Outlook: Truth the first casualty of Battle of the Budge

Tony Blair could have stood up at the despatch box yesterday and laid it on the line to Richard Budge. So could his Energy Minister, John Battle, when he appeared before MPs on the Trade and Industry Select Committee. Unfortunately, without a policy on coal, much less one on energy, that was not an option available to either of them.

The Government could have summoned up all its courage, stared Old Labour in the face, and admitted that coal has no future. It could have said that the market, the mood and the times have moved fatally against coal and that no amount of subsidy, intervention or rigging of the market will save the pits.

It could have admitted that its environmental obligations take priority and that if Britain is serious about reducing greenhouse gases then coal has very little role to play in meeting our energy needs. Finally, it could have said that while 5,000 miners' jobs will probably be gone by next spring, the Government is funding an energy efficiency drive that will replace all those lost jobs and more.

Mr Budge and his unlikely new-found friends, the miners who had followed him down to Westminster from the coalfields of Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire, got none of this. Instead what Mr Blair and Mr Battle gave them was a sop in the shape of a moratorium on approving any further gas-fired power stations and a pledge that Britain's long-term energy needs are "too important to be left to short-term market forces".

Mr Budge knows that the moratorium is meaningless and the pledge almost certainly so much hot air. Mr Battle knows it too because he admitted as much in the Commons less than a fortnight ago.There are already enough gas-fired stations being built to replace half the output of the English coalfields. What's more, there are enough consents granted for new stations to wipe out what is left, some of them sanctioned since Labour came to power.

For all his dislike of "short-term market forces", Mr Blair shows little stomach for short-term intervention. For his part, Mr Budge's plan to build a new generation of "clean" coal fired stations looks a non-starter unless he digs deep into his own pocket. Luckily for New Labour and Mr Blair, Old Labour dislikes Mr Budge as much as anyone. Oh how much easier it is to pin the blame on the "millionaire Budge" than admit that the Government has no proper long-term energy policy.