Back in the 70s, government picked a real winner: nuclear power. It was going to produce, they promised, power "too cheap to meter".

We know how that turned out. Rather than being too cheap to meter, nuclear turned out to be first too risky to privatise, and subsequently too expensive to run. Post-liberalisation, British Energy had to be baled out when it was revealed that they couldn't even cover their running costs, let alone their vast capital, risk, waste disposal and decommissioning costs at the prices delivered in a competitive market.

With higher fossil-fuel prices (and a large slug of taxpayers' money), nuclear can once again cover its running costs at market prices. Don't ask about waste disposal, risk and decommissioning, though, at least not if you want to be friends with our nuclear-convert Prime Minister.