AS news hits the press about the imminent demise of Nottingham’s Robin Hood Energy company (RHE), I took a look at the plinth in front of St Mary’s church in the middle of Nottingham.

The plinth offers a mythical version of Robin Hood’s demise; slowly being “bled” to death in a priory run by his cousin. There’s an image of Robin, summoning enough energy to call his friend Little John to help fire the arrow that was to define his final resting place.

Hailed initially as visionaries and pioneers, Labour councillors who set up Britain’s first not-for-profit, municipal energy company since 1948 are now being pilloried for its “failure.” Instead of this being a story about how rigged and crooked the British energy market is, it has become a stick with which to beat municipal enterprise. Instead of asking why such companies flourish elsewhere in Europe — but not in Britain — it is being used as a way of telling the public sector to keep out of domains in which private companies have systematically fleeced the poor.