Labour MP Tom Watson has a very strange post up today:

If ever there was an example that showed the world just what a problem Charles Kennedy has with his party, then it is this letter from former Lib Dem Parliamentary candidate, Mike Dixon. Whilst you’re dropping by his site, take a look at his photo gallery….

Dixon’s sin, it seems, is his (rather inarticulate) support for distributed electricity generation. But nowhere in Watson’s post do we learn why this is a silly idea from somewhere in the evironmentalist fringe.

Perhaps that’s because it’s not.

Hub-and-spoke distribution networks with huge central power plants and long-distance transmission lines are inefficient because power is lost in high-voltage transmission. In other words, focusing exclusively on increasing the capacity of the national grid causes avoidable greenhouse gas emissions. Microproduction of power close to the point of use — ideally using renewable energy — is one way of avoiding this.

Distributed generation a sensible idea and even Watson&rsqou;s own Labour government supports its development. Perhaps we should conclude that Tony Blair’s problem is blogging backbenchers who implicitly ridicule policies supported by his Energy White Paper, his energy minister — and even the obscure Lib Dem candidate from Birmingham Edgbaston!

If politicians are going to launch political attacks from their blogs, the least we should expect from them is that they make an effort to present a coherent argument of some sort.