;)
The latest briefing note from Liberum Capital makes for fairly terrifying reading. According to authors Peter Atherton and Mulu Sun, energy investors have now digested Labour's announcement that it is going to institute a price freeze if it wins the next election and they are, not to put to fine a point on it, appalled:
As we noted at the time this is a dramatic intervention that immediately increased the political risk faced by all participants in the UK power market, not the suppliers themselves. We warned that a price freeze would chill investment in new generating capacity, something confirmed today by SSE who have said that moving to FiD on any major new generation investment was not possible until the outcome of the election was known.
And as the note makes clear, since Miliband made his intervention, investors have been selling out of UK energy utilities just as fast as they possibly can. This should kill off any new investment in capacity for the foreseeable future.
Suppliers of emergency operating reserve - diesel generators in other words - will be rubbing their hands in glee.
Bishop Hill