One council by-election last night: Beverely Rural in East Riding of Yorkshire
LDm gain from Con on a swing of around 24% from 2019. This is the third (LD from Con) gain this year in the East Riding council area.
The Good Week/Bad Week Index scores
LDm +80 Lab -4 Con -63
Based on this, the adjusted seat value
LDm +1.3 Lab -0.1 Con -1.1
Obviously not god for the Cons, particularly as part of an ongoing pattern. Possible influencing factors, beyond the current political situation: the ER LibDems have obviously got themselves organised; the Greens didn't stand this time, so there was a big chunk of votes to be mined; the East Riding council is run by the Cons, so there may be local reasons for their unpopularity.
Tory performance across the rural north has been utterly woeful this year.
Thank Allah I signed up to a two year fixed price deal with EDF in July 2021.
With hindsight, I made a quite impressive error in fixing mine only for twelve months.
Paying around £200 a month for gas and electricity for a big old house for the next 12 months feels like winning the lottery.
Imagine if you'd fixed for 3 years, that'd have been like winning the euromillions. That's my one (minor) regret, I'm fixed from Oct 21 to Oct 23.
My (52p per kWh) heart bleeds for you.
I was a bit late to the fixing party, but I fixed with Octopus Go last week at 40.06 p/kWh with 4 hours of night time electricity at 7.5 p/kWh. That still seems to be available.
That sounds like a very interesting tarriff - does it need a smartmeter ? Could be the thing that finally makes me take the plunge as my other half works overnight from home and we have solar panels. I mean it's going to be more next October but if the principle remains the same...
Thank Allah I signed up to a two year fixed price deal with EDF in July 2021.
With hindsight, I made a quite impressive error in fixing mine only for twelve months.
Paying around £200 a month for gas and electricity for a big old house for the next 12 months feels like winning the lottery.
Imagine if you'd fixed for 3 years, that'd have been like winning the euromillions. That's my one (minor) regret, I'm fixed from Oct 21 to Oct 23.
My (52p per kWh) heart bleeds for you.
I was a bit late to the fixing party, but I fixed with Octopus Go last week at 40.06 p/kWh with 4 hours of night time electricity at 7.5 p/kWh. That still seems to be available.
Reference the East Riding result, it does seem that there is a Tory to LibDem swing rather than any strengthening in the Labour vote. And my fellow Essex resident doesn't seem enamoured of what appears to be the next Conservative party leader!
Thank Allah I signed up to a two year fixed price deal with EDF in July 2021.
With hindsight, I made a quite impressive error in fixing mine only for twelve months.
Paying around £200 a month for gas and electricity for a big old house for the next 12 months feels like winning the lottery.
Imagine if you'd fixed for 3 years, that'd have been like winning the euromillions. That's my one (minor) regret, I'm fixed from Oct 21 to Oct 23.
My (52p per kWh) heart bleeds for you.
I was a bit late to the fixing party, but I fixed with Octopus Go last week at 40.06 p/kWh with 4 hours of night time electricity at 7.5 p/kWh. That still seems to be available.
That sounds like a very interesting tarriff - does it need a smartmeter ? Could be the thing that finally makes me take the plunge as my other half works overnight from home and we have solar panels. I mean it's going to be more next October but if the principle remains the same...
"At the moment, the price of electricity is set by the last kilowatt needed to balance the grid, currently the cost of gas by an obscene margin. The fossil tail (44pc of total power last year) is wagging the clean dog (56pc). The gains of cheaper renewables are not being passed on."
Free market economics has a lot to answer for in the energy arena: it drove Europe to a potentially fatal reliance on Russia, it screwed up distribution in favour of the rich in the UK, and now it's screwing the whole country through stratospheric energy prices.
Whatever kind of market the UK domestic energy market is, it is not a free one. The price cap is set by a regulator, domestic distributors have to pay for their rivals going bust, extractors like OPEC operate a cartel, other extractors like Russia blocked (correctly) from the market for political reasons.
The left should not claim it is a breakdown of the free market, rather they should rubbish the claims of economically illiterate Tories like Liz Truss who believe it is wrong for a government to interfere in a free market, when it has never been free anyway.
I don't understand why Truss can't say "this is what I would do on mitigating energy prices if I were elected Conservative leader and became PM". Sunak has done it, Starmer has done it. The only reason not to do it is because she does not yet know. Given how far in advance the rises have been signalled, that is not good enough.
The Sun's front page suggests the new Prime Minister (and presumably the outgoing one) will need to travel to Balmoral on 6th September (the day after results are due to be announced).
No surprise the Queen can't be bothered to interrupt her holiday at Balmoral to travel all the way down to London to appoint a new PM not even most Tory MPs want let alone the public and who will be the Tories 4th PM in 12 years. Plus of course in her youth Truss wanted to abolish her, so the Queen’s subtle way of reminding her of her place. The Queen has appointed lots of PMs in her reign and is not going to drop everything for Liz Truss who has not even yet won a general election
Your hurt over Johnson shows no signs of abatement and notwithstanding my rather harsh comment about the Queen not returning to London for which I would apologise, you have made a far worse insinuation against the Queen that she cannot be 'bothered' when in truth that is a slur as she always puts duty first
And by the way Truss leads in conservative mps support
Thank Allah I signed up to a two year fixed price deal with EDF in July 2021.
I am in the same position having signed a 2 year fixed deal with EDF in September 2021
Around 22m households are on the default fixed tariff, so are unlikely to share your rather sunny view of government inaction.
Excuse me. I will be the first to condemn Truss and her new government if she does not mitigate this crisis
I really am not the person you try to paint me as
I would expect there will be suicides between now and her announcement caused by the cost of living and the lack of support she may offer, along with added stress for many, many millions. If she or the Tory party had an ounce of empathy rather than obsessing over their silly Game of Thrones she would have made an announcement weeks ago.
As far as the publicly-stated preferences of MPs go, Liz Truss is the preferred first choice of MPs as it currently stands.
Yes she wasn't in prior rounds of voting, but Mordaunt was eliminated in the final MP-only voting and then her votes weren't redistributed prior to the final, public round of voting. Mordaunt is backing Truss as are more of her MPs which is why Truss is in the lead on MPs now, ahead of Sunak.
It could be argued that some of those now backing Truss are only doing so as she's the expected winner, but its also true that some might have been backing Sunak when he was the long-term favourite for the same reason too so that's just swings and roundabouts.
Bottom line, Truss has more MPs backing her, and probably more members doing so too. She is the first choice.
That's true...
... Cynically, though, one has to ask how many of those mps have chosen to back her out of hope of preferment.
I addressed that in my comment. How many backed Sunak in the first place due to the fact he was the long term favourite and they wanted preferment?
It's one of those unknowables but it cuts both ways. Swings and roundabouts.
Thank Allah I signed up to a two year fixed price deal with EDF in July 2021.
With hindsight, I made a quite impressive error in fixing mine only for twelve months.
Paying around £200 a month for gas and electricity for a big old house for the next 12 months feels like winning the lottery.
Imagine if you'd fixed for 3 years, that'd have been like winning the euromillions. That's my one (minor) regret, I'm fixed from Oct 21 to Oct 23.
My (52p per kWh) heart bleeds for you.
I was a bit late to the fixing party, but I fixed with Octopus Go last week at 40.06 p/kWh with 4 hours of night time electricity at 7.5 p/kWh. That still seems to be available.
That sounds like a very interesting tarriff - does it need a smartmeter ? Could be the thing that finally makes me take the plunge as my other half works overnight from home and we have solar panels. I mean it's going to be more next October but if the principle remains the same...
Thank Allah I signed up to a two year fixed price deal with EDF in July 2021.
