Gordon is now on YouTube and Number 10 is busy Twittering away. It seems, though, that they are so pre-occupied with their new toys and the digital environment that they have forgotten to check what is going on in the real world. In the House of Commons Hansard Written Answers for 12 May 2008 pt 0002, Norman Baker asked the Secretary of State for Transport whether she plans to revise her projections for the future price of oil in (a) 2010, (b) 2015 and (c) 2020. Jim Fitzpatrick replied that the Department for Transport uses oil price projections from the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) in its transport modelling. The 2nd May 2008 revised BERR oil price assumptions are (a) $65; (b) $68; and (c) $70 for the years requested.

Unbelievable! I dread to think what sort of policies will emerge as a result. As well as a third Heathrow runway, they’ll probably be suggesting a fourth or even a fifth one.

With oil having recently reached $128/barrel, and Goldman Sachs predicting that prices could reach $150 to $200 a barrel over the next 6 months to two years, I am beginning to suspect that our government is a) living in cloud cuckoo land b) in peak oil denial or c) knows something that we don’t.