38 Degrees Petition to Get Government to Solve High Energy Bill Crisis

‘David, energy prices are falling but we’re still paying DOUBLE what we were in 2020.

This means the average household will fork out over £2,074 each year for gas and electricity. [1] At the same time, thousands of families are buckling under £3.6 BILLION energy debt from simply trying to stay warm last winter. [2] It’s clear: the system is broken.

BUT, we have a rare chance to fix this: right now MPs are debating laws to overhaul our energy system. [3] It’s an unmissable opportunity to force the Government to commit to long-term solutions that will prevent families being punished by sky-high costs. But it’ll take us fighting together to make them listen.

We need to move fast. Some MPs are pushing the Government to use this moment to end forced prepayment meter installations and make sure more of us can insulate our leaky, cold homes. But they’ll only win if there’s a tidal wave of public support. [4]

So, David, will you sign our petition and call for the Government to commit to long term solutions to the energy crisis?It only takes 30 seconds to sign.

YES I’LL SIGN

I’M NOT SIGNING BECAUSE…

Time is ticking as the Government’s Energy Bill goes through Parliament, so we need to urgently get all MPs to support two things:

• Making sure no-one gets their energy supply cut off if they can’t top up their meter, by ending forced transfers to prepayment meters.
• Helping households stay warm by raising minimum energy efficiency standards of private rented sector homes so they are better insulated.

We don’t have long, David, but we know no one else can quickly ramp up the pressure like we can. Thousands of us recently piled pressure on the Government and forced them to make vital reforms to the private rental market – after FOUR YEARS of delays! [5] We made our voices impossible to ignore, and we can do it again.

So, David, will you help raise the pressure on MPs to back vital reforms to our broken energy system?It only takes 30 seconds to sign.

YES I’LL SIGN

I’M NOT SIGNING BECAUSE…

Thank you for being involved,

Angus, Flo, Matt, Simma and the 38 Degrees team

NOTES:
[1] BBC News: Warning energy bills to stay high despite drop
[2] Energy Live News: UK retail energy debt surges to £3.6bn
[3] UK Parliament: Energy Bill
[4] House of Commons: Energy Bill (Amendment Paper)
[5] 38 Degrees: KEEP YOUR PROMISE ON RENTAL REFORM
The Guardian: Hunt and Braverman among five in cabinet earning thousands as landlords‘

I’ve signed it and urge everyone concerned about this vital issue to sign too.

Momentum Warn Starmer that Purging the Left Could Cost Him Voters

I’ve just found this piece from the I by Chloe Chaplain reporting that Momentum have warned Starmer that he could lose votes from purging his party’s left and pointing to their own electoral successes to show that Labour can still win with left-wing policies. He’s also been warned that he cannot rely on the Tories’ implosion to secure a Labour victory.

‘Purging the left and ditching socialism could see Labour lose voters, Sir Keir Starmer warned

Sir Keir Starmer has been warned he risks alienating core Labour voters who could stay home and not vote if he turns his back on socialism ahead of the general election.

The left of his party are pointing their own local election successes as evidence that a radical agenda can be attractive to voters. And others are warning Sir Keir of the danger of losing out to apathy.

The Labour leader has made a considerable shift to the centre since taking charge, with appeals to former Tory voters who could be tempted to swing to his party. In doing so, he has pulled power away from the vocal left-wing of his party that had dominated under his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn.

As the general election draws closer, and with Labour’s final policy agenda being drawn up, left wing campaigners and MPs are pushing to stop the leadership turning its back entirely on pledges they argue are very popular among voters.

The campaign group Momentum argues that the results in the local elections, which saw the Labour pick up a handful of significant councils but remain short of a majority in several target areas, prove Sir Keir cannot rely on the implosion of the Tory vote along to win a majority in the Commons.

It cites the Labour administration in Worthing, West Sussex – where Momentum co-chair Hilary Schan was elected as a councillor – and successes in Broxtow, Nottinghamshire, and Preston, Lancashire as examples of a socialist policy platform winning votes. They argue that, if he continues on his current path of “purging” left-wing candidates and policies he could lose support in areas like these.

