Pylons rule and rural beauty is up for sale. Why do those in power so hate the countryside? | Simon Jenkins

Ed Miliband seems happy to see the landscape blighted. We value townscape – everywhere else has to fend for itself

Does Labour believe in beauty? The energy secretary, Ed Miliband, celebrated his arrival in office this summer by permitting three of the largest solar panel arrays in Britain. One, a Suffolk array covering nearly 2,800 acres, was described by a county councillor as “the poorest infrastructure application that I have ever dealt with”.

Now Miliband is demanding a procession of pylons filling the glorious Amber Valley in the Derbyshire uplands. Another parade of 420 pylons, each nearly as tall as Nelson’s column, will run down the east of England from Grimsby to Walpole, near King’s Lynn in Norfolk. The government also wants to allow the return of onshore wind turbines, overriding local objections.

Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist