘under investigation’, motives ‘unclear’. In the next, a singed minaret is emblematic of rising Islamophobia, demanding societal soul-searching.
It’s as if the press operates under an unwritten edict to protect the narrative at all costs.
And who drives it? The chattering classes, of course – the leftist and state-owned media echo chamber, the virtue-signalling NGOs.
Closer to home, the pattern persists. When threats are made, it matters to the press who makes them. Some stories are elevated, even inflated. Others are buried or nudged quietly out of sight with inconvenient details omitted.
It is the difference between front-page outrage and an anonymised footnote.
I do not support any kind of extremism. How people practice their faith in a law-abiding way is none of my business. But the double standards are so obvious they are poking my eyes out.
This isn’t journalism, it’s narrative laundering.
The media, in thrall to progressive pieties, filters reality through a lens of who deserves outrage.
And the politicians? They’re complicit, chasing the applause of Davos and the Wokerati, not the quiet desperation of electorates. Albanese preaches unity while his energy policies bleed households dry and his security briefings tiptoe around radicalism. It’s time ordinary folk – the tradies, the baristas, the synagogue-goers and church pew-sitters – demanded representation that isn’t scripted by focus groups in Fitzroy or Surry Hills.
Are we really that gullible? To swallow broken government-run markets as ‘progress’, selective reporting as ‘balance’, and elite agendas as ‘empathy’? Wake up, Australia, before the lights go out – and the truth with them.
Dr Michael de Percy @FlaneurPolitiq is the Spectator Australia’s Canberra Press Gallery Correspondent. If you would like to support his writing, or read more of Michael, please visit his website.