Ms Schan said the three authorities were a “a living, breathing demonstration that there is no trade-off between electability and transformative policies”.

“As a general election closes in, the Labour leadership has a chance to lay out a bold programme to fix the Tories’ broken Britain. Choosing to instead pursue yet more purges and division will only weaken our electoral coalition and damage prospects of a Labour majority,” she said.’

See: https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/other/purging-the-left-and-ditching-socialism-could-see-labour-lose-voters-sir-keir-starmer-warned/ar-AA1byC1M?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=1184f029167a4c0c8267ef811cf5256a&ei=50

I’m glad this is being pointed out to Starmer and that it’s got what appears to be a neutral report in the I. As opposed to the right-wing press, which will probably report this with headlines screaming that it’s another attempt by Corbynite anti-Semitic Trots to keep their hold on Labour. But I have absolutely no doubt that Starmer won’t listen, and will carry on purging the left.

As for New Labour’s right-wing policies appealing to Tory voters, this needs to be qualified. The public ownership campaign group We Own It has cited statistics again and again showing that the British public, including a majority of Tory voters, want the utilities taken back into public ownership. What is stopping this isn’t public opinion but Thatcherite ideology and the media and political establishment, which will seek to demonise and undermine any politician that seeks to press for such policies.

Pupils at Bath School Write to Rees-Mogg about their Fears for the Environment.

Ho ho! I’ve just caught a piece on the local news reporting that the pupils at a church school in Mogg’s constituency, Bath, have written to him inviting him to come to talk to them about environmental problems. I just caught the end of it, when one boy said the government wasn’t doing enough about it. He was particularly concerned about sewage in the water and that electric cars could be promoted more. A girl said that by 2050 the Houses of Parliament would be underwater, so it would affect politicians then. They were all word processing them on computers first before printing them out and mailing them off in hard copy. The teacher looked proud, and said they were all keen on finding ways to save the environment, like eating two vegetarian meals. This suggests that perhaps the teacher had been less than even-handed in her discussion of the issues. Mogg has replied that he’d be delighted to talk to the children and meet them in parliament, and looks forward to reading the letters when he gets them. It’s a gracious reply, but Mogg should watch out. Some of those children will almost certainly know more about the issues than he does. He should be prepared to be asked some very awkward questions. Some of us can remember what happened when Gove met some school sprogs. That ended up with a photo of him sitting glum and dejected in front of a class on the cover of Private Eye. Wah-hey! Let’s hope for a repeat.

No, Starmer Isn’t Ditching Wokeness, But Attacking the Tories for Opposing It

Okay, I’ve got to confess to making another mistake. Earlier today I put up a piece reporting that Starmer had told the leaders of the Labour party that people weren’t interested in woke, and condemned the Tories for being ‘out of touch’. This had been covered in a video put out by That Preston Journalist. I watched it and got the wrong end of the stick. He seemed to me to be saying that Starmer had decided that woke policies weren’t appealing to the public and was ready to ditch them. At the same time I thought that Starmer was also attacking that part of the Conservative party that is woke.

How wrong I was! It seems Starmer isn’t prepared to ditch ‘woke’ at all. He just doesn’t think that voters care enough about it to vote against Labour because of it. Instead they’re more interested and concerned about the NHS and the cost of living. When he said that Sunak and the Tories were out of touch, he meant that they failed to appreciate that these issues took precedence over the woke policies Starmer is promoting and defending and that the British public generally didn’t share their concerns about woke policies. This is how it’s been interpreted by GB News and their presenters.

Before I go further, let’s try and unpack what is meant by the term ‘woke’. Gillyflower, one of the great commenters here, remarked that I should refresh my memory over what it means. As I understand it, it’s Black slang meaning being awake to injustice. Looking at how it’s now being used, it seems to have replaced the old term ‘political correctness’ for extreme and intolerant anti-racist, feminist, anti-homophobic and anti-transphobic views. More narrowly, it’s being used to describe the various Critical Social Justice ideologies derived from the Postmodernist, Critical Theory revision of Marxism which narrowly sees societal issues through the lens of privilege and oppression. These differ from previous forms of anti-racism, feminism and so on in rejecting individualism. In Critical Race Theory, all Whites are privileged because of their skin colour and the fact that some Whites are less privileged than some Blacks is ignored. It isn’t enough to be non-racist, and judge people on their merits and character regardless of race. You must be positively anti-racist and fight against White privilege and for Black uplift through social programmes that demand the granting of opportunities to Blacks and other underprivileged minorities simply because of their colour. For example, in America Black and Mexican students generally do less well at Maths at school than Whites and Asians. So some schools in California are trying to even these results out by giving pre-calculus lessons only to Black and Hispanic students to the exclusion of Whites and Asians.

