Two conventional wisdoms - both wrong

Pass over Oborne's attempt at an arresting opening when he writes

Very rarely in political history has any faction or movement enjoyed such a complete and crushing victory as the Conservative Eurosceptics.

In fact they were right about the euro, but they're losing the EU war.

The main merit in his Telegraph piece today with Frances Weaver is in documenting the way anti-euro campaigners were treated in the BBC, and the patronising abuse dumped on them by the great and the grand, who turned out to be wrong. And they should have known they were wrong, as the arguments against the euro were not just nostalgia for sterling but also reasoned basic economics that disparate economies in a currency union would not automatically "converge" (remember that?) and that therefore large fiscal transfers would have to follow. Somehow, we were told, the benefits from a larger market would overwhelm these problems.

How wrong were they - Tony Blair, Peter Mandelson, Michael Heseltine, Ken Clarke, Charles Kennedy, Danny Alexander. Apologies? No, I hadn't noticed any.

When you read how the BBC treated those against the euro, keep in mind its role in the "global warming" debate, and wonder to yourself if the BBC is not - once again - seriously unbalancing this country's political debate by sucking up to the allegedly great and grand in their conventional wisdom.

Now let's look at what Nick Grealy is calling the black swan of Blackpool shale gas. Please indulge me, he writes, with a partial list of those who we haven't heard from in the press yet most likely due to their jaws being locked in an open position:

Chatham House and the Oxford Institute of Energy both wrote studies predicting that shale gas would not be a game changer for Europe for example. Alistair Buchanan of Ofgem said this time last year that shale gas would not have significant production until at least 2025. This morning we see Cuadrilla's plan predicts drilling activity will start in 2013 and peak in 2021. The British Geological Society told the House of Commons Energy and Climate Change Select Committee their reserve estimations were for 150 billion cubic metres in the entire UK, a tenth of yesterday's figures from one small area not even considered prospective. Those opinions then mis-informed the press who naturally seek brand name opinion. It doesn't matter if it's right or wrong, simply that it has the brand.

So what should this mean for the UK? Grealy writes that the entire UK energy policy rests on the a priori assumption of natural gas as finite and insecure and therefore expensive enough to make every other generation technology competitive. But ...

Nuclear, clean coal and renewable generation are three obvious examples of industries totally disrupted by shale.

With shale gas probably available in huge quantity, from within the UK, we can see "significantly lower prices, significantly lower carbon emissions and a whole slew of positive economic impacts". (Not that the BBC website last night was giving the slightest clue about any economic benefits whatever, just a warning that shale gas wouldn't be "green", as I blogged.)

So this is a win for both the economy and the environment, says Grealy, "and the sooner the green movement re-align themselves with the new reality the better".

Maybe this time the great and the grand can focus on giving us the chance to be better off, and the BBC can content itself with presenting the arguments fairly on both sides.

Here's hoping, anyway. It really really should not be difficult.