ALISTAIR DARLING’S statement on the Government’s energy review was quite remarkable for its utter lack of energy. Ennui does not begin to cover it. Mr Darling has always been a bit of a robot, but yesterday he was a robot functioning on stand-by power. I kept waiting for him to start flashing a low-battery sign.

Surely our energy supplies cannot be so dire that we cannot spare a few megawatts to fire up the Trade Secretary before a big event. Perhaps he thinks he is saving carbon. Well, get a grip, Mr Darling, it’s not worth it. Plant a tree, if that’s what it takes. In fact, plant a forest. But in future, remember to plug yourself in.

“The scale of the challenge is great,” he said in exactly the same way that anyone else would say: “I hope you have remembered the cat food.” He mumbled. He looked at the carpet. He veered from dull to lack lustre like an old-lady driver who adjusts her speed in the motorway with great care from 35 to 37mph.

His paragraphs were numbered 1 to 60. Each sounded more or less the same. He spoke of the “health of our planet” in the same way one might say “health of a turnip”. We were very much in vegetable territory. He slowed a bit when he got to paragraph 48, the magic number for nuclear power. “New nuclear power stations could make a significant contribution to meeting our energy policy goals,” he intoned as if bored to death.

This infuriated Alan “Hunky” Duncan, his short but perfectly formed Tory Shadow. When Mr Darling wilted back on to the bench, Hunky shot up (he hasn’t far to go) and started ranting. Mr Darling stared back, his battery power so perilously low that he could barely hold a pen. “This statement is not carbon free! It’s content free!” shouted Hunky. All Mr Darling had announced was a new forum and a vague wish about nuclear power. There was no policies, no action, no decisions. The Prime Minister wanted nuclear power but where was the evidence? “There is nothing here!” he shouted.

Mr Darling drew on reserves he didn’t know he had. Actually he may have just absorbed some of Hunky’s excess energy, which was ricochetting around like free radicals at an atomic disco. Mr Darling accused the Tories of having a lack of consensus on nuclear power. It seemed an odd thing to focus on for, whatever shade of green the Tories are trying to be these days, they are not as split on nuclear power as Labour.

But Mr Darling’s power setting was too low to allow for a switch in tactics. Every time he accused the opposition of being split, Tory MPs would point across the chamber at Labour backbenchers. Occasionally a Labour MP would shake his head in despair and mutter: “There is no consensus.” (Actually I cannot be sure of this as it was told to me by the only lip-reader in the world not occupied decoding the Zidane tape. Another lip-reader may have interpreted it as: “There is no carrot cake.” Anything is possible in such a precise art.)

Labour backbenchers demanded to know if Mr Darling would give them a 100 per cent assurance that the Government would not subsidise nuclear power in any way. But Mr Darling was operating on less than 7 per cent by now and so could not (or perhaps would not) say.

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