Running Out of Puff
From energy supply to tackling crime our leaders seem to be giving up
Towering Columns
In The Critic, James Jeffrey warns that we are forgetting the moral component of national resilience.
The UK continues to miss the wood for the trees. It frets over the size of its military. It frets over its lack of economic dynamism. It frets over the loss of civil liberties such as freedom of speech. All of these concerns are valid, but they pale in the face of the existential malaise that afflicts this country. The UK has no spiritual depth; it is a moral vacuum. The country’s default mode nowadays is flippancy and irreverence toward everything (we have always prided ourselves on our supreme “banter” that other nations can’t manage).
In her book The Need for Roots, the French writer, political activist and mystic Simone Weil wrestled with the question of why France fell so easily to the Germans at the start of WWII. Writing while exiled in London and working for the Free French movement, she said the country had crumbled because it had lost its spiritual dimension. As a nation, the French had nothing of depth and value to coalesce around; hence the Germans had walked all over them — while a sizeable number of the population willingly turned collaborator.
As others have noted, while the UK prides itself on its WWII performance, we never had to undergo the stress-test of how we would have responded had the Nazis managed to get boots on England’s soil. The English Channel saved us from having to face this uncomfortable question that confronted the French. I am not sure we would have done as well as we like to think. “What was everywhere, was moral incoherence,” Weil wrote of the state of France in 1940 when Germany invaded, noting especially the absence of “the spirit of truth” and the prevalence of “the spirit of vanity and falsehood”.
For The Telegraph, Jeremy Warner writes that the Iran War has merely strengthened China’s industrial dominance.
China promotes industrial development over consumption for a reason, and it’s not about to change tack. To the contrary, China has further doubled down on the mercantilism of its approach since Xi Jinping came to power. Economic resilience is routinely prioritised over growth in consumption and household purchasing power, with welfare made to take second place to industrial hegemony.
Government policy deliberately combines foreign asset accumulation, capital flow restrictions, currency manipulation, financial repression and other mechanisms that boost national saving but suppress consumption. Don’t knock it. If your objective is that of enfeebling the US and its allies while insulating China against the sort of supply chain vulnerabilities we again today see buffeting Western economies, it has been highly effective.
Trump’s war in Iran has further strengthened Beijing’s belief in the efficacy of its policies, and nothing the IMF says – eminently sensible and guided by the catastrophically destructive lessons of history though it might be – is going to change China’s view. Conversely, pursuit of economic resilience has indisputably been vindicated by current events. If Trump’s war in Iran were intended as a demonstration of continued US hegemony and military might, it has already largely backfired, having closed the Strait of Hormuz and exposed Western economic dependence on cheap Gulf oil and gas.
Western welfarism is in any case hardly an economic model you would want to follow. To the contrary, it is proving increasingly unaffordable and politically destabilising.
In Conservative Home, Miriam Cates makes the case for conservatives to tackle the triple lock.
Apparently without embarrassment, some conservatives complain that Britain’s benefit system is increasingly socialist – with growing expenditure on asylum seekers and those who don’t want to work – while being unwilling to contemplate reform to our most socialist benefit of all; the state pension. The same people who argue that disability benefits should only go to those who really need them seem remarkably comfortable with millionaires (one in four of today’s pensioners) and higher rate tax payers (three million retirees by the end of next year) receiving a state pension. Britain’s pension system now functions as a cash transfer from poorer young to wealthier old, in a reverse Robin Hood phenomenon that has become known online as ‘Boomer Communism’.
The delusion is so potent that it has led some to claim that those calling for pension spending restraint are ‘far left’. We really are flying upside down. Is it any wonder Britain’s young people are so demoralised? My eldest son turns 18 this year and, once he enters the workplace, a large proportion of the tax he pays will fund an income not just for poor pensioners, but for many who don’t need the money and are sitting on unearned asset wealth that he can never hope to acquire. If this is ‘capitalism’ then there are no prizes for guessing why young people might reject it.
In their press conference, the Reform Party pointed to polling that shows young people support the triple lock. But young people also support puppies and kittens; it doesn’t mean it will be a deciding issue for them at an election. And both Farage and Jenrick had some choice words about the apparently work-shy young, which is a bit rich considering they are the people who are being forced to fund a state pension that will be long gone by the time they reach old age. Campaigning for economic reform should not be the preserve of the radical left.