In the eyes of GB News’ Mike Graham, however, woke means just about every anti-racist, feminist, environmentalist and radical gender view or ideology. Yes, he conceded, people did care about the NHS and the cost of living, but people also cared about: woke teacher telling kids there were 73 genders, environmental protesters gluing themselves to the road, petrol and diesel cars being phased out in favour of electric vehicles, and the cost of power rising due to green energy policies. And so on.

Piers Morgan also did a piece about whether people cared about ‘woke’. This included Reform’s Richard Tice and a woman from the Labour party. Unsurprisingly, Morgan and Tice believed that people did care about ‘woke’. The lady from Labour didn’t. She didn’t like biological men being allowed into women’s private spaces and sports, nor rapists in female prisons, when asked by the former editor of the Mirror. He replied with, ‘Ah, but they’ve prevented you from talking about this’. She replied that they hadn’t, and she’d been talking about it for a year or so. This contrasts with the case of Rosie Duffield, who has been isolated and shunned by Starmer and other senior Labour members for her views. I can’t remember whether the lady believed that people didn’t care about woke policies, or did, but that they were far more concerned about the cost of living and the NHS. I think Morgan had claimed that it was because Labour was pushing these woke policies that it looked like they would not have an absolute majority at the election next year.

My guess is that the Labour lady is probably right. People are directly affected by the cost of living, and wondering how they will afford food, heating and their rent or mortgages. The latter was one of the major issues on the local news tonight in Bristol, which has been revealed as the most expensive city outside London. One woman spoke of how she had been forced to move back in with her parents after the landlord raised the rent by 66 per cent. And they are very much concerned about getting hold of a doctor, thanks to all the wonderful privatisation that Rishi’s so proud of. These are issues that immediately affect everyone. I’m not sure how many people are aware of the debate over transgenderism, let alone so concerned that it affects the way they vote. Some are, and it may become a more important issue in the public consciousness by the time the next election comes round.

But Starmer’s less than exciting performance can also be blamed on other problems apart from the ‘woke’. Like he broke every promise and pledge he made, and has done his level best to purge the left. Corbyn’s policies were genuinely popular, and he enthused and inspired the public in a way Starmer can’t. The turnout at the local elections was low, and my guess is that many of the people Corbyn had appealed to didn’t vote. They had been alienated by a party leadership that was actively hostile to them and which to many people just offers the usual Tory policies, or something not too different from them. Tice, I think, said that Labour’s woke policies wouldn’t appeal to the socially conservative voters of the red wall. He might be right, though if they do become disenchanted with Labour, it’ll be far more to do with the lack of proper, old-style, socialist Labour policies.

And that will apply to the rest of the country.

Starmer Promises to Teach Boys to Respect Women – A Sop To Get Women’s Votes?

A few days ago Keir Starmer announced that if Labour came to power, boys would be taught to respect women in school. I can see the point of this, though it also seems to me to be a bit prim and schoolmarmish. It reminds me of the female management advisor who appeared on one of the TV shows a year or two ago and advised managers not to allow men to discuss sport at work in case it led to chauvinist behaviour. It also displays the totalitarian woke fixation with controlling how people think. But as a policy, I also find it rather threadbare as it ignores the real, material problems ordinary people are facing. This is the cost of living crisis with rising electricity bills and food prices. Some parents, and I think it may well be mostly mothers here, have been denying themselves the food they need in order to give enough to their children. People need higher wages, and unemployment and disability benefits at a level where they can afford food and other necessities. And, of course, an end to the humiliating, vindictive and persecutory sanctions regime. Starmer’s announcement does nothing to address these issues, nor those of massive profiteering by the oil and power companies and the raw sewage being pumped into our waterways. And you wonder how sincere Starmer is about anyway. He’s broken every other promise.

