Andrea Leadsom – An energy minister for our times?
Maybe it is unreasonable to expect an MP, possibly promoted above their real ability to ministerial rank, to be a master of all of the nuances of their new brief.
However, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to expect an Energy Minister to know whether UK energy demand is increasing or has fallen over the last decade.
Andrea Leadsom MP published a rather patronising blog post about shale gas entitled “Shale gas – an inconvenient truth for the anti-fracking lobby” on 23rd September. In the second paragraph of that post she said
We need to meet the UK’s rising demand for energy …
It didn’t take long before this was noticed and people commented on this below the post
Dave — 23/09/2015
Hi Andrea, What do you mean, “to meet UK’s rising energy demand”? According to DUKES, total UK energy demand has fallen 20% in the last decade… UK energy demand is falling…
David — 23/09/2015
“We need to meet the UK’s rising demand for energy”
Interesting, when DECC’s own data shows that “Final energy consumption in the UK has been decreasing since 2005” and “Gas consumption growth began levelling off in the mid 1990s with consumption peaking in 2001. Since then, consumption has being falling”
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/449102/ECUK_Chapter_1_-_Overall_factsheet.pdf
The awkward word, “rising” was instantly removed, thus masking the real “inconvenient truth” that we have an Energy Minister who appears not to have the faintest clue about her brief.
