Oxford don says Labour hasn’t been straight with voters

The British public has been "sold a pup" over the cost of the energy transition, a leading Oxford academic says. In the run-up to the election Labour invited voters to enter their postcodes on the Great British Energy website for predictions of cuts worth hundreds of pounds to their energy bills – but the idea bills will go down rather than up as renewables replace fossil fuels in the race to net zero is "just not true," says Dieter Helm, a professor of economic policy and author of books on climate change. It's a "happy clappy transition" promoted by Keir Starmer and his energy security secretary, Ed Miliband, Helm tells Tortoise's Trendy podcast. The marginal cost of extra energy once a wind turbine is installed and the wind is blowing is close to zero, but that doesn't account for the cost of building and maintaining it; nor for wholesale prices set by "contracts for difference" with the government.