With hindsight, I made a quite impressive error in fixing mine only for twelve months.
Paying around £200 a month for gas and electricity for a big old house for the next 12 months feels like winning the lottery.
Imagine if you'd fixed for 3 years, that'd have been like winning the euromillions. That's my one (minor) regret, I'm fixed from Oct 21 to Oct 23.
My (52p per kWh) heart bleeds for you.
I was a bit late to the fixing party, but I fixed with Octopus Go last week at 40.06 p/kWh with 4 hours of night time electricity at 7.5 p/kWh. That still seems to be available.
What's the standing charge?
Last month my combined gas and electric standing charge was £22, nearly half the total bill of £49
The Sun's front page suggests the new Prime Minister (and presumably the outgoing one) will need to travel to Balmoral on 6th September (the day after results are due to be announced).
No surprise the Queen can't be bothered to interrupt her holiday at Balmoral to travel all the way down to Balmoral to appoint a new PM not even most Tory MPs want let alone the public and who will be the Tories 4th PM in 12 years. Plus of course in her youth Truss wanted to abolish her, so the Queen’s subtle way of reminding her of her place. The Queen has appointed lots of PMs in her reign and is not going to drop everything for Liz Truss who has not even yet won a general election
Leaving aside the rather waspish tone, uncharacteristic in a monarchist, there seems to be a geography fail here.
Although if she can't be bothered to travel from Balmoral to Balmoral it probably is time for a regency.
I think that Mrs Truss knows there are no votes in requiring HM the Queen to do anything or go anywhere at her age. There would be one or two votes in it if she had to walk to Ulan Batur barefoot to be received by the Queen, and to be the next PM I am sure she would happily do so.
Truss's problem is that she is so wedded to tax cuts and borrowing to enable them, while not making massive cuts to public services, that she is tied in on reducing energy bills. Something has to give and as a Tory who denies reality she cannot cope with that.
Thank Allah I signed up to a two year fixed price deal with EDF in July 2021.
With hindsight, I made a quite impressive error in fixing mine only for twelve months.
Paying around £200 a month for gas and electricity for a big old house for the next 12 months feels like winning the lottery.
Imagine if you'd fixed for 3 years, that'd have been like winning the euromillions. That's my one (minor) regret, I'm fixed from Oct 21 to Oct 23.
My (52p per kWh) heart bleeds for you.
I was a bit late to the fixing party, but I fixed with Octopus Go last week at 40.06 p/kWh with 4 hours of night time electricity at 7.5 p/kWh. That still seems to be available.
That sounds like a very interesting tarriff - does it need a smartmeter ? Could be the thing that finally makes me take the plunge as my other half works overnight from home and we have solar panels. I mean it's going to be more next October but if the principle remains the same...
Yes, you need a smartmeter.
And an electric vehicle
I'm not sure that you *have* to have an EV. I do have an EV and was asked which model I had, but I didn't have to provide any evidence that I'd got one.
Thank Allah I signed up to a two year fixed price deal with EDF in July 2021.
I am in the same position having signed a 2 year fixed deal with EDF in September 2021
Around 22m households are on the default fixed tariff, so are unlikely to share your rather sunny view of government inaction.
Excuse me. I will be the first to condemn Truss and her new government if she does not mitigate this crisis
I really am not the person you try to paint me as
I would expect there will be suicides between now and her announcement caused by the cost of living and the lack of support she may offer, along with added stress for many, many millions. If she or the Tory party had an ounce of empathy rather than obsessing over their silly Game of Thrones she would have made an announcement weeks ago.
Don't even need suicides - plenty of oldies will be going hypothermic, takingf their clothes off in confusion (a standard response), and cooling off permanently. Graun feed:
"Martin Lewis: lives will be lost this winter without more help Money saving expert Martin Lewis has warned that people will die this winter because they can’t afford to heat their homes, unless the government provides more support with energy bills.
Lewis tells the Today programme that the new price cap, from 1 October, is 37% of the new state pension. It’s a even bigger proportion for those who retired earlier, and for those on universal credit.
Lewis says:
This is a catastrophe, plain and simple. Unaffordable. [...]
If we do not get further government intervention, on top of what was announced in May, then lives will be lost this winter.[...]
Lewis also points out that the £3,549 price cap figure is an average for those on direct debit –- those with higher than average energy use will pay more, as will those on pre-payment meters.
There is nothing somebody from paying ten thousand pounds a year, Lewis adds; he fears households with adults or childen with disabilities who need special electrical equipment could pay that much."
The Sun's front page suggests the new Prime Minister (and presumably the outgoing one) will need to travel to Balmoral on 6th September (the day after results are due to be announced).
No surprise the Queen can't be bothered to interrupt her holiday at Balmoral to travel all the way down to Balmoral to appoint a new PM not even most Tory MPs want let alone the public and who will be the Tories 4th PM in 12 years. Plus of course in her youth Truss wanted to abolish her, so the Queen’s subtle way of reminding her of her place. The Queen has appointed lots of PMs in her reign and is not going to drop everything for Liz Truss who has not even yet won a general election
Leaving aside the rather waspish tone, uncharacteristic in a monarchist, there seems to be a geography fail here.
Although if she can't be bothered to travel from Balmoral to Balmoral it probably is time for a regency.
I think that Mrs Truss knows there are no votes in requiring HM the Queen to do anything or go anywhere at her age. There would be one or two votes in it if she had to walk to Ulan Batur barefoot to be received by the Queen, and to be the next PM I am sure she would happily do so.
I don't understand why Truss can't say "this is what I would do on mitigating energy prices if I were elected Conservative leader and became PM". Sunak has done it, Starmer has done it. The only reason not to do it is because she does not yet know. Given how far in advance the rises have been signalled, that is not good enough.
Because she doesn't care! We've got @williamglenn and to a gentler extent @Big_G_NorthWales claiming Truss will intervene and some of us are just attacking her / the Tories. Based on what? That they believe she is a Massive Liar?
She cannot be clearer. On a "here's what I would do as Prime Minister" tour for a month and a half, meetings all across the country saying the same thing over and over and over. Hope that she already has a plan up her sleeve, or that she will pick a plan supposedly being drawn up by the Treasury is to hope she is a massive liar saying "no handouts" whilst planning handouts.
"You can trust her to act because she's a massive liar" is hardly a political position that will hold. So I believe the opposite is true - she isn't lying. I don't doubt that she will be forced to do *something*. But unlike the previous government whose belief only in Boris allowed the massive u-turn into furlough, this one has zeal behind it.
When the pile of pensioner corpses grows too high and the "you've already had a handout" excuses just provoke actual riots, they will have to act. But it will be way too late, far too little, and aimed at the people who don't need it to ameliorate the horror of handouts.
And so begins the week and a half that will destroy the Truss government before it starts. This morning Ofgem announce this winter's cap is triple last years, and implores Truss to intervene, as will will shoot up again in January.
Truss last night: “What isn’t right is to just bung more money into the system, what we actually need to do is fix the supply of energy.”
So for the next week and a half she and her team of Borisites will continue to repeat this mantra. No handouts for you workshy plebs. Some said "she will unveil a plan" - does last night suggest that? And even if she is forced to do so, the damage to her and to the remains of her party will be catastrophic.
You’re committing the classic error of overestimating how much interest the average person takes in politics.
You pray they won't notice? I suppose that even the word hopeless has hope in it...
You think the next week and a half will destroy the Truss government, but the majority of people don't know there's going to be a Truss government...
Possibly the most ridiculous set of comments on PB this week.
Pretty well everyone is going to be looking for someone to blame for the misery this winter. And that will be the person in charge.
That this was predicted months ago, and government has so far done nothing more than it did six months ago - and is still saying wait and see - is not going to do anything to absolve them of blame.