I wonder if it was designed to appeal to women following the debacle in Scotland over the gender recognition bill that brought down the SNP. Scots were rightly worried and angry at violent rapists and child abusers being put in women’s prisons after declaring that they were trans. Starmer and various other leading Labour MPs have made it clear that they believe transwomen are women and support the trans ideology, though Starmer’s commitment to it briefly wavered when Sturgeon was forced to resign. He stated that amending the gender recognition act would not be a priority under a Labour government. He’s been criticised for his bizarre statement that 99 per cent of women don’t have penises, while the right and gender critical have applauded Sunak’s statement that no, women don’t have male sexual organs. I wondered if Starmer had become worried that he was losing the support of ordinary women because of the trans controversy, and so made the announcement about teaching boys respect for women as a ploy to win it back.

Is Anti-Trans Campaigner Kellie-Jay Keen Going to Stand Against Starmer at the Election?

Okay, I keep hearing rumours that the gender-critical, ‘femalist’ women’s rights campaigner Kellie-Jay Keen has turned her organisation, Standing For Women, into a political party, and is preparing to stand against Keir Starmer. She has said before that she doesn’t expect she’ll win, but simply wants to take the opportunity during the leadership and election debates to ask Stalin a few awkward questions that he’ll have to answer. No doubt these will be ‘What is a woman?’ and ‘Do women have cervixes?’, both questions that have had Starmer running away as fast as he could when asked them. The trans issue is an uncomfortable one for Stalin, especially as he’s zigzagged all over that issue – first stating he would back a gender recognition act, then saying it wasn’t an issue he’d pursue, before going back to saying he’d back it again. But there are other, equally important questions the scumbag should be asked, and no evasions or refusals tolerated. Like:

How can we trust anything that comes out of your mouth when every pledge you’ve made has been broken?

How can we trust you with our traditional freedoms when your leadership of the Labour party has been authoritarian in the extreme?

How can potential allies and supporters in parliament and local government trust you, when you’ve been treacherous in your treatment of Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour grassroots socialists?

How can we trust you with the NHS after your hero Blair pushed privatisation up a notch or two and you’re bringing in a CEO from a private healthcare company? Blair also modelled his reforms on the American private healthcare company Kaiserpermanente. He thought they were more efficient than the NHS. They weren’t.

Why should the poor, the sick, the disabled and unemployed trust anything you say, after Blair brought in the work capability tests and under Ed Milliband the party showed very tepid opposition to the sanctions regime? Why should genuinely starving people on food banks, and those fearing that they’ll end up on them, trust you and your cronies, after Rachel Reeves said that in power Labour would be even harder on the unemployed than the Tories?

Foreign policy: Blair launched at least one illegal war in the Middle East, the invasion of Iraq. That was nothing to do with democracy, but simply a grab for oil and the country’s state industries. It has reduced a middle eastern country with a reasonably secular government into a hell-hole riven by sectarian violence, one that became another theatre of war when ISIS raised the vile, barbaric heads. Brave, genuinely patriotic men and women were sent to risk life and limb on false pretences so that even rightists like Paz49 is wondering why Bush and Blair aren’t sharing a cell with Putin and the monsters of the former Yugoslavia looking at war crimes charges. Blair’s bombing of Libya in support of the rebels has also done much the same to that country, leaving part of it under the control of Islamist slavers. That’s S-L-A-V-E-R-S, in case your grubby mind can’t grasp how monstrous this situation is. How can we trust you not to start another fake, illegal, bloody war and waste more of our best people and destroy more countries?

Also: the Palestinians really are suffering terrible, racist persecution by the Israeli state. It has been repeatedly condemned by the international community. How are you going to stop this and not make libellous accusations of anti-Semitism against those campaigning against it instead?

Anti-Semitism: How can we trust you to take a genuinely objective, nonpartisan view of anti-Jewish hatred, when your definition of who is a true Jew is whether or not they support Israel? How can ordinary, grassroots Jewish members of the party trust you, when about 4/5 of those you’ve smeared as anti-Semites are self-respecting Jews themselves, as well as gentile supporters and activists against anti-Semitism?

