Trev Describes the Personal Effect High Energy Prices Have on Him

Yesterday I put up an episode of Michael Bentine’s Potty Time, in which an attempt to steal the crown jewels was thwarted by the police and the Beefeaters. The thieves were caught, and their leader revealed to be a computer. This was captured when it was down during a power cut. Trev, one of the great commenters on his blog, posted this remark describing how we don’t have electricity cuts just yet, but the high prices are leaving people like himself cutting back. Trev wrote

‘That’s great. I remember Potty Time and the power cuts. Now we still have power (for now) but can’t afford to use it. I’m only putting heating on for about an hour in a morning but in the evenings I’m wrapped in blankets and a wooly hat trying to keep warm. It’s not good. I don’t qualify for any of the discounts because the electricity account and bill are in the landlady’s name, and I don’t get the right Benefits to qualify for Warm Home discounts or Cold Weather payments (when they are due).’

This is what millions of people are being faced with, due to the greed of the energy companies, fully support by Sunak and the Tories. The energy companies’ vicious, exploitative avarice was even defended by Jacob Rees-Mogg back in the summer. It’s why we need to get the Tories out and Labour in, hopefully to do something that will really benefit the British public on this and other issues.

One Eighth of Bristolians Living in ‘Fuel Poverty’

‘Points West’, the local BBC news show for the Bristol region had a little report Wednesday night on the number of people in Bristol living in ‘fuel poverty’. This term, they explains, applies to anyone, who pays more than ten per cent of their income in heating costs. And there are 25,000 of them in Bristol. This is one-eighth of the city’s population. This is higher than in the surrounding country districts, but nationally about 11 per cent of the population are hit by it. They programme then interviewed some of the people, who had a choice between heating their homes, or eating.

They also talked to a Tory MP from over the other side of the country, who is trying to introduce legislation to improve matters. This won’t address issues like low wages and benefits, which are the root cause of this. No, he just wants to make sure everyone has proper loft insulation. David Garmston, the interviewer, tried to press him about the problem of low incomes, but he refused to be drawn, merely saying that he thought that Theresa May was concerned about this issue, and returning to his main concern of getting people cheap loft insulation so that everyone has it. And there the interview ended.

1/8 of the population of Bristol, or indeed, anywhere else, in fuel poverty is too many by far. The Tory’s plan for everyone to have state-sponsored loft insulation is a good starting point, but it’s only a starting point, not a solution.

And I don’t believe that Tweezer or any of the other Tories have any interest in the plight of the poor or those on low-incomes. Indeed, Tory policy for the past eight years or so has been solidly based on keeping wages and benefits low. Wages have either been frozen, or when they have been raised, the increase is deliberately set below the level of inflation. Benefits are being cut, and new ways invented all the time to throw the poor and disabled off them.

May and her squad of privileged thugs have promised that they’ll introduce a cap on energy prices, but this will not arrive for several months. Always assuming that it will arrive at all. The Tories have form for broken promises, and this is going to be one of them. I think they only made the promise because the problem of fuel poverty was too great to ignore, and that Corbyn and the Labour party had promised to solve it by renationalising part of the electricity grid. The prospect of any assault on the precious free market and private industry absolutely terrifies them, even when it is absolutely obvious to anyone not blinded by Thatcherite ideology that the free market doesn’t work. And so to stave off the threat of nationalisation, they’ve had to make a few promises of their own to regulate energy prices. Promises that I doubt they have any intention of keeping.

It’s been estimated that if the electricity network had been kept within the state sector, electricity prices would be 10 to 20 per cent cheaper.

This could all come back in Corbyn gets in and nationalises the grid. Which will mean cheaper electricity for consumers, but reduced profits for the energy companies, who donate to the Tory party, on whose boards no doubt many Tory MPs sit, and whose interests the Tories are keen to represent, against the wellbeing of the rest of us.

Don’t believe Tory lies. If you really want to see fuel poverty reduced, vote for Corbyn and the renationalisation of the electricity industry.