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Hello and welcome to Spectator Out Loud. Each week we choose three pieces from the magazine

and ask their writers to read them aloud. I'm Oskredenson and on the podcast this

week. Former business secretary, Jacob Rees-Mogg, reads his diary and tells us why it's good to be

back on the backbenchers. Julian Jessup, dubbed a trusseteer in The Spectator for his informal

advisory role over Liz Truss's economic policy, reflects on the mistakes that were made.

And finally, Melanie McDonough reads her notes on candles.

Up first, Jacob Rees-Mogg.

After the shale gas bade, I was literally sent to Coventry. I visited UK Battery Industrialation Centre on Thursday. It is a remarkable facility that helps take innovative

batteries from the development stage through to production. It means companies only need the

hundreds of millions of investment once they have shown their product works and is scalable.

It was funded by the Faraday Battery Challenge, and I was there

to announce a further £221 million of taxpayers' money to see what more can be done. This is one of the

rather better ways BEIS spends money, as some of our policies seem designed to ruin industry.

I'm particularly concerned about steel, where the price of energy is, in normal times,

about 60% more than our competitors.

We then give subsidies to steel to keep their operations open.

The emissions trading scheme makes this worse,

as they lose credits if they do not produce

loss-making steel which they cannot sell.

...