Grid‑Greening: New Public Body to Light Up the City One Power Outage at a Time

The first flicker of this story comes from a conference room in the House of Commons, where Mr Burnham, freshly sworn in as Labour leader, will announce a public body that, in theory, will invest in the electricity grid.

The City’s power brokers, who have long taken the grid for granted, are already drafting memos on how to align their portfolios with the new 'lightbulb' policy.

In the same breath, the prime minister will declare his intention to cut energy costs, a promise that, if you’re a City analyst, is as likely to be met with a polite nod as a promise of a new London Eye.

The proposed body, tentatively named the National Grid Renewal Trust, will ostensibly raise capital through a mix of public and private funding, a move that could make the City’s banks feel both a little nostalgic and a little terrified.

Critics will argue that the real 'investment' is in a future where the City’s streetlamps flicker on automatically when a new policy is announced.

Meanwhile, the City’s top earners will be watching the market for signs that the new body will generate enough 'spark' to make their quarterly reports shine.

And as always, those who call the City 'the City' unironically will be delighted to see the headline play out as a metaphor for the bright future of British electricity.