QUENTIN LETTS: The Colombian's interpreter at Ed Miliband's global energy shindig had a growly voice worthy of any Spaghetti Western bandido
The gilt-chandeliered room filled with climate-change illuminati and renewable-energy snoots from every corner of the civilised world.
Self-congratulation suffused the air and it was all going swimmingly – they had just taken a delicious thrashing from a Barbadian lady who claimed her island was about to sink under the waves owing to global warming – when a chap from the Trump administration was handed the microphone.
He proceeded to tell them that the US of A, under its bracing new management, couldn't give a fig about Net Zero. Washington intended to go on burnin' fossil fuels and anyone who argued to the contrary must have a national death wish.
He offered this view as an act of Godly love. Oil and gas were a Christian leg-up to the world's poor and needy.
Cue silence. Not a single clap. Nor even a boo. There was just the frigid, absolute noiselessness Lady Bracknell might observe if the under-butler, serving luncheon, dropped a warm pork rissole down her cleavage.
Energy secretary Miliband had made the first speech on a morning of glutinous virtue. Hailing the 'distinguished delegates', Red Ed honked and spluttered his way through a spiel about 'the shifting global landscape' and how 'countries need to collaborate' to overcome energy-security problems.
'Shared challenges invite shared solutions,' schnorfed our hero, spraying the front row with spittle as he bared his cow-catcher teeth. 'We are the optimists!' he added. How cruelly this sanguine mood would soon be shattered.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen and IEA Executive Director, Fatih Birol, on day one of the Future of Energy Security at Lancaster House in London, Britain, 24 April 2025
Mr Miliband kept referring to his great friend 'Fatty'. This turned out to be Fatih Birol, head of the International Energy Agency, a global quango.
Mr Birol, in rather heavily accented English, gave a chewy lecture about his 'three golden rules', the first of which was diversification. 'Not to put all da eggs in vun basget,' said Fatty.
The bien-pensants nodded knowingly, veritable connoisseurs of such fare. Rule two was 'predictability' (this has possibly never been a problem with Fatty, for he was no sparkler); rule three was 'de kooperation', which meant countries not competing too much with one another.
Conference's moderator Francine Lacqua, from Bloomberg telly, launched the first plenary session with various excellencies: Spain's minister for ecological transition, Iraq's oil minister, a chatty Egyptian, an impenetrable Malaysian, a lad from Colombia.
Iraq and Egypt were keen on crude oil but said this subtly enough not to cause offence.
The Colombian's English-language interpreter had a growly voice worthy of any Spaghetti Western bandido. I was so gripped by it that I failed to follow the content of his speech.
After windy pieties from the floor we moved to the second plenary session: a smooth Frenchman, the Barbadian dame and Tommy Joyce, acting assistant secretary at Donald Trump's energy department.
He was in a pinstripe suit of a type Marks & Sparks stopped selling a few years ago. Add a Mormon haircut, college-kid accent and a clipboard speech he served on the assembly's snoots like a bailiff's writ.
Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer, center, meets Britain's Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, left, and Fatih Birol, right, Executive Director at the International Energy Agency (IEA) for day one of the International Summit on the Future of Energy Security at Lancaster House in London, England, Thursday April 24, 2025
The White House intended to 'bring back common sense' on 'so-called renewables'. Joe Biden was attacked, as was China, which had too much of a grip on the wind turbines industry.
Net Zero and corporate wokery caused human suffering. The US would have no truck with such lunacies.
Every other speaker was clapped. Mr Joyce put down his clipboard to the racket you hear at rush hour on planet Jupiter. The Bloomberg TV woman finally broke the silence by saying, somewhat stickily: 'The messaging is pretty clear.'
Later Mr Joyce returned to the fray to say that 'we remember God's golden rule that we should love our neighbour as ourself and let others lift themselves out of poverty' by using oil.
Sir Keir Starmer made a fraudulent speech. The EU's Ursula von der Leyen queened over the conference as if she owned the place. Fatty repeated his golden rules. But after Trumpster Tommy it was all pointless.
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