From The Daily Sceptic

By Will Jones

Green energy tycoon Dale Vince has blamed Ed Miliband for the “toxification of Net Zero” and branded him unfit to become Chancellor. The Telegraph has more.

The Labour donor accused the Energy Secretary of putting “ideology before the economy” and questioned whether he had a grasp of “even the basic notion of value for money”.

Miliband’s spending record in the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) demonstrated his economic incompetence, Vince told the Telegraph.

In particular, the green energy entrepreneur criticised the decision to commit tens of billions of pounds to heat pumps and carbon capture technology, the latter of which remains largely unproven on a global scale.

“It’s about economic competence,” he said. “It’s about having an understanding of even the basic notion of value for money. I question whether he has that when you look at spending decisions like carbon capture and storage.

“It’s madly uneconomic so this makes me question whether he’s putting ideology in front of [the] economy. We need something else from a Chancellor and someone who is more business-like.”

Since his appointment as Energy Secretary in July 2024, Miliband has committed to spending billions of taxpayer cash on green energy technologies as part of his mission to achieve clean power by 2030.

Vince, who runs clean power firm Ecotricity, described these investments as a “terrible waste of money” and said he hoped Andy Burnham could “fix” things if the MP for Makerfield entered No. 10.

He said: “They’ve kind of led to the toxification, or enabled the toxification, of Net Zero, and the idea that it’s about spending vast sums of money subsidising technologies that only people with money can afford, like heat pumps and new electric cars, and being out of touch with reality.

“It adds to the feeling in the country that this green energy Net Zero stuff is driving bills up. It is a false narrative but the previous administration has enabled that and I hope Andy can fix it.”

Worth reading in full.