There are no easy answers, but failing to provide any answers at all is not government.
You think opinion of Truss’s government will be determined by what she says before she becomes PM rather than what she does as PM?
One would hope that what she says she’ll do and what she then does are the same, or are you presuming that Truss is a massive liar?
Until she is PM, she cannot speak as PM. What she says now might indicate her priorities but she’s not yet running the government.
“might indicate her priorities”?!!? She is standing for the position of PM and explicitly saying what she will do as PM.
Are you calling her a massive liar or not?
And Truss has indicated her priorities- Tax cuts not handouts. She may well U-turn on that; surely she will have to U-turn on that. But, for whatever reason, she has made her preference clear, we can't say we haven't been told.
The trouble with that approach is that it's the opposite of targeted, the biggest gains accrue to the richest. That isn't necessarily evil, but it's inevitable. (And why progressive tax cuts tend to focus on raising thresholds not lowering rates).
You may not like the New Statesman, but it's hard to argue with numbers like this;
Thank Allah I signed up to a two year fixed price deal with EDF in July 2021.
I am in the same position having signed a 2 year fixed deal with EDF in September 2021
Around 22m households are on the default fixed tariff, so are unlikely to share your rather sunny view of government inaction.
Excuse me. I will be the first to condemn Truss and her new government if she does not mitigate this crisis
I really am not the person you try to paint me as
I would expect there will be suicides between now and her announcement caused by the cost of living and the lack of support she may offer, along with added stress for many, many millions. If she or the Tory party had an ounce of empathy rather than obsessing over their silly Game of Thrones she would have made an announcement weeks ago.
Don't even need suicides - plenty of oldies will be going hypothermic, takingf their clothes off in confusion (a standard response), and cooling off permanently. Graun feed:
"Martin Lewis: lives will be lost this winter without more help Money saving expert Martin Lewis has warned that people will die this winter because they can’t afford to heat their homes, unless the government provides more support with energy bills.
Lewis tells the Today programme that the new price cap, from 1 October, is 37% of the new state pension. It’s a even bigger proportion for those who retired earlier, and for those on universal credit.
Lewis says:
This is a catastrophe, plain and simple. Unaffordable. [...]
If we do not get further government intervention, on top of what was announced in May, then lives will be lost this winter.[...]
Lewis also points out that the £3,549 price cap figure is an average for those on direct debit –- those with higher than average energy use will pay more, as will those on pre-payment meters.
There is nothing somebody from paying ten thousand pounds a year, Lewis adds; he fears households with adults or childen with disabilities who need special electrical equipment could pay that much."
Slightly separate as that is what would happen if the government does not offer widespread and significant support. They will, it is inevitable, just like furlough was inevitable under covid, despite it being against Tory principles.
My point was that the delay in announcing support itself, whilst pretending not to to bolster her perceived Thatcherite credentials, is unnecessary, reckless and sociopathic.
Thank Allah I signed up to a two year fixed price deal with EDF in July 2021.
With hindsight, I made a quite impressive error in fixing mine only for twelve months.
Paying around £200 a month for gas and electricity for a big old house for the next 12 months feels like winning the lottery.
Imagine if you'd fixed for 3 years, that'd have been like winning the euromillions. That's my one (minor) regret, I'm fixed from Oct 21 to Oct 23.
My (52p per kWh) heart bleeds for you.
I was a bit late to the fixing party, but I fixed with Octopus Go last week at 40.06 p/kWh with 4 hours of night time electricity at 7.5 p/kWh. That still seems to be available.
That sounds like a very interesting tarriff - does it need a smartmeter ? Could be the thing that finally makes me take the plunge as my other half works overnight from home and we have solar panels. I mean it's going to be more next October but if the principle remains the same...
Yes, you need a smartmeter.
And an electric vehicle
I'm not sure that you *have* to have an EV. I do have an EV and was asked which model I had, but I didn't have to provide any evidence that I'd got one.
It might seem counterfactual that we are getting a Tesla next month what with energy bills as gonzo as they are. But as a company car it will be charged up on the company charger, and I'm in the rather advantageous position of having a stupid low business fix to May 2024. Not quite as low as the overnight rate on Octopus, but not far off it.
No government minister and no Liz Truss supporting MP on the morning round today to help the country understand how it is going to pay its energy bills. You do get the sense there is a tumbleweed blowing across the office floor in Westminster. https://twitter.com/PaulBrandITV/status/1563073592547745793
Seems I made the right decision to get the fuck out of dodge.
As did I. We're still affected by events at Westminster but with an extra layer of government inbetween us and the lunacy we do feel somewhat insulated.
Doesn't feel like that in Edinburgh with the drifts of litter building during the bin strike. There's an extra layer of government, but it's as cynical as the Westminster government and thrives on conflict and discontent.
You think that the SG doesn’t want the bin strikes resolved? It’s, to use the hoary, old cliché, a view..
Stay with the program. Strikes in England are the fault of the unions. Strikes in Scotland are the fault of the Scottish Government.
As for Edinburgh, it's *always* like that during the Festival - there is just more of it this year.
I don't understand why Truss can't say "this is what I would do on mitigating energy prices if I were elected Conservative leader and became PM". Sunak has done it, Starmer has done it. The only reason not to do it is because she does not yet know. Given how far in advance the rises have been signalled, that is not good enough.
Because she doesn't care! We've got @williamglenn and to a gentler extent @Big_G_NorthWales claiming Truss will intervene and some of us are just attacking her / the Tories. Based on what? That they believe she is a Massive Liar?
She cannot be clearer. On a "here's what I would do as Prime Minister" tour for a month and a half, meetings all across the country saying the same thing over and over and over. Hope that she already has a plan up her sleeve, or that she will pick a plan supposedly being drawn up by the Treasury is to hope she is a massive liar saying "no handouts" whilst planning handouts.
"You can trust her to act because she's a massive liar" is hardly a political position that will hold. So I believe the opposite is true - she isn't lying. I don't doubt that she will be forced to do *something*. But unlike the previous government whose belief only in Boris allowed the massive u-turn into furlough, this one has zeal behind it.
When the pile of pensioner corpses grows too high and the "you've already had a handout" excuses just provoke actual riots, they will have to act. But it will be way too late, far too little, and aimed at the people who don't need it to ameliorate the horror of handouts.
She has no option but to act. Whether she cares or not. Tory MPs will care because they will pay the price of inaction. That makes a huge intervention inevitable. The problem is that such a move will mean she has to break other promises she has made. It all shows a distinct lack of political nous. She boxed herself completely unnecessarily. It does not bode well.
I don't understand why Truss can't say "this is what I would do on mitigating energy prices if I were elected Conservative leader and became PM". Sunak has done it, Starmer has done it. The only reason not to do it is because she does not yet know. Given how far in advance the rises have been signalled, that is not good enough.
Because she doesn't care! We've got @williamglenn and to a gentler extent @Big_G_NorthWales claiming Truss will intervene and some of us are just attacking her / the Tories. Based on what? That they believe she is a Massive Liar?
She cannot be clearer. On a "here's what I would do as Prime Minister" tour for a month and a half, meetings all across the country saying the same thing over and over and over. Hope that she already has a plan up her sleeve, or that she will pick a plan supposedly being drawn up by the Treasury is to hope she is a massive liar saying "no handouts" whilst planning handouts.
"You can trust her to act because she's a massive liar" is hardly a political position that will hold. So I believe the opposite is true - she isn't lying. I don't doubt that she will be forced to do *something*. But unlike the previous government whose belief only in Boris allowed the massive u-turn into furlough, this one has zeal behind it.
