Tom Munson: Miliband’s lukewarm beer offer is no way to save pubs

Thomas Munson is a political commentator and writer. He is a former aide to two Secretaries of State.

This weekend, like many of you, I was looking forward to seeing out the week with a pint of cold beer in my local.

It is a time-honoured tradition. My father did the same, as did his before him. It is often through this ritual friendships are maintained, stories are shared and the working week is properly brought to a close. I tend to think of it as the social oil that keeps the human machine running.

Alas, spare a thought for the pub landlord of 2026.

Already under siege from COVID and the war in Ukraine, publicans already have another enemy storming the barricades in the form of Iran. A local pub landlord tells me his utilities have nearly quadrupled this decade. Volatile energy prices following developments in the Middle East only serve to compound that problem.

Never fear, Ed Miliband is here.

The Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, seems to have a simple message for Britain’s pubs worried about energy costs: suck it up and serve the beer warm.

Beer, of course, was not always served ice-cold. But today it is the popularity of chilled lagers and stouts that keeps these businesses’ heads above water.

In this sense, Miliband increasingly resembles Don Quixote; the deluded knight from Cervantes’ novel who imagines himself a hero while battling enemies that exist only in his own mind.

There is, however, an irony in this comparison. Quixote famously mistook windmills for giants and set about destroying them. Miliband, by contrast, has placed his faith in windmills pursuing a vision of energy policy that has left Britain more, not less, dependent on volatile foreign supplies.

His recent suggestion that pubs might simply serve beer at a warmer temperature to cut costs (alongside advice to switch off fridges and other equipment) has been met with disbelief across the hospitality sector, already grappling with soaring bills and shrinking margins.

Miliband’s position is, of course, enabled by a government that seems increasingly reluctant to take responsibility for the consequences of its own energy policy. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has this week insisted that decisions on new North Sea projects are not his responsibility, but for his Energy Secretary.

The result is a kind of modern farce: one knight deludedly chasing windmills, another knight (literal in this case) refusing to draw his sword altogether.

Britain is not short of energy; but it has chosen to make itself so.

By restricting domestic oil and gas production while demand remains, we have made ourselves more reliant on imports and therefore more exposed to precisely the global shocks Miliband now cites as justification for further change.

What is happening to the pub is happening across the wider economy. British industry continues to struggle under energy costs far higher than those faced by competitors abroad. Investment is being delayed, scaled back or moved elsewhere entirely. The cumulative effect is a slow erosion of the country’s productive capacity and with it, the tax base and growth needed to fund any meaningful transition to a cleaner future.

Meanwhile, others take a different approach. Countries such as Norway continue to develop their domestic resources while investing in long-term alternatives, recognising that energy security and economic resilience are prerequisites for any successful transition.

None of this is to argue against the long-term goal of reducing emissions. But the path to net zero must be grounded in economic reality.

As the old Churchillian insight suggests, you cannot make a nation prosperous by imposing costs upon it; nor can you decarbonise your way into growth.

If anything, the opposite is true: sustained growth, supported by affordable and reliable energy, is what makes investment in cleaner technologies possible in the first place.

That means recognising the role domestic oil and gas must continue to play in the short to medium term. It also means being serious about alternatives that can deliver both security and sustainability. Nuclear power, in particular, offers a path to abundant, low-carbon energy.

As I have argued elsewhere, Britain should be thinking far more seriously about how it harnesses nuclear energy as part of a credible long-term strategy.

Instead, we have a government pursuing an energy policy that risks entrenching high costs while offering little in the way of immediate relief. Labour’s approach, as it stands, asks businesses and consumers to absorb the pain now on the promise of a more stable future later. This promise rings hollow for many if they cannot keep the lights on in the present.

Nowhere is that more keenly felt than in the pub.

For landlords already operating on a shoestring budget, energy policy is not about what is ideological right or ideological wrong, but what determines whether their doors stay open at all.

So as you take that first sip of your (hopefully) cold pint later tonight, think of those publicans wondering how much longer they can afford to keep it that way.