How Ed Miliband plans to conjure electricity out of nothing

Electricity is magical stuff. From a couple of tiny holes in a wall comes an apparently endless supply of invisible, weightless, silent ether that turns instantly into light, heat, motion or information at your command. It is a metaphor for the modern economy: we use pure energy to create useful outcomes in the real world.

We found out last week that Britain has now for the first time achieved top spot, among 25 nations, in terms of the price we pay for this supernatural ichor, for both domestic and industrial use.

This is a disaster. Electricity prices have doubled in Britain since 2019. They are 46 per cent above the International Energy Agency’s median for industrial and 80 per cent above the median for domestic electricity.