Just hours after George Osborne’s capitulation to the LibDems over green subsidies the first casualty of the green energy price hikes has been announced. Tata Steel has been forced to cut 900 jobs, citing green policies for damaging their competitiveness with European rivals. Well done Davey.

A senior treasury source insists to Guido that it could have been far worse: “People were pushing for at least a £10 billion subsidy. Given existing obligations already entered into we couldn’t have got it any lower unfortunately – but we made it better than it was.” Tough one to sell to bill-payers though.