Tilting at Windmills

Renewables. All very fashionable, all very 'now', all very much ado about nothing.

If this stuff is so good - windmills and what-not - why do we have to pay folk to invest in it? Just because our crackpot governments have believed every bit of dubious 'research' and signed up to every bit of external pressure to jump on the next bandwagon arriving at platform 3B, it doesn't make it right.

While a few householders - mainly those who can easily afford their bills - get a boost from the feed-in-tariffs for solar photovoltaics, the majority of installations are not funded by such householders but are, instead, the property of wealthier companies, receiving a subsidy that wasn't intended for them. How was this allowed to happen? 'Joined-up government'? Hardly.

On a much larger scale it's just been revealed that two-thirds of those enormous energy-using, can't-work, eyesore white-elephants, the 'wind farms' are foreign-owned. So not only are we, the fuel-using public, paying a hefty green-tax penalty, from which others benefit, it turns out those others are sucking cash out of the country. Madness.

So, in my new realm, there will be no such thing as governmental interference in, tinkering with, screwing up, 'fixing' things that are not broken. Of course there will be social engineering - that's what I'm all about, after all - but there will be no signing up to ridiculous faddy notions from any quarter.My gaff, my rules.

This is how it will work: You petition me directly if you have a big idea. I'll have a think about it and if it sounds like a plan, I'll give you the go-ahead. If it sounds like a load of rubbish you'll get a clip about the ear and be sent on your way. And you will only get any financial assistance if you can show me a real profit from the deal. Now that is joined-up government.