The SNP have long tied their hopes to the price of oil and, now it’s under $30 a barrel, Sturgeon is pushing for big oil tax breaks. As tax policy is made in Westminster, Scottish Finance Minister John Swinney has scheduled an “urgent meeting” with Osborne. This is despite the Chancellor announcing £1.7 billion pounds worth of tax breaks for oil and gas last year…

The SNP suspended new coal bed methane and fracking sites in Scotland last year, killing off a growing industry in its infancy. Now they want Osborne to pay big oil for their mistake. Tax breaks for big business while eternally delaying fracking decisions – why don’t the SNP just go and join the Tories?

These are dark, dark days indeed for those profiting from green rackets. Guido wrote about how Government cuts to renewables funding were imperiling the subsidy reliant industry in the UK. The rapidly sliding oil price might just derail the Paris Climate Summit’s key aim to reduce emissions by scaling back reliance on fossil fuels. Such plans look unlikely to come to fruition in an era of super cheap oil…

The price of Brent crude has now fallen to a 12 year low below $30 a barrel as a result of sanctions being lifted on Iran, adding to an already present glut in oil production from OPEC members and US shale drillers. In such a climate consumers might be expected to increase consumption, with even figures from the climate lobby admitting such. Richard Howard, the environment and energy wonk at Policy Exchange, concedes:

“All else being equal, economic theory would suggest that the falling price of oil and gas would lead to an increase in consumption of oil and gas, with people driving their cars further, and heating their homes more. This could increase, or slow down the fall, in greenhouse gas emissions”.

To add insult to injury such a low oil price will only further encourage Government’s to withdraw subsidies from renewable energy, an industry wholly dependent on them. Perhaps the only hope for the climate lobby is that the price of oil will bounce back, otherwise known as the Alex Salmond school of thought. Unfortunately for them, it looks like we could be in for a prolonged period of cheap oil. So it’s really not looking good for the anti-fossil fuels, pro-renewables crowd then…

The former Prime Mentalist will be crowning his distinguished career as a politician with a speech today demanding the government nationalise the sea. McMental will call for the establishment of a state financed reserve fund to prop up the North Sea oil exploration as prices plummet. He will also argue for tax breaks for the industry in the March budget and call for the government to be ready for nationalisation in the event of the private sector deciding to mothball their operations. Bailing out the North Sea…

This is the same Gordon Brown who levied a 10% supplementary tax on North Sea oil, then doubled it to 20% – taking oil corporation taxes to 50%.

Black gold…

The turbulent priest Justin ‘Oil’ Welby is being supported in his jihad against Cameron by a Miliband plant. As a member of the House of Lords, disgracefully, Welby is afforded a parliamentary aide and despite the bossy Bishop’s insistence that the church is politically neutral, Jack Palmer is a Labour Party member. Disturbingly, Palmer claims to have only joined the party to “vote for Ed Miliband to be the next leader”. 

This outspoken spokesman considers “Tory rule” a “grim prospect” and says Michael Gove “is a truly terrifying human being”. When this pound shop Thomas Cromwell is not campaigning on the doorstep, he’s tweeting away urging people to ‘support #Labour’. To the Tower!