When the pile of pensioner corpses grows too high and the "you've already had a handout" excuses just provoke actual riots, they will have to act. But it will be way too late, far too little, and aimed at the people who don't need it to ameliorate the horror of handouts.
She hasn't said she won't provide any support. You have, she hasn't.
She's said the priority is fixing the problem. That's right, so it should be. Support can be given as a secondary lesser priority but the priority must be to fix the problem, or else support won't just be needed this winter it will be needed every winter.
Support should be a safety net where needed, not a way of life.
My latest electric bill from Eon showed a credit of £24, a usage last month of £55 and I am paying £103 a month. Eon (on line) said I could reduce to £82 but when asked for that the computer said would have to be agreed.
After contacting a person they agreed could move to a variable DD -there appears to be no discount for having a DD which will mean I only pay what we use each month. This variable DD can apparently only be set up by phone or email but after the payment of £66 a month from the government probably means a bill of about £50 or £60 from October.
Thank goodness we downsized and no longer have an always on gas AGA . Though might be top of my wife's list when we win the lottery!
We tried - determinedly - to book a cabinet secretary, Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak, or someone from their campaigns; as well as someone from Ofgem to speak to you on #TimesRadio today to address the upcoming HUGE rise in energy bills and what they'll do for you.
Thank Allah I signed up to a two year fixed price deal with EDF in July 2021.
I am in the same position having signed a 2 year fixed deal with EDF in September 2021
Around 22m households are on the default fixed tariff, so are unlikely to share your rather sunny view of government inaction.
Excuse me. I will be the first to condemn Truss and her new government if she does not mitigate this crisis
I really am not the person you try to paint me as
I would expect there will be suicides between now and her announcement caused by the cost of living and the lack of support she may offer, along with added stress for many, many millions. If she or the Tory party had an ounce of empathy rather than obsessing over their silly Game of Thrones she would have made an announcement weeks ago.
Don't even need suicides - plenty of oldies will be going hypothermic, takingf their clothes off in confusion (a standard response), and cooling off permanently. Graun feed:
"Martin Lewis: lives will be lost this winter without more help Money saving expert Martin Lewis has warned that people will die this winter because they can’t afford to heat their homes, unless the government provides more support with energy bills.
Lewis tells the Today programme that the new price cap, from 1 October, is 37% of the new state pension. It’s a even bigger proportion for those who retired earlier, and for those on universal credit.
Lewis says:
This is a catastrophe, plain and simple. Unaffordable. [...]
If we do not get further government intervention, on top of what was announced in May, then lives will be lost this winter.[...]
Lewis also points out that the £3,549 price cap figure is an average for those on direct debit –- those with higher than average energy use will pay more, as will those on pre-payment meters.
There is nothing somebody from paying ten thousand pounds a year, Lewis adds; he fears households with adults or childen with disabilities who need special electrical equipment could pay that much."
Slightly separate as that is what would happen if the government does not offer widespread and significant support. They will, it is inevitable, just like furlough was inevitable under covid, despite it being against Tory principles.
My point was that the delay in announcing support itself, whilst pretending not to to bolster her perceived Thatcherite credentials, is unnecessary, reckless and sociopathic.
Mm, indeed. It's already terrified people - one hopes not too permanently in terms of damage at lower levels, e.g. in spending on food just now.
It's not as if the oldies vote Tory, is it, either?
Thank Allah I signed up to a two year fixed price deal with EDF in July 2021.
With hindsight, I made a quite impressive error in fixing mine only for twelve months.
Paying around £200 a month for gas and electricity for a big old house for the next 12 months feels like winning the lottery.
Imagine if you'd fixed for 3 years, that'd have been like winning the euromillions. That's my one (minor) regret, I'm fixed from Oct 21 to Oct 23.
My (52p per kWh) heart bleeds for you.
I was a bit late to the fixing party, but I fixed with Octopus Go last week at 40.06 p/kWh with 4 hours of night time electricity at 7.5 p/kWh. That still seems to be available.
That sounds like a very interesting tarriff - does it need a smartmeter ? Could be the thing that finally makes me take the plunge as my other half works overnight from home and we have solar panels. I mean it's going to be more next October but if the principle remains the same...
Yes, you need a smartmeter.
And an electric vehicle
I'm not sure that you *have* to have an EV. I do have an EV and was asked which model I had, but I didn't have to provide any evidence that I'd got one.
It might seem counterfactual that we are getting a Tesla next month what with energy bills as gonzo as they are. But as a company car it will be charged up on the company charger, and I'm in the rather advantageous position of having a stupid low business fix to May 2024. Not quite as low as the overnight rate on Octopus, but not far off it.
We’re delighted with our new electric vehicle. At 10p or so for an overnight charge we can cope with energy costs quadrupling. Going to be super useful for the school run in a week or two’s time.
We've crunched the numbers on what the new energy price cap in October (average £3,549) and new projections for it to rise to £5,386 in January mean for households overall this winter. It's a total catastrophe. https://twitter.com/TorstenBell/status/1563074278085767171
And so begins the week and a half that will destroy the Truss government before it starts. This morning Ofgem announce this winter's cap is triple last years, and implores Truss to intervene, as will will shoot up again in January.
Truss last night: “What isn’t right is to just bung more money into the system, what we actually need to do is fix the supply of energy.”
So for the next week and a half she and her team of Borisites will continue to repeat this mantra. No handouts for you workshy plebs. Some said "she will unveil a plan" - does last night suggest that? And even if she is forced to do so, the damage to her and to the remains of her party will be catastrophic.
You’re committing the classic error of overestimating how much interest the average person takes in politics.
You pray they won't notice? I suppose that even the word hopeless has hope in it...
You think the next week and a half will destroy the Truss government, but the majority of people don't know there's going to be a Truss government...
Possibly the most ridiculous set of comments on PB this week.
Pretty well everyone is going to be looking for someone to blame for the misery this winter. And that will be the person in charge.
That this was predicted months ago, and government has so far done nothing more than it did six months ago - and is still saying wait and see - is not going to do anything to absolve them of blame.
There are no easy answers, but failing to provide any answers at all is not government.
You think opinion of Truss’s government will be determined by what she says before she becomes PM rather than what she does as PM?
One would hope that what she says she’ll do and what she then does are the same, or are you presuming that Truss is a massive liar?
Until she is PM, she cannot speak as PM. What she says now might indicate her priorities but she’s not yet running the government.
“might indicate her priorities”?!!? She is standing for the position of PM and explicitly saying what she will do as PM.
Are you calling her a massive liar or not?
And Truss has indicated her priorities- Tax cuts not handouts. She may well U-turn on that; surely she will have to U-turn on that. But, for whatever reason, she has made her preference clear, we can't say we haven't been told.
The trouble with that approach is that it's the opposite of targeted, the biggest gains accrue to the richest. That isn't necessarily evil, but it's inevitable. (And why progressive tax cuts tend to focus on raising thresholds not lowering rates).
You may not like the New Statesman, but it's hard to argue with numbers like this;
Tax cuts are the right priority to have.
But PMs don't just have to handle their top priority, they have to handle lesser priorities too. Simply saying your priority is X is not saying you will do nothing whatsoever about Not-X.
We tried - determinedly - to book a cabinet secretary, Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak, or someone from their campaigns; as well as someone from Ofgem to speak to you on #TimesRadio today to address the upcoming HUGE rise in energy bills and what they'll do for you.
Thank Allah I signed up to a two year fixed price deal with EDF in July 2021.
I am in the same position having signed a 2 year fixed deal with EDF in September 2021
Around 22m households are on the default fixed tariff, so are unlikely to share your rather sunny view of government inaction.
