Fracking

How Britain’s fracking industry was regulated into irrelevance

13 February 2022 6:00 pm

This week the fracking company Cuadrilla announced that it was permanently closing its two shale mines in Lancashire, after the…

How the Tories have fuelled Britain’s energy crisis

25 September 2021 9:00 am

Britain is caught in an energy crisis of the government’s own making. It is true that gas prices have spiked…

trump

Trump sealed the deal last night

24 October 2020 2:06 am

First, let me pay brief homage to Kristen Welker, moderator of Thursday night’s debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden.…

fracking

Why fracking matters

20 October 2020 6:42 am

Sigmund Freud famously noted that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. In the case of fracking, even Freud would…

ohio

It’s all about Ohio

25 September 2020 2:30 am

Dublin, Ohio Since the presidential election of 1944 when Ohio went with loser Thomas Dewey over winner Franklin Roosevelt, Ohio…

fracking

The Democrats are fracking insane

22 February 2020 4:25 am

This article is in The Spectator’s March 2020 US edition. Subscribe here. What could be more emblematic of the American Dream than…

Drill down and it’s obvious: the fracking debate was lost long ago

9 November 2019 9:00 am

Five years ago this week, George Osborne as chancellor announced a scheme to place tax revenues from shale gas fracking…

Does fracking really cause earthquakes?

4 May 2019 9:00 am

Great shakes Shale gas commissioner Natascha Engel resigned in protest at what she called ‘absurd’ restrictions on fracking — in…

Hollande equals Thatcher? If only

4 June 2016 9:00 am

Have you ever tried discussing the merits of gun control with a Texan, or of deregulated labour markets with a…

The best things in the world have always sprung up by accident. Take the internet, for instance

2 January 2016 9:00 am

Since no one has bothered to ask what my must-read book of last year was I’m going to tell you…

Don’t weep for Costa – but the Living Wage punishes small businesses that need our support

19 September 2015 8:00 am

What is George Osborne’s Living Wage? Is it a ploy to shift cost from the taxpayer to the employer by…

At last, Britain can have its shale gas revolution

22 August 2015 9:00 am

Over the past week, the government has finally made a decisive move to kickstart a fracking industry in Britain. Licences…

Britain needs to get fracking

4 July 2015 9:00 am

That democracy is a superior form of government to any other goes without saying. But in order to function, it…

The only certain winner in the Greek stand-off: cliché

27 June 2015 9:00 am

The clear winner in the Greek crisis is the author of The Little Book of Negotiating Clichés, whose royalties must…

The man who could sell the British public on fracking

9 August 2014 9:00 am

Iain Conn, who will succeed Sam Laidlaw as chief executive of Centrica, would have been a dead cert for the…

The return of oil price anxiety is a timely reminder to get fracking

21 June 2014 9:00 am

‘Iraq turmoil sends crude oil prices to nine-month high’ is the sort of headline that used to send shivers down…

The lefty liberals may be losing their hold over the arts world

26 April 2014 9:00 am

If you happen to be reading this column at breakfast, I’d recommend you skip to something more agreeable like Dear…

You, too, can be a shale profiteer

22 February 2014 9:00 am

Here’s how to get a slice of the fracking action

Portrait of the week

18 January 2014 9:00 am

Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, said that English local authorities would be allowed to receive all the business rates…

Power struggle

7 December 2013 9:00 am

Bills are still going up in the long term – unless the government acts

Should you invest in nuclear power companies? 

2 November 2013 9:00 am

Politics makes it hard to pick winners in the energy sector

Think fracking’s bad for the countryside? Just look at farming…

31 August 2013 9:00 am

I’m off to Balcombe this weekend. In fact I might even carry a placard and paint my face with a…

Letters: GPs reply to J. Merion Thomas

24 August 2013 9:00 am

Some doctors write Sir: Professor Meirion Thomas (‘Dangerous medicine’, 17 August) may be an excellent surgeon but he is uninformed…

Back off, nimbyists, or fracking will benefit Beijing more than Balcombe

17 August 2013 9:00 am

The fracking debate has been brought to a new heat by David Cameron’s message to Home Counties nimbyists and eco-crusties…

Is the EU stopping Britain’s shale revolution?

10 August 2013 9:00 am

A few months after the last election, Oliver Letwin warned Cabinet colleagues that a chunk of Britain’s income would be…