Not even a bog-washing from Sir Tony Blair could douse Ed Miliband’s self-confidence.

Energy Secretary Mr Miliband came prancing into the Commons dressage ring. He was on the tips of his hooves, gnashers bared, swishing his tail.

These are glory days for goofball Ed. Ten years after his rejection at the 2015 general election he is back in the cockpit of our nation’s affairs, causing chaos. Man of destiny rediscovers task to which he was born.

Dawn brought news that Sir Tony had denounced the ‘irrationality’ and ‘hysteria’ of the climate change debate. Was the former PM telling Downing Street, ‘Miliband is a mad liability and he’s going to have to be sacked’?

Sir Keir Starmer’s personal poisoner, the Celtic mystic Morgan McSweeney, may have reached a similar conclusion.

Yet Mr Miliband is apparently adored by Labour’s Left-wing activists. If button-man Morgan wished to put a slug between Ed’s crossed eyes it will need to be a clean, single shot.

Commons energy questions allowed MPs to ask about Net Zero, Britain’s ‘leadership on climate change’ and the power cut in Spain and Portugal, which some people blame on over-reliance on solar and wind power.

Mr Miliband pooh-poohed that last one, insisting ‘we shouldn’t jump to conclusions’ about the Iberian blackout. It was the only time in the session that he sounded wary. The rest of the time our hero was implausibly, insistently upbeat, gabbling about the economic advantages, as he saw them, of giving up oil and gas.

Ten years after his rejection at the 2015 general election, Ed is back in the cockpit of our nation’s affairs, causing chaos

Ed Miliband (R), UK energy security secretary, and British Prime Minster Keir Starmer (L), during the International Summit on the Future of Energy Security in London, April 24, 2025

He leaned an elbow on the despatch box and allowed his hand – size of a ping-pong bat – to swivel horizontally left and right. At unpredictable moments the hand clenched. Think of a Venus flytrap snapping shut on a juicy bluebottle.

Were Labour MPs cooler to him than in the past? Brian Leishman (Lab, Alloa & Grange-mouth) certainly wasn’t buying the Miliband pitch. His constituency’s once-great oil refinery closed yesterday.

Mr Leishman tore into the minister with remarkable violence. ‘During the general election campaign the Labour leadership said they would step in and save the jobs at the refinery,’ he spat.

‘What has changed and why have we not done the sensible thing for Scotland’s energy security?’

It has been a long time since an MP attacked his own side with such fervour.

Labour’s duty whip, Anna Turley, leapt to her mobile telephone and started tapping an SOS. Another whip, Jeff Smith, came steaming into the chamber and stood by the Speaker’s chair, a prairie dog scanning the Labour benches for trouble. Mr Smith’s left eye was slightly less open than its right counterpart. It gave him a nicely sinister air.

Mr Miliband ran his long tongue round his lips, tasting the cordite of battle. He is no coward. Debate energises him. Drives him even nuttier. Twitches and convulsions attacked his body.

He fiddled with his mouth, played a finger on his rubbery lips, checked the knot of his tie and cackled while gazing myopically at the press gallery. When the Tories’ Joy Morrissey mentioned the Spanish power cuts, Mr Miliband pulled a hundred faces of scorn. Nick Timothy (Con, West Suffolk) accused him of caving in to Europe on carbon prices.

Mr Miliband groaned, grimaced and flicked through his folder. He waggled his wrists, drilled his forefinger into the despatch box so hard it must have hurt. He rubbed his ears, blew his conk into a scrunched handkerchief, hugged himself, picked at his teeth. He giggled and honked abuse at opponents. He rocked with hilarity and placed his right hand on his right hip, camp as Larry Grayson.

‘This Government has one mission and one mission alone: clean, home-grown power,’ he cried.

I am the government. The government is my department.

He was so full of it all that as he pogo-sticked off at the end he left his mobile telephone and security pass on the bench and his poor colleague Sarah Jones had to tidy up after him. Chaos. Yes, that’s the word.