Politicians want answers with their problems, what would yours be?

As an emergency measure, rationing, adjust systems to easily allow this before they are needed, be proactive.

The simplest way is to change the pricing structure - at present my gas, electricty and water all get cheaper the more I use, this is exactly the opposite of what is required. The regulators, such as OFGAS, could be authorised to enforce this.

The first chunk of energy should be priced at a rate all (including pensioners) can easily afford - enough energy to cook, shower, and adequately heat one room?

After that, the price should escalate exponentially so people (like for example those who are living one person to a large badly insulated house) can decide what lifesyle changes they might want to make, if any, or pay substantially more for the resource - we live in a 'free' country so you can't expect the government to dictate what you should do.

The most important thing that Gordon -or any politician- could do is blow the whistle on the problem at hand. We are in a sort of 'Apollo 13 crisis mode' but no one as yet is saying 'Houston we have a problem'.

I would suggest that he immediatley convene a meeting of all heads of state and ask the UN to do a "Global Energy Audit" as input (forcing all key players to divulge their reserves and peak extraction capacity -any country not doing so would have its credit rating downgraded as a 'stick').

There's a big UK Renewable Energy report coming out later this week -The Guardian got hold of it last weekend.

Its scratching the surface but some things:

Massive 30 fold windpower expansion
Insulation
Solar hot water heating.

All this to get to 15% by 2020...

In addition we need to double nuclear, give rebates for PHEVs, increase investment in the railways and city trams + electric buses. Etc, etc.

Nick.

"so what do we do?"

Well reading some of the excellent comments on this thread its clear there are concerns about the integrity of the UK grid, so the first thing that we must do without any delay is to build another 12 CCGT power stations (combined cycle gas turbine). These are already on order, so I think we need to bring their construction forward a bit.

Someone also mentioned that the trains were crowded so I think we need to accelerate the road building program to alleviate this problem.

The high cost of fuel is also crippling the airline industry and so I think the government should provide subsidies here. Ideally the government should cut the tax on jet fuel, but since there is no tax on jet fuel straight fuel subsidies will be required. If we don't do that then British tourists will no longer be able to fly to Spain to catch skin cancer - and then the NHS may have too little to do.

The poor and the old will struggle to pay their energy bills so they also need subsidies to help bolster energy demand from that segment of society and I 'd propose to pay for that by taxing the offshore oil and gas industry even more. As you are aware they are making obscene profits, and the fact that most of that profit comes from overseas doesn't matter. Pension funds are obese at present so I say f*ck those who have tried to save for their old age and tax the oil companies till their pips squeak.

Based on its utterly appalling safety record I don't think we should risk new nuclear power stations, especially since the general public , who as a result of all the extra money spent on education in recent years, are pretty expert on engineering aspects of nuclear power plant and on the clinical dangers associated with radiation leakage. So if the public says "we don't want nuclear" I think the government must listen to that well informed opinion.

I think it is also imperative that we place the well fare of some ducks ahead of the well fare of the population in general and need therefore to be very wary of building too many windmills or tidal barrages since this could do untold harm to the habitat of said ducks. And in any case, windmills produce more CO2 than burning coal.

We must also take our national security very seriously indeed, and so when the MOD says you can't build any windmills anywhere since we like flying low - (a tactic proven to be very popular with Iraqis during GW1 who discovered they could shoot down our Tornadoes with bows and arrows) and we must be very wary of the Russian threat. Ever since the Crimean War the Russians have threatened our national security with only two short periods during the 20th century where they changed sides and were our allies (WWI and WWII). So we must stay vigilant. After all, the Russians are likely short of nat gas, and may invade Britain at any moment to seize our oil and gas fields.

Finally, I think the government should be doing much more right now to blame other people for the energy crisis. It has been totally impossible to predict that north Sea oil and Gas production would fall the way it has. This is largely the blame of the oil companies, who as you know are also among the biggest speculators in the oil and gas market. I foresee a grave threat that Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling may become extremely unpopular, so much so that they are not made Knights of the realm for all their good service to the UK. So maybe they need to bring back someone like Alistair Campbell to ensure that those who are really to blame for this catastrophe, get blamed. Its obvious that greedy poor Americans taking on mortgages they can't afford is the root cause of the Brent Field now being empty.