Louise Gilmour: Miliband, Martin and Swinney… business would be booming if it could be powered by brass necks alone

We have suffered many dark days during what ministers still like to call our “just transition” but, even by those standards, Wednesday was a doozy.

Britain’s biggest oil and gas firm, Harbour Energy, shed 250 jobs in Aberdeen just as Danish energy giant Orsted announced it would not, after all, be building Hornsea 4, meant to be one of the world’s biggest wind farms, off the Yorkshire coast.

This development was, of course, integral to UK Energy Secretary Ed Miliband’s big plan for Britain to be completely powered by green energy by 2030 (while creating 650,000 new jobs in the process).

Presumably, he remained under his duvet on Wednesday but he had been out and about the day before, enthusiastically suggesting our car parks could be covered in solar panels to help deliver Net Zero. There will certainly be space in the car parks of Harbour Energy.

© Kin Cheung/PA Wire

It was another black day for all of us, awful for the workers at risk, as we continue to stagger backwards into the future, jettisoning good jobs in oil and gas today while blethering about tomorrow.

In Scotland, we had Gillian Martin, Acting Net Zero Secretary, announcing the Scottish Government’s Just Transition Fund is open again after a three-year hiatus that no one noticed.

To a fanfare of trumpets, Martin insisted: “Scotland’s innovation, expertise and vast renewable energy resources will not only benefit the planet but deliver new economic opportunities and new jobs.”

If only the same old platitudes, warm words and empty promises could deliver the opportunities and jobs instead.

The STUC Congress last month heard thousands of jobs were lost offshore last year while oil and gas supply chains suffered similar calamitous contraction.

In Aberdeen, the litany of companies losing jobs or falling into administration is now the drumbeat of an industry that remains – and should, with proper support and reassurance, remain for decades – crucial to our country’s economy and energy security.

© Andrew Milligan/PA Wire

Then, as if one speech from a minister promising a brighter, greener tomorrow was not enough, John Swinney unleashed his Plan For Government.

Courageously, he spoke about Grangemouth, which some Scots might think is an industrial disaster, a shameful, slow-motion calamity that unfolded over years as Holyrood talked of other things.

Anyway, our First Minister apparently believes the shuttering of our country’s only oil refinery is not a national disgrace but a gleaming opportunity.

With his ministers providing support, the moribund complex where thousands once worked will, he promised, become “an exemplar of where this support coalesces to drive a prosperous future for Scottish industry”.

If only Scotland could be powered by brass necks, we’d be back in business.

David Whitehouse, chief executive of trade body Offshore Energies UK, speaking in Falkirk a few weeks ago, wasn’t talking about this week’s plans but easily could have been.

He welcomed ministers’ ambition but lamented their enthusiasm for talking about targets but not delivery, adding “plans don’t necessarily create jobs because no one really believes in them”.

Meanwhile, as the first minister fixedly scans the horizon for all the ships carrying Scotland’s jobs, he will have barely glanced at an opinion poll last week suggesting 56% of us would like to see nuclear energy in the mix.

Even when the facts change – and on nuclear they have – Swinney’s ideological opposition will not.

© Jane Barlow/PA Wire

So, there is no review of new nuclear, no clear-eyed assessment of the potential benefits for household bills, energy security, and the economy.

Instead, we stumble on, from one speech to the next, one round of redundancies to the next, waiting and watching for the great transition. Waiting forever and watching in vain.