Energy policy in Britain has been a self-destructive mess for as long as I can remember, and by the look of it, things may be about to get messier still.

The resignation of Thomas Piquemal as chief financial officer at EDF has been widely depicted as another, potentially fatal, blow for the planned Hinkley Point nuclear power station in Somerset. Would that it were so, for this eye-wateringly expensive and wholly unnecessary folie de grandeur has long deserved to be scrapped.

Unfortunately, Mr Piquemal’s dramatic exit may, by removing one of the last remaining obstacles to the required project finance, act in precisely the opposite manner. Mr Piquemal has been an opponent of the £18bn investment all along, arguing that EDF can ill afford such a high risk project at a time when the same technology is facing multiple challenges and cost overruns at Flamanville in Northern France and Olkiluoto in Finland.

Coming on top of the priority of nuclear renewal in France, Mr Piquemal feared that the additional burden of Hinkley might be the ruination of EDF, if indeed such an outcome is not already pre-baked. Never mind Hinkley, judging by the share price, which has lost nearly 90pc of its value in the past eight and a half years, investors already anticipate massive dilution by way of bail-outs by the French state.