For The Critic, Henry Hill says that we must back the public to tackle petty crime when they see it.
We do need a stronger police response to “petty” crime, and a major prison-building programme to allow for the proper and effective punishment of serial offenders. But even if that could be delivered, retailers would need to be willing and able to confront and detain shoplifters long enough for the police to arrive; absent those conditions, businesses and individuals should have the law on their side if they choose to protect themselves against crime. Nor should we forget that our modern conception of British policing evolved in an era of much stronger social norms, and retailers having a zero-tolerance approach to crime is a step towards re-establishing those norms.
Finally, broader reform to liability law would also help to lift the burden on retail workers by making it easier for actual security staff to take a muscular and effective approach to tackling offenders themselves, and employers to build new security procedures that aren’t designed to minimise the risk of being sued by a criminal.
Retail workers brawling with criminals in the isles of our shops is nobody’s ideal world. But we should back them up when they do. It is a modern British vice to make policy fit only for an ideal world (perpetrator-centred, risk-averse) when we don’t live in one, and we are all poorer for it.
In The Telegraph, Eliot Wilson argues that the abolition of hereditary peers has left the House of Lords less able to challenge government.
When the House of Lords meets for the first time at the beginning of the next parliamentary session in May, it will be less independent than the House that Henry VIII faced in the 1520s. The arc of the moral universe really is long, but it is bending in an unexpected direction…
The Tudor House of Lords was made up of peers and prelates who owed their positions to a number of sources; it was no rubber stamp. How has the Prime Minister, 500 years later, managed managed to design a reformed chamber lacking that independence?
The answer is prioritisation. Last November, I described how the Labour Party had gradually shed most of its commitments to specific reforms of the House of Lords. It has focused on what it finds most obnoxious, the residual presence of up to 90 hereditary peers, 10 per cent of the total membership. Having eradicated the hereditary principle, the Government has scored a victory, and increased its powers of patronage. No other measures of reform are promised, merely nodded towards in a possible future; but what government truly wants to strengthen Parliament’s powers of scrutiny?
In Conservative Home, Peter Franklin say that the space race has shifted from a progressive to a conservative project.
Musk isn’t some idle theorist. He’s actually building the industries necessary in not one, but all the sectors needed to realise his vision: AI, robotics, satellites, solar power and, of course, launch systems. In the process, he’s already transformed the economics of spaceflight. Thanks to reuseable rockets and other innovations, costs have plummeted. In 2021 prices, the cost of using the Space Shuttle to lift each kilogram of payload into low orbit was over $50,000. But now, using the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket it’s less than $2,000. Unsurprisingly, the spaceflight sector is experiencing extraordinarily rapid growth — with 2025 another record year for launches. What used to be the most statist of human endeavours is now propelled by free enterprise.
So in that respect, spaceflight really is conservative and becoming ever more so. Perhaps that’s why parts of the Left are souring on what JFK called our “greatest adventure”. It’s not just the involvement of Right-wing billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos that they hate, but the very nature of the underlying project. Academics and activists are now using the language of imperialism and colonisation to problematise mankind’s expansion into the rest of the solar system. The flaw in that critique, however, is the notable lack of indigenous populations for the folk back home to sympathise with.
So, no, the woke objections aren’t going to fly. The same goes for the environmental objections. Spaceflight is very much not carbon neutral and each rocket launch does damage the ozone layer — a genuine concern given the rapid growth in launches. But there is a solution, which is to explore space from space. In 2028 Artemis V is scheduled to begin the construction of a permanent base on the moon. By developing the dead worlds of the solar system — and the yawning voids between them — we have an opportunity to move every polluting industry from the only living planet that we know of. So environmental pain in the short term, in return for what could be the greatest possible gain.
In The Times, James Kanagasooriam argues that ‘Blue MAGA’ risks destroying the consensus that has built America’s prosperity.
A Democratic victory at this year’s midterms might reassure some within the party. It should not. Winning a low turnout election with an electorate that is more left-wing than a national election is not validation that a pivot to the left is a long-term path towards sustainable success. Trump won in 2024 because more voters than not thought he would keep America’s borders secure, and growth abundant; he won over about 80 per cent of voters who thought the economy was the most important issue and 90 per cent of voters who thought that immigration was the top issue.
