Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrats, recently addressed the government’s plans for new coal and nuclear power plants.

“The government has spooked everyone into thinking that we need nuclear by saying: ‘There’s going to be a terrible energy gap. The lights are going to go out in the middle of the next decade.’

There’s actually no evidence that that is the case at all. They have raised the wrong problem in order to push the wrong solution.

The real problem is that our energy mix is not green enough and that we are overdependent - as many people now realise because of the crisis in Georgia - on oil and gas from parts of the world that aren’t very reliable.

I think it is a question of political will. If we have been able to put a man on the moon, been able to create the welfare state, we could revolutionise the way in which we produce energy.”