Miliband is clearly blowing taxpayers' money in the wind

ED Miliband's promises of a Britain basking in the glow of green-powered economic prosperity have been exposed as a fantasy. We should be just five years away from net-zero nirvana where the UK booms on the back of 650,000 new high-skilled jobs while households see £300 lopped off their annual energy bills.

- Sam Lister

That was the election promise made by Labour when it laid out its plans to create Great British Energy. But the pledges have been shown to be nonsense by none other than Miliband's own officials and a brutal intervention from Tony Blair's think tank. Labour knew its big election promise to cut energy costs was bogus even before polling day. One senior frontbencher told party officials he would not argue the case during broadcast interviews.

He admitted to me recently: "I knew it was b******t so I wasn't going to defend it."

Tellingly, Labour did not include the £300 promise in its official announcement about GB Energy just a few weeks after winning the election.

Earlier this month, Sir Keir Starmer was pressed on whether he stuck by the pledge and his response was a lot more woolly than when he was trying to win over voters, saying the figure is an "aim" and "what we are driving towards".

OFFICIALS in the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero warned years ago that meeting green targets will push energy bills higher before any possible reduction. Their analysis found the cost of installing wind and solar farms and other schemes would inflate prices in the "short to medium term".