Excuse me. I will be the first to condemn Truss and her new government if she does not mitigate this crisis
I really am not the person you try to paint me as
I would expect there will be suicides between now and her announcement caused by the cost of living and the lack of support she may offer, along with added stress for many, many millions. If she or the Tory party had an ounce of empathy rather than obsessing over their silly Game of Thrones she would have made an announcement weeks ago.
Don't even need suicides - plenty of oldies will be going hypothermic, takingf their clothes off in confusion (a standard response), and cooling off permanently. Graun feed:
"Martin Lewis: lives will be lost this winter without more help Money saving expert Martin Lewis has warned that people will die this winter because they can’t afford to heat their homes, unless the government provides more support with energy bills.
Lewis tells the Today programme that the new price cap, from 1 October, is 37% of the new state pension. It’s a even bigger proportion for those who retired earlier, and for those on universal credit.
Lewis says:
This is a catastrophe, plain and simple. Unaffordable. [...]
If we do not get further government intervention, on top of what was announced in May, then lives will be lost this winter.[...]
Lewis also points out that the £3,549 price cap figure is an average for those on direct debit –- those with higher than average energy use will pay more, as will those on pre-payment meters.
There is nothing somebody from paying ten thousand pounds a year, Lewis adds; he fears households with adults or childen with disabilities who need special electrical equipment could pay that much."
Edit: and not necessarily oldies either.
The great Martin Lewis sounded even more than normal as if he was about to explode; but even he offered nothing which could square the circle of: Sound public finances, Free money recipients and tax payers being millions of the same people, The government has no money except our money.
The hours long discussion about energy bills would be more interesting if occasionally four things were mentioned:
1) The government has no money except our money
2) At the moment our grandchildren's credit card has been maxed out by a combination of the banking crisis, pandemic and general uselessness
3) The gigantic profits of wicked oil and gas pay vastly into the wicked pension funds of Joe Public
4) Taxpayers and those hit by massive energy prices are largely the same people
And one unasked question raised: Who exactly pays for all this free money?
Of course it is not free money and will be paid for by UK taxpayers current and future. Really not sure anyone doubts that or assumes it to be free?
Reasons why that is better:
The current system cannot work. Millions will stop paying. Courts have no resource to enforce payment for that many even if they can separate out the can't pay and won't pay. Suppliers will go bankrupt as mandated to continue with supplying the non payers. The remaining suppliers then get the losses of the bankrupt suppliers further added on to their costs.
This is likely a one off negative windfall cost. For those with limited resources, i.e. most of the country, it is much better to spread out the cost over many years than trying to pay it as a one off. Central government can borrow such money far more cheaply than individuals.
Splitting the cost proportionately to tax payments is fairer than splitting by households especially after a decade when the very richest have done disproportionately well due to government policies.
The hours long discussion about energy bills would be more interesting if occasionally four things were mentioned:
1) The government has no money except our money
2) At the moment our grandchildren's credit card has been maxed out by a combination of the banking crisis, pandemic and general uselessness
3) The gigantic profits of wicked oil and gas pay vastly into the wicked pension funds of Joe Public
4) Taxpayers and those hit by massive energy prices are largely the same people
And one unasked question raised: Who exactly pays for all this free money?
That is all true. But sometimes the cost of inaction is higher than the cost of action.
I have called for these increased energy bills to be written off as unpayable. "But what is the cost to the energy company" people said. And that is fair, but what is the cost to the energy company of trying to collect unpayable bills?
They are unpayable in the sense that consumers simply do not have the resources to pay them. So lets assume debt builds up and the energy company then spends money on enforcement action. Which eventually results in a payment plan where they get a fraction of the debt back.
Unpayable bill. Plus legal and admin expenses. To recover minimal money. Then rinse and repeat for millions. So we face a huge bill even if we don't act. This is going to bankrupt half our hospitality sector and a load of shops for good measure. The economic hit of them folding needs to be added to the cost side of inaction.
I keep pointing out that business is profit and loss. Energy company profits means other companies losses. So suggesting the energy companies take a hit this winter is only what is happening on the other side of the equation if they don't.
I don't understand why Truss can't say "this is what I would do on mitigating energy prices if I were elected Conservative leader and became PM". Sunak has done it, Starmer has done it. The only reason not to do it is because she does not yet know. Given how far in advance the rises have been signalled, that is not good enough.
Because she doesn't care! We've got @williamglenn and to a gentler extent @Big_G_NorthWales claiming Truss will intervene and some of us are just attacking her / the Tories. Based on what? That they believe she is a Massive Liar?
She cannot be clearer. On a "here's what I would do as Prime Minister" tour for a month and a half, meetings all across the country saying the same thing over and over and over. Hope that she already has a plan up her sleeve, or that she will pick a plan supposedly being drawn up by the Treasury is to hope she is a massive liar saying "no handouts" whilst planning handouts.
"You can trust her to act because she's a massive liar" is hardly a political position that will hold. So I believe the opposite is true - she isn't lying. I don't doubt that she will be forced to do *something*. But unlike the previous government whose belief only in Boris allowed the massive u-turn into furlough, this one has zeal behind it.
When the pile of pensioner corpses grows too high and the "you've already had a handout" excuses just provoke actual riots, they will have to act. But it will be way too late, far too little, and aimed at the people who don't need it to ameliorate the horror of handouts.
She hasn't said she won't provide any support. You have, she hasn't.
She's said the priority is fixing the problem. That's right, so it should be. Support can be given as a secondary lesser priority but the priority must be to fix the problem, or else support won't just be needed this winter it will be needed every winter.
Support should be a safety net where needed, not a way of life.
Truss is right on this, and you are wrong.
Sounds as if she is planning to drain the swamp when we are up to our necks in the water and surrounded by alligators
We still need to aspire for net zero. Scrapping green levies does no good at all. If anything we should be, at least, keeping them as we need to speed up the dash to renewables and not just Wind and Solar but also tidal.
Green levies are inconsequential when the average bill is £3,500
The hours long discussion about energy bills would be more interesting if occasionally four things were mentioned:
1) The government has no money except our money
2) At the moment our grandchildren's credit card has been maxed out by a combination of the banking crisis, pandemic and general uselessness
3) The gigantic profits of wicked oil and gas pay vastly into the wicked pension funds of Joe Public
4) Taxpayers and those hit by massive energy prices are largely the same people
And one unasked question raised: Who exactly pays for all this free money?
Big investment in north sea gas & renewables generally, fasttracking of all existing projects. Keep bills higher than they otherwise would have been once the wholesale price for the UK drops (As it will be forced to by the renewable energy). Help for the vulnerable in the meantime; loans for middle earners to invest in solar, ASHPs and batterys.
I don't understand why Truss can't say "this is what I would do on mitigating energy prices if I were elected Conservative leader and became PM". Sunak has done it, Starmer has done it. The only reason not to do it is because she does not yet know. Given how far in advance the rises have been signalled, that is not good enough.
Because she doesn't care! We've got @williamglenn and to a gentler extent @Big_G_NorthWales claiming Truss will intervene and some of us are just attacking her / the Tories. Based on what? That they believe she is a Massive Liar?
She cannot be clearer. On a "here's what I would do as Prime Minister" tour for a month and a half, meetings all across the country saying the same thing over and over and over. Hope that she already has a plan up her sleeve, or that she will pick a plan supposedly being drawn up by the Treasury is to hope she is a massive liar saying "no handouts" whilst planning handouts.
"You can trust her to act because she's a massive liar" is hardly a political position that will hold. So I believe the opposite is true - she isn't lying. I don't doubt that she will be forced to do *something*. But unlike the previous government whose belief only in Boris allowed the massive u-turn into furlough, this one has zeal behind it.
When the pile of pensioner corpses grows too high and the "you've already had a handout" excuses just provoke actual riots, they will have to act. But it will be way too late, far too little, and aimed at the people who don't need it to ameliorate the horror of handouts.
