UK PM Keir Starmer is in Brazil for a climate boondoggle and was quoted by The Spectator newsletter as saying:

Clean energy doesn’t just mean energy security, so [Vladimir] Putin can’t put his boot on our throat. It means lower bills for working families in every part of the UK.

This lame 'Russian weaponisation of energy' trope simply doesn't cut it anymore.

The EU and UK stopped buying Russian energy and switched to more expensive sources like US LPG.

Russia was bound by commercial contracts so why would it turn off the spigot?

'Somebody' disabled the Nordstream pipelines to Germany cutting off a major supply line and the EU spends all its time trying to persuade Hungary and Slovakia to give up Russian energy that Russia has not 'weaponised' against these countries.

So all this rhetoric about Putin putting the boot on Europe's throat is nonsense.

Nobody doubts that energy and access to rare earths is the next economic battleground and can and will be weaponised.

But Europe could have locked in cheap Russian energy and protected their energy security for decades to come and instead deliberately chose to let that advantage go to China.

Now they are paying the price.

Ask the average UK consumer if their electricity bills have gone up or down and Sir Keir might get a different answer and that's without factoring in the range taxpayer funded incentives for all kinds of clean energy from wind farms and solar panels to electric cars and heat pumps.

Subsidies that every household in the country is paying for without realising.