Neil watching government shale denialism

Andrew Neil is casting his beady eye over the coalition's policy on shale.

In a tweet he notes:

Greens say even major energy companies not keen on UK shale gas. But 1. Don't have the licenses to exploit. 2. Shale in US has cut prices.

As we know, some - but only some - majors are shale laggards. The government don't want to hear Cuadrilla's good news on prospects for shale gas extraction - cheap gas would be bad news for the renewables intermittents favoured by Greens, and bad news for the likes of Centrica who want to see gas prices kept high.

Start to see a pattern here? Neil adds:

The Green-Big Energy-Government alliance UK shale is a fascinating phenomenon.

Indeed - it's a conspiracy against the prosperity of mere voters - what do proles matter?

P.S. Tim Worstall adds that it's not up to government to guess whether Britain has shale reserves which can produce meaningful amounts of gas or oil.

we’re only going to find out by trying it rather than leaving the decision to a few men in suits in an office.

Perhaps they don't want the answer to be "Yes We Can".