The £18bn Hinkley Point nuclear plant will be overtaken by a host of cheaper technologies before it is even opened in the late 2020s, and risks degenerating into an epic white elephant as we pay fat subsidies into the second half of the 21st Century.

Theresa May inherited a poisoned chalice. The energy world has changed utterly over the last decade as climate policy drives a massive global push for renewable power, transforming the calculus of future costs. “It looks like a contract that was written five years ago on a business case that was probably pulled together 10 years ago,” says ScottishPower.