Energy companies are yelping after having been exposed by Ofgem as
pushing up tariffs imposed on consumers far beyond the increases in wholesale
costs.
This is not what the big six expect from Ofgem, which has
traditionally acted as a fig leaf to cover their rampant profiteering.
But such is the public anger that even Ofgem feels the need to
distance itself as far as practical from the thieves’ cartel milking
working-class domestic consumers.
David Cameron attempts to dodge the issue by asserting that “it is
for the energy companies to explain the decisions they have taken around bills
to their customers.”
Of course it’s nothing to do with him. He’s only the Prime Minister.
What can he do to change the situation?
The reality is that Cameron and his acolytes have no desire to
effect any change.
They see nothing wrong with an oligopoly holding working people to
ransom and forcing pensioners, claimants and the low-paid to choose between
heating their homes and filling their bellies.
It’s what makes Tories tick. It’s their idea of how the world goes
round.
Billionaire tax exiles blackmail entire regions with factory closure
and mass poverty to get their way, banks are bailed out by the public purse,
workers’ pay, pensions and services are slashed, the richest 1 per cent receive
tax handouts and thousands of old people face death this winter because a
handful of utilities companies have the power to extort fortunes from the
poorest people in society.
These policy highlights pose no problem to the coalition government,
which has encouraged that process, misrepresenting a private banking catastrophe
as a crisis created by excessive public expenditure.
Caroline Flint points out the dishonesty of the energy companies,
lying about the effect of wholesale prices and boosting their profits by driving
up domestic energy bills.
But what is the Labour shadow energy secretary’s battle cry at a
time when around two-thirds of the electorate is demanding that the electricity
and gas industries be returned to public ownership?
“Labour would freeze energy bills for 20 months and create a tough
new watchdog with the power to force energy companies to cut their prices when
the cost of energy falls,” she says.
The average combined gas and electricity bill is at present £1,267,
which is available for people able to pay monthly standing order payments.
Poorer people unable to make such payments will pay higher
rates.
But Labour’s 20-month freeze would bring a one-off respite of just
£120 for gas and electricity company customers, for which the energy cartel
members have already begun preparing by overcharging them this winter.
No-one should doubt that they will do precisely the same next year
and at any other time before or after a Labour government temporary tariff
freeze.
Flint’s suggestion that “a tough new watchdog” will cut energy
prices when the cost of energy falls will not be taken seriously by anyone.
Regulators are an essential part of the privatisation swindle. They
are symbols of government abdication of responsibility for working people’s
living standards.
Labour makes much at present of its determination to place the cost
of living at the centre of its general election campaign.
It will not be taken seriously — nor deserve to — unless it moves
beyond a marginal one-off price freeze to tackle the privatisation scandal
decisively by backing public ownership.
