Subscribe to this blog's feedCertain phrases have a habit of coming back to haunt you. Ofgem boss Alistair Buchanan may yet rue the day he confidently told the chancellor there was nowt wrong with the energy market. Many moons ago a boffin confidently insisted that nuclear power would be too cheap to meter.
In the case of energy minister Malcolm Wicks, there was that phrase about Britain being “awash with gas”, a statement Wicks always claimed came courtesy of advice from National Grid. Whatever.
Wicks’ Tory counterpart, Charles Hendry MP, is one of the stalwarts of the Commons committee poring over the Energy Bill and has been having fun at Wicks’ expense.
First Hendry reminded Wicks (who is also a fixture on the committee as sponsoring minister) of his now famous phrase and pointed out that 24 hours later “we nearly ran out of gas”.
Hendry went on to deliver a short history lesson: “Of Mary I,
it was said that if they opened her up they would find ‘Calais’ written on her heart. When the time comes for the minister to be opened up, which we obviously hope is a long way off, we will find the words ‘awash with gas’ written on his heart. It is better than having ‘full of wind’ written there, just the phrase ‘awash with gas’ did not quite capture the spirit of the problem at
that time.”
What a card!