The main significance of the rise of Blue Maga is that it threatens the broad but thinning pro-market and pro-business environment on which America’s prosperity is founded. One of the trends in US politics over the past decade has been Democrats edging closer to corporate America and Republicans growing sceptical of big business. Blue Maga threatens this balance. With more of the Republican base captured by anti-trust sentiment, a distrust of crony capitalism and private equity super-gains at the expense of ordinary Americans, Blue Maga v Maga may leave business out in the cold.
Americans who favour low taxes may be looking ahead to the 2028 presidential contest nervously. A debate over the balance between labour and capital could take centre stage, in favour of the former. In an age of tech billionaires and with suspicions about the super-rich friends of Jeffrey Epstein lingering, the contours are certainly shaping up that way.
Wonky Thinking
The Great British Business Council’s new report on industry and energy supply identifies the continued critical dependence of the UK on oil, gas and coal. The report calls for Britain to change course in energy policy if we are to preserve what remains of our energy-intensive industries. Unfortunately, a wide array of legislation has embedded misguided climate and energy policies into law. The report calls for all this legislation must be unwound, starting with regulations and taxes that reduce supply.
Despite all the additional taxes and regulations on hydrocarbons over the last twenty years, 78% of the UK’s energy needs are still met by oil, gas and coal. Electricity accounts for only 22% of final energy consumption in the UK, and 31% of that was generated using gas in 2025.
It is unfortunate that successive UK governments have chosen to encourage companies to import just under half of the oil the UK uses, half of the gas it uses, and almost 90% of the coal (mostly used for industrial processes).
The UK also imports approximately 10% of its electricity. The UK is dependent on imports for more than 40% of its total energy, including 10% of its electricity, even though it has ample reserves of coal, oil and gas. This outcome also negatively impacts the UK’s balance of payments.
The sum total of the UK’s pursuit of Net Zero CO2 emissions has been to offshore energy-intensive industrial production at the cost of 100s of thousands of jobs, billions of tax revenues, higher imports and lower exports.
Of 195 countries, Britain is one of only 40 with ample hydrocarbon reserves of coal, oil and gas – while over 100 have no hydrocarbons and the remainder have very small reserves.
Oil and Gas is a significant but dwindling source of tax revenue, delivering £4.5 billion in taxes in 2024/25 – down 27% from £6.1 billion in 2023/24. Tax revenue is declining because tax rates are too high and allowance for exploration and development costs has been reduced. So producers are bringing forward decommissioning, lowering tax revenue even more.
Offshore oil and gas are taxed at 78%: comprising 30% ring-fenced Corporation Tax (set separately from the main rate of Corporation Tax at 25%), 10% Supplementary Charge, and 38% Energy Profits Levy.
200,000 UK direct or indirect jobs provide an estimated gross value added (GVA) of £25bn/yr, with PAYE/NIC contributions likely to exceed an additional £1bn/yr.
It is also estimated that unlocking additional resources from Britain’s coastal waters could add £150bn of gross value on top of the £200bn of economic value expected from current plans.
While this resource is being left in the ground, the UK endures higher taxes and annual trade deficits. Meanwhile, we import the coal, oil, and gas we need while exporting industries and jobs to countries that are happy to let their manufacturers use them.
In a detailed essay for UnHerd, Rian Whitton asks whether it is too late for Britain to reindustrialise.
At a sprawling Texan-owned oil refinery overlooking Milford Haven, an estuary town in Pembrokeshire, crude oil from America and Norway is distilled inside 200-foot steel towers. The oil is heated to 400℃. Hydrocarbons with low boiling points, like gasoline and kerosene, rise to the top of the column, while heavier chemicals like asphalt remain at the bottom. Out of the towers come the fuels that power cars, trucks, shipping, aircraft, and much of the chemical industry, not to mention almost all military vehicles. Britain was formerly home to over a dozen refineries. Yet the Milford Haven site is now one of just four refineries left in Britain, with two closing in 2025 alone, one in Scotland and another in Lincolnshire. Similar scars are borne by many towns and cities across the country. Just recently, we’ve lost production of salt in Runcorn, synthetic textiles in Brockworth, steel in Rotherham, bearings in Newark-on-Trent and ceramics in Denby. British Steel in Scunthorpe limps on, if only with government support.
