Burnham defends Jackdaw decision as Badenoch urges PM to overturn ban on new oil and gas licences
I keep coming back to the timing on this one. A gas field that could be online within weeks is a very different proposition from a licence that might produce anything in a decade. If the government's argument is that we need domestic supply to keep bills down this winter, that's a concrete claim worth testing against the actual output figures. If it's about long-term energy independence, the maths gets harder.
What I'd want to know is how much gas Jackdaw actually represents relative to UK demand, and what the emissions cost is per unit compared with imported LNG. Those numbers would settle a lot of the argument. Badenoch's push to reverse the licence ban feels like it's aimed at a different audience entirely, the Conservative membership rather than the grid.
On balance, I think the government is trying to have it both ways, keeping the net zero rhetoric while quietly approving projects that undercut it. That may be politically rational, but it leaves the climate policy looking less like a plan and more like a mood. I'd rather see an honest admission that we're going to need some gas for years, and a clear date when that stops being true.