There are a number of things that I really don’t want to hear discussed on the news, especially in a manner that resembles the couple of expository lines frantically shouted at the start of a disaster movie. Nuclear power is very much one of those things. Nevertheless, here we all are, speculating as to whether the Chinese might build weaknesses into the Hinkley Point C nuclear plant’s computer systems, just in case they might at some point decide to snatch control of the facility. Which hardly suggests an open, collaborative relationship of trust.

If I were Chinese, I’d be quite upset, hopefully because I’d been disrespected and traduced — but possibly, I suppose, because I’d been rumbled. It all seems quite distant from the Brexiteers’ dreams of arms held out in fond embrace as Britain opens for business to a grateful globe. Still, China is one thing. France is quite another.

Under the current circumstances it’s sensible to stay on the right side of countries that seem, broadly, to be trustworthy allies who share British democratic values. Therefore it seems particularly rude of the government to have announced that they were going to have another think about Hinkley Point just as the French energy company EDF voted to go ahead and build the thing, along with its Chinese partner. The party marquee, we are told, was being erected. The media interviews, we are told, were lined up. It’s as if the announcement was timed for maximum public humiliation. Quel dommage.

It’s perfectly reasonable for Theresa May to take some time. After all, it is pretty weird that a couple of state-owned companies, EDF and China’s CGN, are being contracted to do work that successive UK governments have believed should be done “privately”. Indeed there have been various legal challenges to the whole setup.

It is also pretty weird that it’s so expensive, when the whole idea of putting this sort of work out to independent contractors is supposedly so that the competitive strength of market forces can do its work. Even within EDF, people think the project is too expensive, so it’s not like anyone’s rubbing their hands with quick-profit glee — except the money lenders. The easiest way to make the project cheaper would be direct government investment, so at least there’s some hope for that.

But what’s definitely unreasonable is to decline to offer a quiet heads-up to putative business partners in a highly sensitive venture and warn EDF that the new government want some further time to consider. Good manners cost nothing. Bad manners can cost a great deal. Just as the UK needs to look like a country that is straightforward and businesslike, it’s starting to look like a country that is petulant and unpredictable. France, and all of Europe, is already upset about Brexit, and with good reason. It’s all very well to fetishise the will of the people. But when a country has a two-party democratic system, and the will of the people defied both of those parties, that country’s ability to deliver stable representative democracy is called into question.

The UK is eight years and three prime ministers on from the announcement that a new generation of nuclear power stations would be created here. Thus far, all that has been created is endless controversy. Even if their necessity was settled in principle — which unfortunately it isn’t — Britain’s ability to turn its nuclear ambitions into reality grows more etiolated by the day.

Britain doesn’t have the skills to manage such a project itself, having been out of the nuclear power station game for such a long time. Now, having declared ourselves fairly hostile to immigration, we’re beginning to look like a country that doesn’t even have the skills to manage not having the skills to manage things. EDF’s shares shot up in value when it was announced that the deal was in jeopardy again. No wonder.

As for the prime minister, she’s starting to look like someone who just doesn’t care what feathers she ruffles or which enemies she makes. She has already banished major figures in the last government to the back benches. George Osborne, an enthusiast for Hinkley Point, has even more May-delivered egg all over his face now. Obviously, I’ve enjoyed that spectacle as much as the next man. But May’s majority is just 12. If Labour wasn’t looking so fantastically unlike an opposition, let alone a government in waiting, she’d have to be more careful. The checks and balances of the system, which foster a degree of diplomacy and fastidiousness, are not working. And that’s on view for all the world to see.

Since last Thursday night, May has alienated the French, the Chinese, some of her own backbenchers and some of her own cabinet. The chancellor, Philip Hammond, was saying just two weeks ago that Hinkley must go ahead. He is not looking like a man who has the ear of his boss. Other countries must now be wondering if Britain would treat them like this too.

And we’re also just that bit further away from solving the problem of our future energy needs. The Hinkley Point deal has always been controversial within EDF. Two directors have recently resigned, one of them in part because of Hinkley, the other entirely because of it. Of the 17 remaining directors, only 10 voted in favour — only to be greeted with fresh prevarication. If May does decide she wants the plant, she might yet have to find someone else to deliver it. It really is an extraordinary episode, even in a climate where extraordinary episodes have become the norm.

— Guardian News & Media Ltd

Deborah Orr is one of Britain’s leading social and political commentators.