Ed Miliband is talking nonsense about energy prices – again

I guess I must be one of Ed Miliband’s ‘siren voices’. Writing in the Observer today, the Energy and Climate Secretary complains about people he thinks:

‘Would keep Britain locked in dependence on global markets we don’t control. They will also make up any old nonsense and lies to pursue their ideological agenda, the latest example being their attempt to use the crisis facing the steel industry for their deeply damaging agenda.’

He goes on to assert: ‘UK Steel says that it is the “UK’s reliance on natural gas power generation” that leaves us with higher prices than international allies – not too much clean energy, but too little.’

Steady on, Ed. Let’s leave aside, for the moment, Miliband’s Trumpian disdain for global markets, his somewhat out-of-context UK Steel quote comes from a report published last September by the steel industry trade body complaining that British steel makers have to pay up to 50 per cent more for their power than French and German competitors.