Bernard Ingham: Take control, Mr Cameron, and end the easy promises

Today it just might be – at least of the world as we know it.

A German constitutional court is to pronounce on the validity of the eurozone rescue package ahead of the German Parliament’s vote on it on September 29. The Bundesbank seems to have no doubt. It says the rescue has “gutted” Euro treaty law by bailing out member states that have not lived by the rules in the first place.

God alone knows what will happen if the “Neins” win in both court and the Bundestag.

Helpfully, it seems to have dawned on most people that the globe is going nowhere fast economically.

The only surprising thing is that anybody – apart from that study in stupidity called Ed Balls – should have thought it could with most of it barely keeping its head above water because of the millstone of debt round its neck.

In the midst of all this, David Cameron says he will not bring in any new laws that will harm recovery. Really? I do wish he would stop making easy promises that he simply cannot fulfil when the Euro-regulation factory is still working overtime in Brussels.

It is more than flesh and blood can stand. Consequently, I simply cannot resist the temptation to tell him what he should and should not be doing.

It would help if he first got control of his coalition. He should tell Nick Clegg and Vince Cable to shut up once and for all about land and mansion taxes and face reality: the 50p top rate of tax is not worth in revenue its anti-business symbolism.

Similarly, he should tell them that a period of silence would be golden on bank regulation. The coalition’s policy can be formulated once it has received the impending report of the Independent Commission on Banking.

Meanwhile, whatever angst politicians may harbour against bankers – and they deserve much censure – they should recognise that we need them to get us out of the hole they helped to dig.

That being so, there is nothing to be said for hitting them with all the regulations you can throw at them today and everything to commend progressively over the years ensuring that they cannot again give capitalism a bad name.

More generally, the public might be better disposed towards an austerity government if it showed the slightest sign of halting the public sector gravy train in government, local authorities and quangos. Outrage is no substitute for firm, indulgence-busting action.

But nothing would more make the nation sit up and take notice of government determination to get on top of our economic problems than a clear decision to ditch its dangerously counter-productive and impractical energy policy.

Please note, President Obama has just run a mile from imposing strict air pollution laws intended to combat global warming for fear of damaging the economy and employment.

Coalition energy policy is founded on four pillars only one of which – nuclear – works. Reducing energy demand through greater efficiency and economy is a pious hope. The idea of capturing and locking up in strata under the North Sea carbon emissions from power stations is entirely unproven and could double the price of electricity.

Finally, the coalition’s mad urge to develop wind power proves conclusively that it is as ignorant of what will produce secure, low carbon electricity as it is culpably profligate with our money. Not one of these wind turbines would be erected without massive consumer subsidy.

Yet even if we made a turbine pincushion out of our moors and mountains and ringed the British Isles with offshore wind farms, we would not close a single fossil-fuelled power station because you cannot rely on the wind – or the waves, tides or solar power for that matter.

This doctrinal passion for renewables – and notably wind – does not produce a single real new job. Instead, the subsidies needed to create them destroy real jobs by pricing industry out of the market – and out of Britain – through ever-rising power bills.

One analyst’s estimate suggests “green” measures already account for 18 per cent of electricity bills and could reach 38 per cent by 2020.

Cameron’s own energy adviser suggests they will raise household energy bills by £300 a year. Already 6.5 million live in fuel poverty.

Current coalition energy policy is another step on the road to Britain’s de-industrialisation and impoverishment. The end of the world is nigh, Prime Minister, unless you change it. Action this day.