She hasn't said she won't provide any support. You have, she hasn't.
She's said the priority is fixing the problem. That's right, so it should be. Support can be given as a secondary lesser priority but the priority must be to fix the problem, or else support won't just be needed this winter it will be needed every winter.
Support should be a safety net where needed, not a way of life.
Truss is right on this, and you are wrong.
You listen to her last night - saying directly that "What isn’t right is to just bung more money into the system" and conclude that she said that she would be providing support after all.
I take your perspectives on this under increasing amounts of advisement.
I don't understand why Truss can't say "this is what I would do on mitigating energy prices if I were elected Conservative leader and became PM". Sunak has done it, Starmer has done it. The only reason not to do it is because she does not yet know. Given how far in advance the rises have been signalled, that is not good enough.
Because she doesn't care! We've got @williamglenn and to a gentler extent @Big_G_NorthWales claiming Truss will intervene and some of us are just attacking her / the Tories. Based on what? That they believe she is a Massive Liar?
She cannot be clearer. On a "here's what I would do as Prime Minister" tour for a month and a half, meetings all across the country saying the same thing over and over and over. Hope that she already has a plan up her sleeve, or that she will pick a plan supposedly being drawn up by the Treasury is to hope she is a massive liar saying "no handouts" whilst planning handouts.
"You can trust her to act because she's a massive liar" is hardly a political position that will hold. So I believe the opposite is true - she isn't lying. I don't doubt that she will be forced to do *something*. But unlike the previous government whose belief only in Boris allowed the massive u-turn into furlough, this one has zeal behind it.
When the pile of pensioner corpses grows too high and the "you've already had a handout" excuses just provoke actual riots, they will have to act. But it will be way too late, far too little, and aimed at the people who don't need it to ameliorate the horror of handouts.
She may be changing tack, if this is to be believed.
I hold her in the same high regard as you do. However she has succeeded in politics by having principles that can be adopted or jetisoned as often as practical.
"At the moment, the price of electricity is set by the last kilowatt needed to balance the grid, currently the cost of gas by an obscene margin. The fossil tail (44pc of total power last year) is wagging the clean dog (56pc). The gains of cheaper renewables are not being passed on."
We still need to aspire for net zero. Scrapping green levies does no good at all. If anything we should be, at least, keeping them as we need to speed up the dash to renewables and not just Wind and Solar but also tidal.
Green levies are inconsequential when the average bill is £3,500
Do you really think that calling a tax a “green levy” makes it intrinsically good for the environment?
My youngest starts at school in a couple of weeks. I had for the last couple of years been looking forward to having much reduced childcare costs (was ~£500/month). Now as it turns out that is just going to get consumed by energy bills.
I am trying to take some simple measures to reduce costs: - Reduce length of time the hot water gas is on. Previously was 3 hours/day (split morning and evening). Now getting away with 1 hour/day. - When it gets cold to start wearing base layers to avoid putting the heating on - Stop tumble dryer usage
Will the impact of people across all of Europe taking similar actions reduce demand and therefore end up with prices coming down? I do think sometime in the next 2 years we will see negative inflation.
The hours long discussion about energy bills would be more interesting if occasionally four things were mentioned:
1) The government has no money except our money
2) At the moment our grandchildren's credit card has been maxed out by a combination of the banking crisis, pandemic and general uselessness
3) The gigantic profits of wicked oil and gas pay vastly into the wicked pension funds of Joe Public
4) Taxpayers and those hit by massive energy prices are largely the same people
And one unasked question raised: Who exactly pays for all this free money?
That is all true. But sometimes the cost of inaction is higher than the cost of action.
I have called for these increased energy bills to be written off as unpayable. "But what is the cost to the energy company" people said. And that is fair, but what is the cost to the energy company of trying to collect unpayable bills?
They are unpayable in the sense that consumers simply do not have the resources to pay them. So lets assume debt builds up and the energy company then spends money on enforcement action. Which eventually results in a payment plan where they get a fraction of the debt back.
Unpayable bill. Plus legal and admin expenses. To recover minimal money. Then rinse and repeat for millions. So we face a huge bill even if we don't act. This is going to bankrupt half our hospitality sector and a load of shops for good measure. The economic hit of them folding needs to be added to the cost side of inaction.
I keep pointing out that business is profit and loss. Energy company profits means other companies losses. So suggesting the energy companies take a hit this winter is only what is happening on the other side of the equation if they don't.
Thanks. It is the absence of discussion of each side of the equation I am objecting to. I already know what a starving pensioner, widow and orphan looks like, and I already know that they live in the dark on (microwaved) boiled gravel.
We still need to aspire for net zero. Scrapping green levies does no good at all. If anything we should be, at least, keeping them as we need to speed up the dash to renewables and not just Wind and Solar but also tidal.
Green levies are inconsequential when the average bill is £3,500
Yebbut it sounds good to Tories, like fracking inland in the UK. And the *only* important thing at the moment is to win the leadership vote.
I understand that there is a hiatus is prime ministerial power. But we are still meant to have a functioning government, aren't we? Even if major decisions can't be made, messages can still be delivered.
The failure to put up anybody to do the media rounds this morning indicates that government isn't functioning. Even if they couldn't make major announcements, they could have done some messaging - "Ofgem announcement very concerning - we advise people to try to reduce their energy consumption" or whatever.
The absence of government, not just on energy but on all matters, since the leadership contest started is, to be blunt, a fucking disgrace. And I think the public have noticed.
Rachel Reeves has been on BBC Breakfast dismissing Full Fact. Not in any substantive way but just by saying they are wrong.
Full Fact is the sort of organisation that the likes of Reeves will agree with wholeheartedly when it supports her worldview but will rubbish when they dare to contradict it.
I understand that there is a hiatus is prime ministerial power. But we are still meant to have a functioning government, aren't we? Even if major decisions can't be made, messages can still be delivered.
The failure to put up anybody to do the media rounds this morning indicates that government isn't functioning. Even if they couldn't make major announcements, they could have done some messaging - "Ofgem announcement very concerning - we advise people to try to reduce their energy consumption" or whatever.
The absence of government, not just on energy but on all matters, since the leadership contest started is, to be blunt, a fucking disgrace. And I think the public have noticed.
On the other hand. it can be blamed conveniently on Mr Johnson and his cabinet.
Which doesn't bode well for Mr J if he ever tries to do a James IX and III, though also for Mr Sunak or Ms Truss.
"At the moment, the price of electricity is set by the last kilowatt needed to balance the grid, currently the cost of gas by an obscene margin. The fossil tail (44pc of total power last year) is wagging the clean dog (56pc). The gains of cheaper renewables are not being passed on."
Do they bollocks. Here and now you want to spend tens of billions rewarding the shareholders for the windfall you will give them?
It is a regulated market. Fucking regulate them for a change. Reset the metrics on how the different sources are prices so that renewables are actually cheap instead of artificially inflated. Remove the insane transmission surcharges so that renewables cost more to ship than any other source.
You can do all of that without spending a fortune buying shares.
The energy crisis needs to be treated as a national emergency . Clearly if there’s not sufficient help businesses will close , people will be unable to pay their bills , people will lose jobs and some people will literally freeze to death .
The Maggie clone needs to get a grip on reality . Do the fxcking u turn and stop all this no handouts blah blah bollox!
The hours long discussion about energy bills would be more interesting if occasionally four things were mentioned:
1) The government has no money except our money
2) At the moment our grandchildren's credit card has been maxed out by a combination of the banking crisis, pandemic and general uselessness
3) The gigantic profits of wicked oil and gas pay vastly into the wicked pension funds of Joe Public
4) Taxpayers and those hit by massive energy prices are largely the same people
And one unasked question raised: Who exactly pays for all this free money?