Racism: Ditto. There’s been a rise in Islamophobia in the party, as well as notorious incidents of bigotry and bullying against Black and Asian members and officers. Yet again, all we’ve heard from you is lies: lies that you’re implementing the Forde report, when all the evidence says you’re doing nothing of the kind and are actively blocking people from putting it into practice. Why should people of colour trust you with this issue?

Transgender issues: I’m gender critical, but this is fundamentally about trust. Starmer’s attitude to trans people has changed with the political winds. How can trans people and their allies trust what you say? Are you going to throw them under the bus as well?

Channel Migrants: You seem opposed to their mistreatment and the various harsh policies of Cruella and the Tories, but how long’s that going to last? Your behaviour suggests that you have no policies except what the Tories do, and no real ideological criticism of them. How can we trust you to bring about a fair, human solution to this problem, one that doesn’t involve treating asylum seekers as criminals? Italy’s Far Right Prime Minister, Georgia Meloni has made speeches declaring that to stop the flood of migrants, we should be tackling poverty and exploitation in Africa. She has also demanded that the international community do something to shore up the banks in Tunisia, as the banking crisis there is likely to set off a fresh wave of desperate migrants. She’s an authoritarian, who has impounded migrant vessels. Her party, God help us! – is descended from Mussolini’s Fascists. But she seems to have a far better grasp of solving the problem at its source in Africa’s poverty than you do! And no, I am not recommending anyone vote for the Far Right.

Northern Ireland: At the moment Nationalists and Loyalists are on knife edge. Tensions are rising and there are real fears that the hard men are going to come back and destroy everything decent people have worked for. My local MP, Karin Smyth, respect you because of the work you’re supposed to have put in on the Good Friday Agreement. But so did a lot of other people, including Mo Mowlam, Jerry Adams and Jeremy Corbyn. I’ve come across very dark hints that you were involved in some of the nastier, terroristic tactics carried out by parts of the secret state, and in your actions as Attorney General or head of public prosecutions or whatever, you showed no compunction on cracking down on civil liberties in order to protect the establishment. How, therefore, can we trust you to help solve this problem and protect the North of Ireland’s ordinary people?

Economy: The majority of the people of this grand country want the utilities renationalised. Thanks to privatisation, people can’t afford their energy bills, sewages is being pumped into our rivers and seas by the private water companies and nearly every month or so – I exaggerate, but it feels like that sometimes – a railway company has to be taken back into public management. But all I’ve seen from you is more support for the failing, undead shambling corpse of Thatcherism, a corrupt corporatism you learned from you mentor, Blair, which rewards shoddy service and political donations with government contracts and bloated profits. How can ordinary people trust you with our utilities?

The cost of living: Inflation is rising all the time, and hard-working ordinary people really are wondering how they make ends meet. You’ve suggested some policies like using a windfall tax from the energy companies to put extra investment in some services. But I’ve seen absolute no evidence that you want to do everything necessary to tackle this crisis. That means going all the way to the root. But instead you quail and cower before the press and political establishment, falling over yourself to reassure Murdoch and the rest of the blackguards that you’re a safe pair of hands, won’t upset Thatcher’s raddled, shop-worn legacy. You’re not a tribune of the people, but an establishment puppet, dancing whenever the donors pull your strings.

And we could go on and on, with issues like schools. The academies are another flagship project of Blair, one that he took over from Maggie Thatcher. Except she and Normal Fowler had enough wits about them to know it was failing and were winding the city academies up. Since then, academy chain after academy chain has had to be taken back into public management because they were failing. But I’ve seen no sign from you that you have the backbone to realise this is another failed Thatcherite policy that should be brought to a close. Or indeed, do anything about education except what might look good on the pages of the Scum and Heil.

In short, why should anyone, anyone at all, trust you within a foot of power?

