<b><b>Britain needs to sort out its energy policy soon and stop living in a Green dream world, according to Will Howie</b></b><br>Last month my colleague, Robert Jones, considered the possible impact of the government&amp;’s supposed plans for more airports, or at least runways, on housing. He was rightly sceptical about the plans which he perhaps thought to be tongue-in-cheek, though he did not exactly say so. Jones was a little unkind to John Prescott, but that seems to be the order of the day now. It is true that Prescott sometimes earns criticism, mostly by promising more than he can deliver. But I think he means it this time. At any rate, I hope so.<p></p><p> If airport policies have implications for housing, so too have energy policies. Or is it the other way around? Housing policies make demands on energy supply, especially in its reliability.</p><p><b><b>three phases </b></b><br> Not long ago, Oxford professor Dieter Helm told the Parliamentary Group for Energy Studies that energy policies in Britain had gone through three phases since the Second World War. From 1945 until the end of the 1960s the need was to meet an expanding demand for power as British industry recovered from the war.</p><p> …