When Satire Became Policy: Yes, Prime Minister, 2013 — and the Birth of Britain’s Green Dogma

There are moments when political satire stops being entertainment and becomes prophecy.One resurfaced clip from Yes, Prime Minister (2013) — aired the same year Ed Davey pushed the Energy Act through Parliament — has suddenly aged like a leaked Cabinet memo.

It opens with a perfectly cynical exchange:“Global warming — is it real?”“I don’t know.”“I don’t know either.”“Who cares? We can save the world!”

And with that, we are off — not into climate science, but into political opportunity.

A blueprint is laid out that could have been typed inside Whitehall:

Hold a big climate conference

Say we’ll save the planet

Raise taxes “gradually”Let Europe join in (as long as they get something extra)Come home to applause

Do nothing that actually changes anything

The punchlines are now policy:“Nothing will have actually been achieved…”“…but it will sound as though it has.”

Tell me that isn’t the last decade of UK energy strategy in a single joke.

⚠️ Billions spent, yet our energy bills keep rising.

From Comedy Script to Energy Act

In 2013, while the BBC played this satire for laughs, Westminster passed legislation based on almost the same logic:

✅ Global virtue signalling

✅ Cross-continental hand-holding

✅ Massive new levies and green charges

✅ Subsidy games for favoured industries

✅ Political credit today

❌ Results later — or never

Ed Davey’s Energy Act 2013 created the subsidy and financing framework that still drives today’s eye-watering consumer bills, grid chaos, and land-grab solar industrialisation of the countryside.

Satire writers were warning us what climate politics had become:Optics over outcomes. Announcements over engineering. Targets over technology.And Britain’s political class leaned in, grinning.

The True Cost of the Joke

This isn’t harmless humour anymore.

Britain didn’t just laugh — it legislated the punchline.And today we see the consequences:

Energy bills tripled for many families

Farmland replaced by solar speculation

Batteries and wind targets with no grid to support them

Nuclear delayed, gas demonised, imports rising

Rural communities treated as collateral

Politicians cheering perceived leadership while households ration heating

All to maintain the illusion scripted in a fictional Westminster drawing room: “It will sound as though it has… so people will think it has.”

2013 Comedy — 2025 Reality

The Comedy Line What Happened in Real Policy“Raise taxes gradually” Green levies quietly ballooned on bills“Europeans on board if they get more benefits” EU/EEA subsidy carve-outs, industrial deals“Sound as though we’ve saved the world” COP pledges, photo ops, slogans“Nothing has actually been achieved” Grid constraints, curtailment, imports rising“People will think it has” Net Zero headlines, energy insecurity reality

When a sitcom understands the mechanics of climate politics better than half the climate advisors in government, something has gone profoundly wrong.

Time to Stop Playing Along

A decade after that scene aired, one thing is clear:

Britain doesn’t need more climate theatre —it needs energy competence.

We need:Nuclear reality, not nuclear promises

British-made SMRs, not foreign solar dependency

Domestic gas, not ideological bans

Rooftop tech like Power Roll, not farmland industrialisation

A grid that actually exists, not press-release infrastructure

We need engineering before ideology, and delivery before declarations.Most of all, we need politics based on physics, not PR.Because it’s no longer satire.

It’s people’s bills.

It’s Britain’s future.And the joke is old.

Shane Oxer — Campaigner for fairer and affordable energy