Nearly Half of the British People Are Right: Starmer Has No Vision

Looking along the headlines of the papers this morning, I noticed that one of the right-wing rags had put on their front page a story that nearly half of the British public don’t believe that Starmer has a vision. I think they’re right. He doesn’t. Every policy he’s ever supported he’s rejected at a later date. He has said that he intends to reform the NHS, which sort of sounds like he’s going to protect it from privatisation, but this is qualified with talk of using private hospitals and medical care to shift the backlog. And the Blairites’ record on the NHS is of privatisation, not nationalisation. There’s also some talk about using money from a windfall tax on the energy companies to lower energy prices or something, but to me it all sounds very half-hearted and heavily qualified. Unlike Corbyn, there is no grand, inspiring vision that packs out halls and public spaces. His tactic against the Tories seems to have been very much one of simply waiting until they made the mistakes that have now made them massively unpopular.

Which fits the Blairite strategy. Blair took over wholesale Tory attitudes on the welfare state, privatisation and immigration. His policies were partly those discarded by the Tories. They had rejected a report on the reform of the civil service or something by Anderson Consulting. So Blair fished it out of the bin and made it Tory policy. He took over Major’s Private Finance Initiative, and expanded it. In education, he took over Maggie Thatcher’s City Academies scheme, which was actually being wound up because it was a failure, and relaunched it as the new academies. No wonder Thatcher declared that he and New Labour were her greatest achievement.

Instead of any kind of vision, New Labour relied on triangulation, looking at what would go down well with swing voters in key constituencies and then appealing to them. All the while inanely chanting that things could only get better. And instead of drawing on genuine Labour traditions and ideology, Blair instead seems to have taken his ideas from whatever Murdoch wanted at the moment. He’d also have liked to have appealed to the Heil, but they stuck to their guns and remained a Tory rag. Under Blair, people left the Labour party in droves, driven away by the Thatcherism, control freakery and managerialism that replaced spontaneity with heavily stage-managed, scripted performances. Blair and Brown’s attitude seemed to be to see what the Tories were doing, and then announce that if you elected them, they’d do it better.

And I think this is pretty true of Starmer’s regime in the Labour party. He doesn’t have a vision, just a desire to rule and copy the Tories.

Kernow Damo Shows Why Starmer’s Pledge to Freeze Council Tax Is Meaningless

I was one of the lucky Labour contingent here in the southwest who got an invitation to go to Swindon and support their Labour party as they greeted Starmer. It was at that meeting that Stalin unveiled his exciting new policy: Labour intends to freeze the council tax. The left-wing Cornish vlogger, Kernow Damo, has posted a piece pointing out that this policy is pretty much meaningless.

Firstly, it’s already too late for this year. Councils set their tax in February, so this year’s council elections are too late to do anything about it this year. But there’s always next year, may be. And for Labour to freeze council tax, they have to be in power. Which is another set of elections perhaps a year or so away. And if Starmer does freeze the council tax rate, he’s merely preventing a tax which many people already can’t afford from rising any further, not reducing it to an affordable level. He adds further details about the number of councils raising and freezing their council taxes. There are four already currently freezing them, one of which is, I believe, Tory. He also attacks Starmer’s pledge that more services will be paid for from the windfall tax on the energy companies.

In Damo’s view, these policies were thoughtlessly put together as if they were scribbled on the back of envelope. They’re there to deceive us into believing that Starmer has any policies and intends to help working people.

As for the meeting when he unveiled this inspiring vision, the photos show that Labour supporters were lined up down the sides for some reason or other. The main body of the hall was empty. This is in very strong contrast with Jeremy Corbyn’s appearance, when it was totally packed.

Of course Starmer doesn’t have any policies. He’s a Blairite. All Blair did was watch what the Tories were doing, and then copy it. Or pull their old policies out of a bin, or run around and enact the policies from the corporate backers. Starmer’s whole policy has been to break every pledge he ever made and to do and say precious little and let the Tories make themselves unpopular. Then presumably, he hopes to be elected and carry out all the policies they failed to implement.

We Own It Online Event to Support Nationalised Energy Company

‘Dear David,

Are you worried about your energy bill rising next month? Do you think the UK isn’t making the most of its wind power? Would you like to see the government cutting your bills AND tackling the climate crisis by investing much more in green energy?

Us too!