Big investment in north sea gas & renewables generally, fasttracking of all existing projects. Keep bills higher than they otherwise would have been once the wholesale price for the UK drops (As it will be forced to by the renewable energy). Help for the vulnerable in the meantime; loans for middle earners to invest in solar, ASHPs and batterys.
There is nothing physical that could be done by the end of the year - no new power stations of any kind.
The most that can be accomplished is installing some containerised diesel genrators. Maybe buy some containerised battery storage units from Tesla - $900,000 for 3MWh - if they have any available. But this is just tinkering at the edges and providing support for some vital services.
The only major measures that can be taken in the next few months to actually help people (and the country in general) are financial, at this point.
We still need to aspire for net zero. Scrapping green levies does no good at all. If anything we should be, at least, keeping them as we need to speed up the dash to renewables and not just Wind and Solar but also tidal.
Green levies are inconsequential when the average bill is £3,500
Yebbut it sounds good to Tories, like fracking inland in the UK. And the *only* important thing at the moment is to win the leadership vote.
Yes, that is true and going on about fracking which will not help us at all according to people who actually know about these things or green levies which are actually really useful is red meat to the headbangers voting for her.
Just as the batshit left say if we nationalise the energy sector our problems go away the batshit right thinks all we need to do is frack and our problems go away.
My youngest starts at school in a couple of weeks. I had for the last couple of years been looking forward to having much reduced childcare costs (was ~£500/month). Now as it turns out that is just going to get consumed by energy bills.
I am trying to take some simple measures to reduce costs: - Reduce length of time the hot water gas is on. Previously was 3 hours/day (split morning and evening). Now getting away with 1 hour/day. - When it gets cold to start wearing base layers to avoid putting the heating on - Stop tumble dryer usage
Will the impact of people across all of Europe taking similar actions reduce demand and therefore end up with prices coming down? I do think sometime in the next 2 years we will see negative inflation.
Pay rises will make that unlikely imo.
CoL for worker is increasing by 10%+ and pay settlements probably closer to 5%. Even if non pay inflation was negative workers will be looking to catch up with lost real income for some years to come and be aggressive on pay demands and expectations.
My youngest starts at school in a couple of weeks. I had for the last couple of years been looking forward to having much reduced childcare costs (was ~£500/month). Now as it turns out that is just going to get consumed by energy bills.
I am trying to take some simple measures to reduce costs: - Reduce length of time the hot water gas is on. Previously was 3 hours/day (split morning and evening). Now getting away with 1 hour/day. - When it gets cold to start wearing base layers to avoid putting the heating on - Stop tumble dryer usage
Will the impact of people across all of Europe taking similar actions reduce demand and therefore end up with prices coming down? I do think sometime in the next 2 years we will see negative inflation.
Current futures pricing for gas suggests we are completely stuffed well into 2024, with prices remaining at double their 2021 levels even in 2026.
I don't understand why Truss can't say "this is what I would do on mitigating energy prices if I were elected Conservative leader and became PM". Sunak has done it, Starmer has done it. The only reason not to do it is because she does not yet know. Given how far in advance the rises have been signalled, that is not good enough.
Because she doesn't care! We've got @williamglenn and to a gentler extent @Big_G_NorthWales claiming Truss will intervene and some of us are just attacking her / the Tories. Based on what? That they believe she is a Massive Liar?
She cannot be clearer. On a "here's what I would do as Prime Minister" tour for a month and a half, meetings all across the country saying the same thing over and over and over. Hope that she already has a plan up her sleeve, or that she will pick a plan supposedly being drawn up by the Treasury is to hope she is a massive liar saying "no handouts" whilst planning handouts.
"You can trust her to act because she's a massive liar" is hardly a political position that will hold. So I believe the opposite is true - she isn't lying. I don't doubt that she will be forced to do *something*. But unlike the previous government whose belief only in Boris allowed the massive u-turn into furlough, this one has zeal behind it.
When the pile of pensioner corpses grows too high and the "you've already had a handout" excuses just provoke actual riots, they will have to act. But it will be way too late, far too little, and aimed at the people who don't need it to ameliorate the horror of handouts.
She may be changing tack, if this is to be believed.
I hold her in the same high regard as you do. However she has succeeded in politics by having principles that can be adopted or jetisoned as often as practical.
Even I have said she will be forced to act. It is what they do, when, and with what tone that is under question. She doesn't want handouts to the workshy. Repeated again last night. So when they put this together it won't be targeted. It will be universal to ensure her lot get theirs and so that she isn't rewarding failure. And it will be a loan.
Which defers rather than resolves the problem of unpayable debt.
Genuine question on all the plans to subsidise people's energy bills. Would we be better off putting the money into putting loft installation into everyone's homes? That would help reduce consumption which in my view should be the primary objective right now.
I understand that there is a hiatus is prime ministerial power. But we are still meant to have a functioning government, aren't we? Even if major decisions can't be made, messages can still be delivered.
The failure to put up anybody to do the media rounds this morning indicates that government isn't functioning. Even if they couldn't make major announcements, they could have done some messaging - "Ofgem announcement very concerning - we advise people to try to reduce their energy consumption" or whatever.
The absence of government, not just on energy but on all matters, since the leadership contest started is, to be blunt, a fucking disgrace. And I think the public have noticed.
It truely is a disgrace and Brady with his idiotic 1922 committee should hang their heads in shame, and I speak as a conservative
Sky business saying just now the scale of this crisis dwarfs covid and projects are least 100 billion is needed for the next 12 months from central government
My youngest starts at school in a couple of weeks. I had for the last couple of years been looking forward to having much reduced childcare costs (was ~£500/month). Now as it turns out that is just going to get consumed by energy bills.
I am trying to take some simple measures to reduce costs: - Reduce length of time the hot water gas is on. Previously was 3 hours/day (split morning and evening). Now getting away with 1 hour/day. - When it gets cold to start wearing base layers to avoid putting the heating on - Stop tumble dryer usage
Will the impact of people across all of Europe taking similar actions reduce demand and therefore end up with prices coming down? I do think sometime in the next 2 years we will see negative inflation.
Current futures pricing for gas suggests we are completely stuffed well into 2024, with prices remaining at double their 2021 levels even in 2026.
If we simultaneously reduce domestic gas consumption through preventative measures by say 25% then overall price paid would be 50% higher than 2021. Still obviously an increase but much more manageable. We have to get consumption down through sensible, easy to take steps.
Genuine question on all the plans to subsidise people's energy bills. Would we be better off putting the money into putting loft installation into everyone's homes? That would help reduce consumption which in my view should be the primary objective right now.
Well. Yes. Do you have a plan for this to be done before Winter?
The hours long discussion about energy bills would be more interesting if occasionally four things were mentioned:
1) The government has no money except our money
2) At the moment our grandchildren's credit card has been maxed out by a combination of the banking crisis, pandemic and general uselessness
3) The gigantic profits of wicked oil and gas pay vastly into the wicked pension funds of Joe Public
4) Taxpayers and those hit by massive energy prices are largely the same people
And one unasked question raised: Who exactly pays for all this free money?
Big investment in north sea gas & renewables generally, fasttracking of all existing projects. Keep bills higher than they otherwise would have been once the wholesale price for the UK drops (As it will be forced to by the renewable energy). Help for the vulnerable in the meantime; loans for middle earners to invest in solar, ASHPs and batterys.
There is nothing physical that could be done by the end of the year - no new power stations of any kind.
The most that can be accomplished is installing some containerised diesel genrators. Maybe buy some containerised battery storage units from Tesla - $900,000 for 3MWh - if they have any available. But this is just tinkering at the edges and providing support for some vital services.
