I'm not sure if that's Tinkerbell or Captain Flint behind our Ed. (D Catchpole under CC; click for link)
It's hard to credit the idea that anyone could imagine that the Labour party is fit to hold office. Their pledge to freeze energy prices, delivered apparently off the top of Ed Miliband's head, has had the remarkable effect of doing enormous damage to the hopes of keeping the lights on even while Labour remains in opposition. That's quite an achievement and one shudders to think what destruction they might reap if they were actually in power.
Today, they are going to go one step further, launching their energy green paper at Manchester Town Hall.
Mr Miliband will set out a range of energy policies in an attempt to show that Labour’s vision in the area is not restricted to the 20-month price freeze which he announced at party conference in September. He will claim that these represent the biggest shake-up of the energy market since the privatisations of the 1980s.
Mr Miliband’s new plan for an energy security board will be modelled on the Office of Budget Responsibility, the neutral body which ensures that the government’s fiscal promises add up.
Labour would also replace Ofgem, the energy regulator, introduce a new energy “pool” to break the dominance of the big six and improve transparency in both generation and retail markets.
It seems that in the face of a pressing crisis in power generation, Labour is going to propose a few new bureaucracies in which to install their pals and some "eye-catching initiatives". It's the kind of thing you'd expect from schoolchildren or in a non-very-good youth Parliament. Miliband looks increasingly like the boy who never grew up.