On Monday 24th April, 7pm-8pm, we’re holding an online event about Labour’s plans for Great British Energy, a new publicly owned renewable energy generation company, to talk about how this could help.

We’re independent of any political party but if Great British Energy happens, in public ownership, we want it to be a HUGE success.

Sign up now

We would love to see you at this event ‘How to make Great British Energy a huge success?’

We Own It helped to make this policy happen by pointing out that 9 out of 10 leading green countries already have this kind of national champion (and by telling Labour in the Guardian not to be cautious about public ownership).

Now it’s YOUR chance to help make sure the new publicly owned company Great British Energy will cut your bills and make life better for you and your family, friends and community, into the future.

We’ll be releasing new polling about what people want Great British Energy’s profits to be spent on and calling on Labour to invest enough money to make it successful.

The event will include speakers from the TUC, Common Wealth, Green New Deal Rising and Green Alliance and we’re inviting ALL politicians to listen to what people say.

Setting up Great British Energy in public hands *isn’t the same thing* as nationalising the whole energy system (and yes, that’s frustrating) – but it’s a huge step in the right direction of a greener, better future.

A new, highly successful publicly owned company will also prove that public ownership works!

You can show politicians you want this to happen, and you want it to be big.

Sign up now

The government’s energy bills support scheme ends at the start of April. If you’re worried about the impact this will have on you, you can also submit your story to the Guardian (and why not mention the arguments for public ownership in your response!)

You need a net zero energy system that also keeps you warm and cosy. It’s not rocket science, and we can copy other countries like Norway to get there.

See you on Monday 24th April to talk about what this looks like!

Cat, Johnbosco, Matthew, Kate and Imogen – the We Own It team’

This is an excellent idea, and deserves support. Even in America, some states have their own publicly-owned power companies that provide energy more cheaply than their commercial competitors. Thatcherism has failed in the energy sector, and it’s long past time the policy was reversed.

Rachel Reeve’s Comment on Yesterday’s Budget

I got this comment from Rachel Reeves by email criticising Sunak’s budget. She calls it a budget of ‘managed decline’, with another tax cut for the 1 per cent, from a hopelessly divided party devoid of ideas, responsible for low growth and high taxes. She goes on to contrast it with the attempts Labour has made to cut energy price increases and impose a windfall tax, and their promise to deliver the highest growth in the G7.

‘David, today was a chance to unlock Britain’s promise and potential. But the budget announced by Jeremy Hunt has put our country further down the path of managed decline, while giving the richest 1% a tax cut worth £1 billion.

No belief in the possibilities of the future. No plan to boost living standards.

Just a hopelessly divided party caught between a rock of decline and a hard place of their own economic recklessness, dressing up stagnation as stability, as their expiry date looms ever closer.

Our economy needs major surgery. But what we got today was more of the same sticking plaster politics.

It’s been the same old Tory choice for thirteen years. No growth for the many and working people paying the price.

Thirteen years without wage growth.

Thirteen years stuck in a doom-loop of low growth, higher taxes and broken public services.

Working people are entitled to ask – am I any better off than I was before? And the answer is a resounding, no.

This crisis is not over and the long-term plan isn’t there. They are continuing to paper over the cracks of thirteen years of economic failure.

Labour pushed to stop energy price rises.

Labour pushed for a proper windfall tax.

With Labour, there is another way.

Britain has immense potential.

That’s why the first mission of a Labour government is to secure the highest sustained growth in the G7, we will create good jobs and productivity growth across every part of our country.

We’d make sure Britain competes in the global race for the jobs and industries of the future, rather than being stuck in the slow lane under the Tories.

Where the Tories have thrown in the towel, only Labour will build a better Britain.

Thank you,

Rachel Reeves MP
Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer’

While I agree with her totally about the budget, I am not confident that Labour under Starmer will be much different. Reeves and Starmer are Blairites, and Blair’s tactic was to fish failed Tory polices like academy schools out of the bin and go ahead with them. Or else just carry on with them as they were, but claim they were doing so more efficiently and effectively. I don’t see Starmer, with his record of betraying and persecuting anything remotely socialist, as at all different.

But we live in hope.