Rosebank and Jackdaw: green-red panic setting in

They’re tugging at the heartstrings, scraping the barrel, lighting the gaslights and pulling out all the stops  -  Stop Burnham Approving New Oil & Gas!  As a planted piece of the purest propaganda of desperation (and the Guardian is a willing receptacle) it would be hard to beat this one. 

Burnham risks first revolt as PM over apparent support for North Sea drilling - Labour MPs fear No 10 team lack up-to-date energy insight and don’t fully recognise voters’ climate concerns   

Burnham, of course, has done nothing more than offer a bit of glaringly obvious commonsense. As the article quotes him saying: “The question isn’t whether Britain will still be using oil and gas, the question is where does it come from.”  Well, yes.  What’s more, the article helpfully goes on to display two graphs that prove his point: we’ll be net importers of both oil and gas for the foreseeable future.  QED.  

So what ‘arguments’ do the green-reds throw into the mix?  They are many, varied, disingenuous, shrill, and reeking with desperation: every damn’ thing they can think of.  Including Gaza!  I kid you not – see below.  As part of the usual service I distill them for you here in order of appearance, starting with the one in the headline:

• Burnham’s team is ignorant / stupid / out of touch / whatever …
• … though not Andy himself, of course – so he’s in danger of looking like a gullible dupe
• He’ll face a revolt.  His first revolt!
• FFS, Andy, we’re on fire here and it’ll be your fault!
• Climate Experts (no less) are against his proposed pragmatism
• The UN Secretary General is against it [features twice in the article]
• Labour MPs are fearful they’ll lose votes to the Greens – a new ‘surge’ of defections looms
• The ice caps are melting, the world is on fire, etc etc
• It will only make a ‘tiny’ difference to energy prices.  [Tiny?  I'd say "undetectably small" or more probably zero - and it's wholly irrelevant anyway, see below]
• It would “send the wrong signal internationally“.  [In fact, the only argument that's even vaguely coherent {1} - and even then, it's wrong]
• Lewis said approving the field would show Burnham was “not looking at the evidence” …
• … and that Labour risked adding “the stain of the climate crisis” to the party’s record, alongside Gaza.  [Are we getting into a new variant of Godwin's Law here ..?]
• Britain was the first country to industrialise and we have a duty to lead the world on net zero
• The case made by oil and gas companies is self-interested  [- and presumably also that of the Unions that are also pro drilling - which is not mentioned, of course]
• Allowing production will be to exploit a (wicked) “loophole”
• It’s (arguably) against Labour’s GE Manifesto [Glad they added 'arguably' because on a close reading, it ain't - the Manifesto was carefully ambiguous] 
• If it comes to a vote he would need Tory and SNP votes 
• If it doesn’t come to a vote [which it won't], it’ll be a (wicked) “administrative measure”, how evil is that?!
• Concerns “extend across the Labour party, transcending factions and ‘tribes’. The Guardian has contacted or been told of concerned MPs including ministers and junior members of government, longstanding senior backbench MPs and committee figures and new MPs from the 2024 general election intake” 
• Several influential economists told the Guardian that increased drilling would not help the UK economy … [followed by some utterly ignorant 'economic' bullshit + doubling down on some of the above.  Have these 'economists' not heard of the benefits of employment?  Tax revenues? Balance of payments?  When have they ever opposed local production of any other commodity or product?]
• It runs counter to the ‘clean energy superpower’ mission
• It will lead to “extra use [of oil & gas] and more greenhouse gases”. [Now which is it, eh?  Too small to have any macro impact on the market - correct, see above - or big enough to cause an increase in demand?  FFS]
• “Keep the peace” by allowing Jackdaw but scrapping Rosebank.  [It's fair to say the argument for Jackdaw / gas is much the easier to understand, not least because the gas will definitely be used in the UK, and will back out equivalent quantities of the far more polluting US-sourced LNG]
• It Will Cause Political Damage – and poor little Andy, badly advised as he obviously is, Just Can’t See It !

Wow.  If you think I’m kidding – when did a Guardian article last contain 24 arguments? – check it out for yourself.  As I said: reeks of absolute desperation.

We must hope young Andy is proof against such stuff.  From the C@W standpoint, he’s on probation here.  Anyone care to predict how he’ll come down?

ND

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{1} I did say that, in amongst the plain risible and the politico-hysterical, I did say there was one semi-coherent argument in there, albeit false.  It’s the old business of asserting that we must nobly lead by example, even if that comes at a cost to ourselves.  Well, as least that’s a tacit admission we’re talking about virtue-signaling, and that there is no other rational case that stacks up on its own merits.  But of course it falls down when we recognise that none of the USA / China / Russia / India / Saudi Arabia / Brazil etc etc gives a flying f**k what we say or do – they are guided entirely by their own assessment of their own interests.