Back in the day UKIP was widely mocked for some of its policies – to such an extent that even Nigel Farage famously disowned the manifesto that suggested a dress code for taxi drivers and painting trains in traditional colours. In the past, UKIP has certainly had its share of eccentric policies that would make even the Monster Raving Loony Party think twice. But y’know, our combined efforts could never come up with anything quite so moronic as the collective energy policies of the mainstream parties since 1997.

As it happens, it was us who pointed out that adding millions to the population without a corresponding investment in energy infrastructure just might, putting it lightly, cause problems. We might also have mentioned once or twice that blowing up our power stations and decommissioning our nuclear fleet, replacing them with windmills (of all things), was certifiably insane.

It would seem that most of our politicians struggle with the concept of dispatchable energy. If windmills are producing bugger all in the dead of winter and you build ten times more windmills, you still have bugger all. It’s like that scene where Blackadder tries teaching Baldrick basic arithmetic.

This isn’t funny though. This winter we’re now staring down the barrel of a little thing called consequences. If we’d had a “madcap” UKIP manifesto in action we’d have had smart looking trains. Under the “serious” parties, we’re looking at energy rationing, a collapse of living standards and a funeral pyre for small businesses.

If we’re talking about profoundly unserious parties than it’s the Tories who must take centre stage. It was husky-hugging David Cameron who wholly embraced the green agenda, alienating the Tory right and swelling UKIP’s ranks, who ultimately ended up with a Lib-Dem coalition – which resulted in the closure and non-renewal of our gas storage facilities – which is partly why we’re at this point now.

The Tories, though, have had since 2015 to reverse that policy – but instead we got May’s Net Zero crusade, adopted in full by her successor as his flagship post-Brexit agenda. Certainly we can point to the failures of the Blair/Brown administration but the Tories have been in power for thirteen years.

But then Net Zero was also the root command of the EU before it was even called Net Zero. For a long time now our government has been working to implement the EU Renewables Directive, Carbon trading and the Large Combustion Plant Directive. On that basis, nobody on the remain side gets to complain about energy bills this winter. The Western elites had long since declared an all out war on affordable and reliable energy.

In truth, there is now little that can be done to save us from destitution. This winter is going to be hard and next winter could be a magnitude worse. We’ve missed the boat to fix it. The realisation in Wesminster has come far too late. The Tories have announced a new nuclear programme but the chosen reactor design is unproven, and is likely to cost three times as much as originally planned. It won’t be operational this side of 2035 – if it happens at all. We have no choice but to get hold of as much gas and coal as we can and commission new coal power stations.

For that, if the government is to persuade the energy sector to invest in new exploration, they must drop the ban on new gas boilers. The sector will not invest in new gas exploration if it doesn’t have a market beyond the immediate crisis. The new Tory leader has no choice but to drop Net Zero – not least because we don’t have the surplus energy to charge EVs.

Whether Truss will have the necessary political capital to do that remains to be seen. At least half of the parliamentary Tory party is fully on board with Net Zero stupidity and they can count on the support of Labour to prevent any modification or repeal of Net Zero. The green lobby is deeply embedded in the establishment and it will not let go without a fight to the death. Thus we are in a political deadlock and there is to be no political resolution. There is no off ramp for the Net Zero clown car.

Boris Johnson said yesterday that “Families up and down this country are going to face a very tough winter and we just have to accept that”. Sadly he’s right. We do have to accept that the establishment has screwed up so badly that there is no fixing it in the interim. But we do not have to accept rule by the perpetually inept. We do not have to accept a massive reduction in living standards because these imbeciles think you can power a first world economy with windmills. All you have to do is stop voting for them.