I have welcomed the Government’s signal this week that it will accelerate North Sea gas production. Getting more supply locally of this relatively clean transition fuel is essential to helping with the cost of living, in addition to our security, since energy prices feed into the prices of so many other products. I have also been recommending different ways of incentivising new gas production on- and off-shore so that taxpayers’ exposure to energy prices while helping people with their bills can be limited by Government options on some of the new production.
Fuel prices are a concern but so is actually being able to drive around locally and I have been in touch with Council officers this week to get an update on road works going on in several places. While I understand the reason for doing them in a period including half term when the school traffic doesn’t add to problems, I have encouraged them to be finished as soon as possible and relayed people’s frustration. I have also asked for more information about suitable diversion routes to be given, as well as better signage for example on the A30 to indicate the exact location of closures and the fact that businesses like our brilliant butcher Stuart Sanders in West Coker remain open and accessible.
No doubt the gas shortage and high fuel prices in Europe are contributing to Vladimir Putin’s consideration that he might have more leverage in international affairs than usual right now. It has been essential therefore for us to build support with allies for a strong, clear message, leaving no room for misunderstanding, that the West will stand firm and respond against aggression and intimidation of neighbours from Russia. It has been good to see the Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary and a Defence Secretary leading from the front on this issue.
The consequences of outright hostile geopolitical competition for resources would be very damaging. I therefore hope Russia and China can understand there is nothing to fear for them in the way geopolitical affairs are conducted at the moment, and that it would be a win win for them to continue to integrate peacefully into the global economy.
We do need to lead by example in advancing causes of human rights and peaceful self-determination. To that end I find it dispiriting that some in the West are not doing as good a job as we have done in getting people vaccinated against COVID in the end in a way that does not lead to confrontation and authoritarianism. Nothing could be more important for our future than ensuring our systems of social, financial and economic interaction are built on a bedrock of rights for individuals as independent participants in society, and we in the UK with our tradition of the origin and evolution of liberal rights of the individual have a particular role to play.
Benjamin Franklin’s adage that “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety” is something we should think carefully about. His point, if translated in a modern way, is liberal not libertarian. It is that we should not be surprised if, in giving up our fundamental rights of independent action as individuals within society to some notion of immediate threat, those rights do not permanently disappear out of our reach and the environment we exist in does not become threatening in a range of other ways.