The Alarming Rise of the Far-Wrong

In a parallel universe, how the Guardian might react to the far-wrong.

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We are usually quite serious and very analytical on this Substack. However, in celebration of reaching 2,000 subscribers, today we are going to take a light-hearted look at what might happen in a parallel universe if the Guardian decided to worry about the rise of the far-wrong. The National Grid Future Energy Scenarios are released next week, when normal service will be resumed as we examine what they have to say this year.

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In an alarming development, the far-wrong Labour Party has swept to victory in the recent election. They won 412 seats after securing only 33.7% of the votes from an incredibly low turnout of only 60%. In an even more worrying development, extreme-wrong faction, the Green Party increased their share of the vote by 4% to 6.7% and won a record four seats. The usually-wrong Liberal Democrats also had a good night, winning 72 seats. Our award-winning indifferent journalists have been handed a dossier showing a web of dark money that is funding the torrent of disinformation that has allowed the sinister forces of the far-wrong to rise to power.

The new Energy Secretary, Ed Miliband wasted no time in rewarding his benefactors when he set out his priorities for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ). These include delivering on the (oxy)moronic mission of delivering clean power by 2030 while claiming to cut energy bills. He has confirmed Labour’s plan to set up Great British Energy, his determination to lead on “international climate action” and of course demonstrate his hypocrisy by flying to many exotic locations. Ed’s department has already been infiltrated by the extreme-wrong Chris Stark who once led the disastrous Climate Change Committee. In an echo of the Apollo programme, Stark has been made head of “Mission Control” for clean power. However, Stark is no Gene Kranz, and when Euston has a problem, failure will be the only option.

Ed’s colleague in the Treasury, Rachel Reeves also announced that the de facto ban on onshore wind farms has been lifted so they can deliver more expensive, intermittent electricity that they claim will reduce energy bills. But this is not enough for the dark forces of the far-wrong. The energy sector has already put out the begging bowl demanding even more funding in addition to the record sum set aside for CfD Allocation Round 6 (AR6). This is typical of the far-wrong, spreading disinformation about how cheap renewables are while demanding more subsidies. If wind power is so cheap, why do we have to subsidise it?

Part of the explanation of the rise of the Labour Party is the level of funding it receives from wrong-adjacent and far-wrong sources. For instance, Ed Miliband has received funding worth £99,000 from the Green Finance Institute that itself was set up with funding from the Government and designed the National Wealth Fund. He has also received £233,600 from Tetrapak heiress Lisbet Rausing, well known for her work supporting wrong-leaning causes. The ECIU has also provided funding for several MPs to travel to COP28.

In a move resembling Mussolini, Labour is turning to corporatism and merging state and corporate interests. The new  National Wealth Fund, under the high-priest of wrong Mark Carney, will use borrowed public money to attract further corporate funding to finance the far-wrong agenda. The money will be squandered on thermodynamic war crimes such as carbon capture and green hydrogen. Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.

In another example of corporatism, there are worries that companies that make their money harvesting subsidies from renewables have effectively bought Labour’s energy policy. For instance, green energy entrepreneur Dale Vince has donated £2.6m to the Labour Party since the beginning of 2023 (and millions more in earlier years) through his company Ecotricity. Miliband has also supposedly ordered an immediate ban on drilling North Sea oil and gas fields. This benefits Vince because his windfarms are ROC-funded meaning they get paid subsidies on top of the market price of electricity. Banning new drilling will lead to a reduction of gas supply and hence a need for higher priced LNG imports. This will push up the price of gas-fired electricity and directly benefit Dale Vince’s company Ecotricity. Miliband was supposed to be opposed to “predatory capitalism”.

In another worrying development, The Labour Party and Labour Together have also received millions in funding over the years from Martin Taylor who made a large part of his fortune investing in Russia through Nevsky Capital LLP.

Concerns have been raised that the rise of the far-wrong has been fuelled by a wave of disinformation both from the media, think-tanks and the Government. Voters have been fed a stream of false claims about cheap renewables. For instance, the Government claimed in its Generation Costs Report last year that offshore wind could be delivered for £44/MWh in 2025 (2021 prices), but they then offered offshore wind £102/MWh (2024 prices) in AR6. Versions of this disinformation have been spread by the wrong-leaning media such as the BBC and even supposedly neutral bodies like the Commons Library.  Our investigation has also revealed that the BBC is effectively exempt from Ofcom scrutiny because complaints must first navigate the BBC’s own process before even getting to Ofcom. This leaves the BBC free to spread dangerous far-wrong propaganda without sanction.

The BBC also gives a platform to energy tycoons such as Greg Jackson and allows him to spread desperate disinformation claiming that onshore wind and other renewables are cheap. There is a glimmer of hope though because Marianna Spring, who heads up the fact-making BBC Verify unit, set up fake social media accounts and tracked down a series of far-wrong bot farms like Carbon Brief and the ECIU that are funded by sinister wrong-leaning billionaires with interests in the green agenda.

The rise of the far-wrong is already having an impact on vulnerable groups. Activists from the Transmit Electricity Reliably Foundation (TERFs) have expressed concern that trans-generator turbines could intrude into the reliable-only spaces of grid control rooms just by presenting a Renewables Obligation Certificate. They warned that just because renewables identified as cheap and reliable, it did not alter the engineering reality of their expense and intermittency.

In other news, Green Party co-leader Adrian Ramsay has shown that he’s so far-wrong he’s almost right by opposing plans to build a 100-mile corridor of pylons through his constituency. The pylons are required to bring power from offshore wind farms to where it is needed. The other Green Party co-leader has admitted that she still has a gas boiler in her home, despite demanding all new homes are built with heat pumps in the Green Party manifesto.

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