The plain fact is that the only part of the UK which works is London. That's the only part the government is willing to spend and invest in. And we can be quite energy efficient if we are all crammed into one large city.

A better government would announce a plan to completely de-populate the UK outside the M25, fill the green belt with new skyscrapers, and raise the population of London to about 45 million. Move everyone in. The unofficial policy for decades has been "Screw the north". Just make it official. The UK could work as a sort of overgrown Singapore, but it doesn't work at all if we pretend there are other cities worth worrying about. Birmingham, Manchester and Scotland are all miserable, useless wastes of space. Let's turn them all into nature reserves and move everyone to London.