Balls and greenballs

The political writers are excited about the Balls revelations (with Miliband E in a walk-on role). Most woundingly, the mighty Balls, the big beast, gets mocked. Don't forget to enjoy Andrew Neil's interview with him again. But the gentle mockery is way more wounding ... you don't tease a dangerous animal that way.

For me the political event of the day, though, is the anti-green backlash. The Mail has given space to Nigel Lawson - and he delivers. The degree of any warming caused by increased emissions of CO2 is uncertain; and cutting CO2 output can only have an effect if it's done globally. China, India and the US won't sign up to any international effort; so

For the UK, responsible for 2 per cent of global emissions, to go it alone is futile folly.

The policy is already making people here poorer and increasing fuel poverty. The renewables obligation is costing families £200 a year on average, and rises in the carbon floor price will increase this burden. At the same time the economy will shrink as our ever higher energy prices make our industry increasingly uncompetitive with competitors in the rest of the world, where energy will be cheaper.

The Coalition likes to boast, as did its Labour predecessor which initiated this damaging policy, that the UK is the only country in the world to impose severe and legally binding carbon reduction requirements on its economy.

While this claim is well-founded, ministers might do well to ask themselves why the UK is the only country to do this. The answer, of course, is that no other country has the slightest intention of incurring such pointless and self-inflicted economic harm.

Lawson also torpedoes the claim that these policies will create 'green jobs'.

As the great 19th-century French economist Frédéric Bastiat pointed out, if jobs are your yardstick, you might as well go round breaking windows so as to create jobs for glaziers.

And if 'energy security' is the concern, let's exploit our shale gas - as the developing world surely will. Wind, Lawson points out, just can't supply our energy needs.

The Mail's own leader takes as its theme that Britain cannot afford this green madness. The paper comes out bluntly against the government's policy.

Sadly, the suspicion is that – as with his crazy, politically-correct commitment to increase international aid – Mr Cameron is expecting the country to foot a heavy bill for his own personal obsession with ‘detoxifying’ the Tory brand.

This is total madness at a time when families are already finding it hard to pay their bills, and the economy is struggling to emerge from a deep recession.

Opposition from the Mail is bad news for a government of the right.

To make it worse for the government, Charles Moore is writing on the same theme, mocking Prince Charles.

In total, our climate policies add the equivalent of four pence in the pound on income tax to domestic consumers' costs. This week, Scottish Power announced price rises of 10 per cent for electricity, so the swingeing increases are coming fast. The carbon floor price will make them greater still.

As Moore points out, the damage to the UK economy is already visible. None of the Cabinet ministers concerned is stupid, he says. All must be aware of the problem.

George Osborne, the Chancellor, the most astute member of the Government ...

God help us.

... has shown the first signs of shifting.

But, Moore points out, like Lawson, that will be far too late to avoid great economic harm.

These simultaneous fusillades may turn out to be hugely significant. Maybe, just maybe, the discussion is starting to tilt back toward reason, and opposition to green policies will start to become respectable.

Not before time. Greenballs is far more important than Ed Balls.