It has been a steep decline. At the turn of the millennium, Britain possessed the fourth-largest industrial economy in the world. More than 800,000 people worked in foundational sectors: oil and gas extraction, refining, metals, chemicals, and inorganics. Contrary to popular belief, Britain’s energy-intensive production did not peak in the Seventies — but in 2002, supported by relatively cheap energy and booming global demand.
Then, between 2006 and 2008, Britain’s output and productivity began to fall. Globally, heavy industry shifted decisively toward China, hollowing out Western industrial employment. Britain, like its peers, lost jobs — but suffered more acutely. Heavy industry employment has halved from over 800,000 workers in the early 2000s to just over 400,000 today. Since 2008, Britain’s steel sector has nearly collapsed multiple times; the ammonia industry has died out; salt production has ended and aluminum production has rapidly declined. Production of cement and glass is down, while imports of the same materials are up. Those jobs were lost during a time of perceived economic and political stability, where countries would specialise and become ever more integrated. But due to tariffs, wars, pandemics and a general sense of insecurity, talk of reindustrialisation, once dismissed as pangs of nostalgia, is becoming de rigueur in Westminster. Robert Jenrick, who stands a good chance of being the next chancellor, has argued for “creating the conditions for Britain to reindustrialise, restore our proud industrial heritage and create good jobs for British workers once again.”
For different parties, “reindustrialisation” means different things. Ed Miliband envisages a “green industrial revolution” where Britain’s reindustrialisation is directly tied to his ambitious carbon reduction targets. For Nigel Farage, the term means cutting red tape and reopening the mines.
If reindustrialisation has cross-party appeal, it is because it intuitively makes sense that being able to manufacture complex equipment makes a nation stronger, more productive and more prosperous. This intuition has been tempered by economists who argue for economic specialisation and enjoying the reduced cost of goods by offshoring manufacturing to cheaper locations. But recent global events — Covid’s effect on supply chains; the Ukraine war’s effect on energy prices; the Iran war’s effect on shipping — have made this view increasingly hard to defend. Deindustrialised Britain grows its economy anaemically, if at all. The same is true of its productivity. As a result, the country’s hard power has rapidly diminished.
Hence the cheerleading for reindustrialisation. This high-spirited rhetoric rarely acknowledges tradeoffs, but it ought to. This is because deindustrialisation was a price willingly paid for cheaper consumer goods from imports, increased welfare spending, periodic tax cuts, and progress towards meeting Britain’s environmental and emissions targets — or, at least, those targets that pertained to onshore activity rather than activity handed off to the developing world. Reindustrialisation, then, might require some of those dividends to be relinquished. Partly for that reason, none of the cheerleaders have yet made firm commitments for how much of our economy should be manufacturing, or what level of growth they would aim for. Currently, the concept of “reindustrialisation” is comparable in rigour to “soft power” and “clean energy superpower”.
Podcast of the Week
In The Spectator’s Reality Check, Economics Editor Michael Simmons argues that those on welfare are not enduring the cost-of-living crisis, with successive governments fiddling with prices and prioritising claimants. His work builds on Onward’s report The Hidden Bill which found that Universal Credit claimants can get up to £10bn in additional benefits.
Podcast of the Week
A third of our refineries closed down last year.
The number of patents filed in the UK has fallen by 50%.
Nearly half of children in migrant families are living in poverty.
Welfare spending has reached £333bn surpassing income tax revenue.
99% of the UK’s data transmission accounting for £1.15 trillion of economic output relies on just 60 undersea cables.
Claude Mythos causes cybersecurity panic by identifying vulnerabilities in every major operating system.
The CIA reportedly used secret quantum magnetometry sensors with AI that can detect human heartbeats to find missing US airman in Iran.
P.S.
Congratulations to long time Conservative Reader Editor Gavin Rice, who has now joined Nick Timothy’s staff as senior political adviser. Gavin will be taking a pause from the Reader for a while but we wish him every success in his new role.