Over the past few months, Rachael Burford, Chief Political Correspondent of The Standard (formerly the London Evening standard) has been covering the faltering progress of the proposed Leconfield – an exclusive very up market club situated in Leconfield House, the former MI5 HQ in London’s Mayfair (https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/liz-truss-mayfair-members-club-leconfield-house-neighbours-b1267909.html [24 January 2026] & https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/liz-truss-mayfair-private-members-club-leconsfield-b1275681.html [21 March 2026]).
What seized Rachael’s attention was the involvement in this business project was the presence of Liz Truss. Lizzie’s presence made turned this into a London-wide story and not simply a West End story.
Liz went into print (https://www.bitebackpublishing.com/books/ten-years-to-save-the-west) declaring that the establishment was an impediment to growth and radical reform in the UK.
The BG has some advice to Liz; Liz, the impedimenta to UK economic growth lies beyond the establishment but in the cities and the shires across our country!
Every UK government in recent times has been handicapped by the same thing: Persistent and organised campaigns against virtually EVERY planning application of a major project. The list is legion! HS2, Hinkley Point C to name two prominent examples.
Your government was afflicted with the NIMBYs and Two Tier Keir’s government is similarly afflicted. Mad Milliband is soon going to experience this when his plans to expand the National Grid to efficiently transmit the power generated by Scotland’s offshore wind turbines down to the “Home Counties” meets the fury of NIMBYs from the Highlands down to Hertfordshire!
The FACT is that the UK cannot expand to compete with other nations without grasping this very large nettle!
FACT: Every major attempt to build the desperately needed affordable homes along with every other development meets an impenetrable wall of resistance from articulate, determined, educated, organised middle class NIMBYs who constitute the very essence of the eloquent “well to do”!
As a result, the UK falls behind other countries in promoting growth. The NIMBY’s are of course assisted by UK politicians! Look at HS2 and Hinkley Point C.
Simply put: Projects like Hinkley Point C are not going to meet the UK’s energy needs on time. It is undoubtedly the “Rolls Royce” of PWRs – whereas Rolls Royce’s own Small Modular Reactor will turn out to be too small and too late.
There appears however a revolutionary answer that promises reliable, renewable “clean” energy that is affordable: Unconventional Geothermal Energy.
Unlike Conventional Geothermal Energy (of which Iceland – due to it’s geology) is the major large scale example, Unconventional Geothermal Energy appears to promise affordable geothermal electricity in areas (virtually all land on the planet) where the geology of Iceland (hot rocks near the surface) does not exist. This due to a radically new way of drilling very very deep holes in the ground!
The company offering this prospect is Quaise Energy. Quaise Energy’s corporate headquarters is located at 501 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02139, United States. The company also maintains a presence in Houston, Texas.Key (https://www.quaise.com/).
Be under NO DOUBT however: Were a UK electricity provider to propose a geothermal power station using Quaise Energy’s technology the protests from local people – and wider afield – will be intense – wherever in the UK mainland the proposal is made!
I can hear it now: People wailing and gnashing their teeth about the prospect of being severely injured by microwave radiation!
Lawyers will queue up eagerly offering their services to the protestors! Public enquiries will be demanded! Planning appeals made! High Court action followed by Appeal Court action followed by Supreme Court action will be fought by teams of KCs, junior barristers and their instructing solicitors!
The BBC will interview well educated ultra respectable upper middle class ladies who will be living advertisements for the expense of the private school fees paid by their now deceased parents decades ago! These articulate and eloquent well spoken – and well educated – ladies will deplore the practical answer to the UK’s energy needs!
Liz – this is the UK’s problem – the one that you are now personally experiencing!
Good luck BTW!