England - Dark, cold and hopeless – a glimpse of life five years from now

Meanwhile government ministers sit comfortably in their electrically centrally heated homes using the generous heating allowance they awarded themselves, though even they can’t avoid the blackouts.

England - Dark, cold and hopeless – a glimpse of life five years from now

By

David Wright

October 2, 2024

IT’S 2029 and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is expected to announce the date of the general election shortly. He has no worries because he knows, and the polls and pundits in the media are constantly telling him, that he will have an easy win with a very low turnout because what is left of the Conservative Party have not announced any positive growth policies and are still bickering over a third replacement candidate for the leadership. Nigel Farage’s Reform party is also looking dangerous for the Tories so, hopefully, they will finally be sent to the oblivion where they have belonged ever since Cameron was PM.

Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero Ed Miliband is rubbing his hands at the prospect of another five years of peppering the country with wind turbines and solar panels. His efforts to date have increased the renewable share of electricity generation from 40 per cent at the start of Labour’s first term to 49 per cent, but not enough to prevent the frequent and long blackouts, especially in winter when there is a wind drought and precious little sun. The last coal-fired power station was shut down in 2024, while gas-fired power stations are too few to power the whole country and exist on huge government subsidies because they cannot make a profit on intermittent use.

The roads are clogged with Chinese EVs which comprise more than 50 per cent of cars and light vans. At any one time 20 per cent of these are queueing for a recharge; average waiting time is two hours, average charging time one hour.

The police are rarely seen because their electric cars have only enough capacity for four to five hours patrolling. Most of their trips are to the homes of people to arrest them for hate-speech posts on social media.

Manufacturing has ceased altogether because of the cost of electricity. The tourism industry is also largely finished because most hotels are full of illegal economic migrants. For those who still have jobs, working from home is almost 100 per cent, mainly because commuting is too risky when the Underground and electric surface trains are so often cancelled during the morning and evening rush hours due to lack of electricity when these periods coincide with low or zero solar and wind energy.

Shopping hours have been severely restricted to between 10am and 5pm because of the cost of electricity for lights, refrigerated cabinets and tills. The food in the shops is mostly imported because Britain’s farmers are farming wind turbines and solar panels, being paid handsomely to have them on their land. So much easier than milking cows every day or growing crops.

Around 20,000 high-net-worth individuals fled the country with their families in 2028 alone, continuing an exodus which started in 2024 when the government started taxing non-doms and excessively increasing income taxes for higher earners.

In late autumn, winter and early spring people shiver in the cold and dark of their homes, with the elderly in many cases dying. Having a standby petrol or diesel generator for private home use was made illegal in 2027. Meanwhile government ministers sit comfortably in their electrically centrally heated homes using the generous heating allowance they awarded themselves, though even they can’t avoid the blackouts.

Welcome to Dystopia, aka Great Britain.

TCW