Ed Miliband is Britain's energy secretary under Keir Starmer. He is arguably the closest thing Sir Keir has to a friend at the top of politics. In the September 2025 reshuffle he was asked to move jobs; he refused.
In opposition Mr Miliband made a totemic pledge to ban all new drilling in the North Sea, conceived as a virtue-signal to restore Britain's climate leadership. In office he fudged, agreeing to allow new drilling on existing fields (known as "tiebacks") but still limiting producers to smaller projects. Coupled with an unattractive tax regime, investment dried up; in 2025 no new exploration licences were approved for the first time since drilling began. Mr Miliband lifted a moratorium on onshore wind turbines and set a target for 95% of electricity to come from low-carbon sources by 2030.
He previously branded Rosebank, a large oilfield, "climate vandalism". With an energised Green Party threatening Labour's left, concessions on drilling are not cost-free.
When Mr Miliband previously held the energy portfolio in 2009, he observed that Martin Luther King did not gain followers by proclaiming "I have a nightmare". He has since sold the dream that decarbonising will make Britain richer and more secure, framing the transition as an escape from the "rollercoaster of fossil fuels".
Under Mr Miliband renewables went from generating 4% of Britain's electricity in 2004 to over half by 2024. However, domestic electricity prices rose from the second-lowest in the EU (in 2004) to third-highest (after Germany and Belgium). Gas still accounted for 31% of electricity generation in 2025, compared with 3% in France. Over four-fifths of British homes rely on gas for heating, far more than in the EU. The IMF has said Britain is "especially exposed" to the Iran conflict due to its reliance on gas-fired power.
Analysis from the National Energy System Operator suggests Britain's energy-related costs could fall from 10% of GDP in 2025 to less than 6% by 2050 in a low-carbon world. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 the shock added 1.8% of GDP to Britain's energy bill; an equivalent disruption in 2050, with a mostly decarbonised economy, would add only 0.3%.
Critics argue the rigid 2030 target locks in reliance on offshore wind—which on current plans would comprise half of all generation—at prices fixed at £91 a MWh for 20 years, far more than onshore wind (£72) and solar (£65). Onshore wind farms were unwisely all but banned until 2024. Network costs alone are calculated to add £135 (in 2025 prices) to annual bills by 2030, two-thirds more than that component costs today. By pushing up electricity bills, the 2030 rush discourages electrification of home heating: electricity prices are quadruple those of gas in Britain, one of the widest gaps in Europe.
Mr Miliband has been described as the most competent minister in the cabinet. He led Labour to defeat in 2015, however, and has told journalists that this experience has "inoculated" him from ever wanting to stand for the leadership again. Voters have rejected him once already, and he professes not to want the job—though the "soft left" of the Labour Party, whose views he embodies, exerts growing influence over Keir Starmer's government.
Break into jail and claim police brutality.