The news that a top EDF executive has resigned over this mess is hardly surprising. What is the more astonishing is that this project is still officially ongoing. The hardware is of an unreliable design, difficult to maintain and much more expensive to build and the electricity price guarantee given by the government to persuade them and their Chinese partners to proceed amounts to financial rape of consumers who will have to pay the bill.
This comedy of errors, wishful thinking and planning failures shines the spotlight on the continuing deterioration in the strategic security of UK energy generation, which even now causes consumers to face exorbitant energy bills by comparison to most other advanced countries and puts business at a severe cost disadvantage in international markets. Privatisation of power generation was a mistake. It has to be reversed. The Tories are ideologically unable to go there even if reduced to reading hard copy with candles. This is an opportunity for Labour. The public would vote for renationalisation in very large numbers.