That’s why during the Blitz, the Nazis targeted London’s docks, factories, railways, ports and transport hubs, in a bid to cripple war production and morale. The Allies fought back by bombing industrial regions like the Ruhr Valley, targeting oil production, refineries and manufacturing plants.
Vladimir Putin is following the same grim playbook in Ukraine today. Russian forces have repeatedly targeted power stations, electricity substations, fuel depots and industrial sites to weaken Ukraine’s economy and break civilian resilience.
War isn’t just about killing enemy soldiers and civilians, it’s about making a country poorer and weaker.
What I didn’t expect was to find the UK’s Energy Secretary adopting similarly brutal tactics against our own industrial base, in peacetime.
But that’s the scale of damage Ed Miliband is inflicting. On his own country.
In a recent article, I jokingly suggested that given the immense damage he’s inflicting on the UK’s industrial base, if he were a foreign power we’d have to declare war on him. The more I examine his record, the less funny that idea seems.
Miliband’s most damaging assault is on domestic energy production. He’s accelerated the rundown of North Sea oil and gas, restricted new licences, hiked windfall taxes and sent a clear signal that long-term investment isn’t welcome.
UK production is being hammered as a result, leaving us more dependent on imports, and poorer and less secure.
Grangemouth, Scotland’s only oil refinery and a major petrochemicals hub, is set to close its refining operations. Once that capacity is gone, it’s gone for good, just as bombed refineries in wartime rarely came back.
Sky-high energy costs, carbon pricing and regulatory pressure make Britain an expensive place to make things. Steel, chemicals and ceramics firms are shutting down or shifting production to friendlier territories, taking crucial jobs, skills and tax revenues with them.
Food security is under threat too. Miliband is covering productive farmland with solar panels, taking land out of cultivation in the name of green targets. That leaves us more reliant on imports and exposed to volatile global food prices.
The home front is wilting, as soaring energy bills shatter civilian morale, with millions shivering at home.
Worse still, Miliband’s energy strategy leaves us hooked on Chinese solar panels, batteries and critical minerals. Beijing is not our friend.
Miliband is right in one key respect. Renewables will diversify our energy grid and, in theory, make us less reliant on imported gas that Putin can use as leverage.
In practice, the reckless rush to deliver clean power by 2030 is doing the opposite. As Britain shuts down exploration in its own waters, it becomes more dependent on imported gas.
Miliband’s impossible timetable risks leaving Britain more exposed to hostile foreign states like China and Russia.
The only reason Europe could wean itself off Russian energy was by substituting it with imports of US gas, thanks to the shale revolution. Yet Miliband has banned fracking here.
Britain needs renewables and climate change is real. But his self-imposed 2030 deadline is making Britain poorer, weaker and more vulnerable. Halting it could save us £14billion a year, money that could be used to boost our defences.
We may not be in a shooting war today, but we could be one day. When that happens, we’ll need every scrap of economic strength we have. Ed Miliband, Rachel Reeves and the rest of this strategically inept Labour leadership are wiping out our industrial base before we’ve even begun.
