He bottled it again

Badenoch opens with a blunt verdict on the Prime Minister: no significant decision yet on defence, on welfare, or on oil and gas.

“Andy Burnham has bottled it yet again.”

Promises from the coronation

All three were things Burnham said he would sort out during his uncontested run at the Labour leadership.

The build-up to approval

For weeks the expectation was that Burnham would sign off the Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gas fields in the North Sea.

Spinners briefed pragmatism

Government aides told journalists the PM would be pragmatic on oil and gas and do the thing Keir Starmer always dodged.

“going to be 'pragmatic' on oil and gas”

A speech and a photo-op

The announcement was pencilled in for Tuesday at the TUC congress in Brighton, with rumours of an Aberdeen visit to follow.

Then the delay landed

Instead of a decision, Burnham pushed it back. Badenoch argues the reason is obvious to everyone watching.

“as sure as night follows day”

A by-election in the way

Labour is in a tight race with the Greens in Holborn and St Pancras, which votes at the start of October.

Starmer's parting gift

Rather than sit in Parliament alongside the MPs who moved against him, Starmer quit, handing Burnham a hard vote in Green-friendly London.

“all the Labour MPs who had stabbed him in the back”

The diary emptied

The TUC speech is off and the Aberdeen trip is shelved, leaving thousands of oil and gas workers in Scotland and beyond in limbo.

The Tories signed them off

Badenoch points out her party approved the Rosebank and Jackdaw licences in government, before the courts got involved.

The legal challenge

Campaigners she calls anti-growth Net Zero obsessives sued, and the Conservatives were still fighting the case when Starmer took office.

“The usual anti-growth, Left-wing, Net Zero obsessives launched a legal challenge”

Two years of consultation

Starmer and his then climate secretary Ed Miliband opened a consultation that pushed the approvals back a further two years.

Continuity Keir

Her nickname for Burnham is the whole argument in two words: a new leader kicking the same decision into the long grass.

“Now Andy Burnham, or 'Continuity Keir', has kicked the decision into the long grass once more.”

Gas by Christmas

Had he approved it, Badenoch says Jackdaw gas could be flowing into the grid in time for Christmas, enough for about 1.4 million homes.

Jobs and tax receipts

She counts the cost in less reliance on imports this winter, secure industry jobs, and an estimated £1.4 billion in tax by the end of this Parliament.

Imports are dirtier

Without it, Britain keeps buying costly gas from Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which she says carries a bigger carbon footprint than drilling at home.

“It is complete madness and does nothing to stop climate change.”

Her alternative plan

Drop Net Zero 2050 as a target, drill domestically, scrap the levies and charges loaded onto bills, and cut the regulation around the industry.

“It starts with dropping meaningless targets like Net Zero 2050 and focusing on what works.”

Security on three fronts

Badenoch frames the stalled licences as a risk to energy security, national security and economic security at once.

“Energy security is national security; it's economic security.”

Two by-elections, two meanings

On the day Burnham won Makerfield, Douglas Lumsden took Aberdeen South for the Conservatives. She reads one as personal ambition, the other as a vote about oil and gas jobs.

“Burnham's victory was about one man's ambition”

Approve them now

Her closing demand: for the workers and for anyone who wants deindustrialisation and high bills to end, sign off Rosebank and Jackdaw without further delay.

“Burnham must get serious and approve the Rosebank and Jackdaw licences, and do it now.”