The only major measures that can be taken in the next few months to actually help people (and the country in general) are financial, at this point.
I believe that we have several mothballed coal power stations (such as Aberthaw and Fiddlers Ferry). Has any study been done on what condition these are in and what it would take to reactivate them this winter?
On topic they can oust the winner but then the next one just goes back to the same lunatics so what's the point?
It would be different if they could get 67% of MPs coordinating to make sure they only gave the membership sensible options but the parliamentary party isn't *that* sane either.
I don't understand why Truss can't say "this is what I would do on mitigating energy prices if I were elected Conservative leader and became PM". Sunak has done it, Starmer has done it. The only reason not to do it is because she does not yet know. Given how far in advance the rises have been signalled, that is not good enough.
Because she doesn't care! We've got @williamglenn and to a gentler extent @Big_G_NorthWales claiming Truss will intervene and some of us are just attacking her / the Tories. Based on what? That they believe she is a Massive Liar?
She cannot be clearer. On a "here's what I would do as Prime Minister" tour for a month and a half, meetings all across the country saying the same thing over and over and over. Hope that she already has a plan up her sleeve, or that she will pick a plan supposedly being drawn up by the Treasury is to hope she is a massive liar saying "no handouts" whilst planning handouts.
"You can trust her to act because she's a massive liar" is hardly a political position that will hold. So I believe the opposite is true - she isn't lying. I don't doubt that she will be forced to do *something*. But unlike the previous government whose belief only in Boris allowed the massive u-turn into furlough, this one has zeal behind it.
When the pile of pensioner corpses grows too high and the "you've already had a handout" excuses just provoke actual riots, they will have to act. But it will be way too late, far too little, and aimed at the people who don't need it to ameliorate the horror of handouts.
She may be changing tack, if this is to be believed.
I hold her in the same high regard as you do. However she has succeeded in politics by having principles that can be adopted or jetisoned as often as practical.
Even I have said she will be forced to act. It is what they do, when, and with what tone that is under question. She doesn't want handouts to the workshy. Repeated again last night. So when they put this together it won't be targeted. It will be universal to ensure her lot get theirs and so that she isn't rewarding failure. And it will be a loan.
Which defers rather than resolves the problem of unpayable debt.
You're lying, that's not what she said.
What she said actually is that support is on the way, but her priority is fixing the problem.
I understand that there is a hiatus is prime ministerial power. But we are still meant to have a functioning government, aren't we? Even if major decisions can't be made, messages can still be delivered.
The failure to put up anybody to do the media rounds this morning indicates that government isn't functioning. Even if they couldn't make major announcements, they could have done some messaging - "Ofgem announcement very concerning - we advise people to try to reduce their energy consumption" or whatever.
The absence of government, not just on energy but on all matters, since the leadership contest started is, to be blunt, a fucking disgrace. And I think the public have noticed.
It truely is a disgrace and Brady with his idiotic 1922 committee should hang their heads in shame, and I speak as a conservative
Sky business saying just now the scale of this crisis dwarfs covid and projects are least 100 billion is needed for the next 12 months from central government
The maths is not that difficult. If we want bills to be £2000 rather than £5000 and there are 30 million households, then yes that is £3k x 30m = £90bn. That is before any support for small businesses.
I understand that there is a hiatus is prime ministerial power. But we are still meant to have a functioning government, aren't we? Even if major decisions can't be made, messages can still be delivered.
The failure to put up anybody to do the media rounds this morning indicates that government isn't functioning. Even if they couldn't make major announcements, they could have done some messaging - "Ofgem announcement very concerning - we advise people to try to reduce their energy consumption" or whatever.
The absence of government, not just on energy but on all matters, since the leadership contest started is, to be blunt, a fucking disgrace. And I think the public have noticed.
It truely is a disgrace and Brady with his idiotic 1922 committee should hang their heads in shame, and I speak as a conservative
Sky business saying just now the scale of this crisis dwarfs covid and projects are least 100 billion is needed for the next 12 months from central government
"Like the Poll Tax. Just much more expensive." says Martin Lewis.
The hours long discussion about energy bills would be more interesting if occasionally four things were mentioned:
1) The government has no money except our money
2) At the moment our grandchildren's credit card has been maxed out by a combination of the banking crisis, pandemic and general uselessness
3) The gigantic profits of wicked oil and gas pay vastly into the wicked pension funds of Joe Public
4) Taxpayers and those hit by massive energy prices are largely the same people
And one unasked question raised: Who exactly pays for all this free money?
Big investment in north sea gas & renewables generally, fasttracking of all existing projects. Keep bills higher than they otherwise would have been once the wholesale price for the UK drops (As it will be forced to by the renewable energy). Help for the vulnerable in the meantime; loans for middle earners to invest in solar, ASHPs and batterys.
There is nothing physical that could be done by the end of the year - no new power stations of any kind.
The most that can be accomplished is installing some containerised diesel genrators. Maybe buy some containerised battery storage units from Tesla - $900,000 for 3MWh - if they have any available. But this is just tinkering at the edges and providing support for some vital services.
The only major measures that can be taken in the next few months to actually help people (and the country in general) are financial, at this point.
This is going on beyond the end of the year. Europe and Russia aren't getting on good terms any time soon & till Russia's hypothecated watts are replaced from their gas it's not ending at all.
"At the moment, the price of electricity is set by the last kilowatt needed to balance the grid, currently the cost of gas by an obscene margin. The fossil tail (44pc of total power last year) is wagging the clean dog (56pc). The gains of cheaper renewables are not being passed on."
in this case nationalising does nothing unless you can change the cost of energy. It's not in the power of government to control the cost of exports.
The real risk of nationalising is governments getting invovled in an international market and countries playing beggar thy neighbour with access to energy.
Better to support consumers (both residential and commercial), massively invest in renewables and cheaper sources of energy, including nuclear, and invest massively in efficacy (ie insulation etc)
Genuine question on all the plans to subsidise people's energy bills. Would we be better off putting the money into putting loft installation into everyone's homes? That would help reduce consumption which in my view should be the primary objective right now.
Well. Yes. Do you have a plan for this to be done before Winter?
No, because I'm not a politician. I have previously suggested that we need to put the country into a war-time mode and have everything focused on reducing energy consumption and increasing green electricity generation. Government can spin it as a war against climate-change AND Putin.
Genuine question on all the plans to subsidise people's energy bills. Would we be better off putting the money into putting loft installation into everyone's homes? That would help reduce consumption which in my view should be the primary objective right now.
I don't have a loft. Will that get built for me before the winter as well? Not sure the flats above will be too happy about that though.
Genuine question on all the plans to subsidise people's energy bills. Would we be better off putting the money into putting loft installation into everyone's homes? That would help reduce consumption which in my view should be the primary objective right now.
The problem, as ever there is a problem, try getting contractors to insulate your home as they are booked for months ahead
It simply is not practical to think millions of homes can quickly be insulated even if the money is there
We still need to aspire for net zero. Scrapping green levies does no good at all. If anything we should be, at least, keeping them as we need to speed up the dash to renewables and not just Wind and Solar but also tidal.
Green levies are inconsequential when the average bill is £3,500
Do you really think that calling a tax a “green levy” makes it intrinsically good for the environment?
The name of it is meaningless. All sorts of shite is called green merely as a marketing ploy, many companies claim to be green purely for PR purposes.
Charge consumers the old price for usage up to 85% of median usage, the new marginal price for usage up to 1.5x median usage, and a penal price of the new marginal price plus 50% on usage above this level. Fund it via a windfall tax on energy firms, a temporary income tax surcharge and borrowing, plus the revenue from the penal rate. Spreads the pain across consumers, taxpayers, owners of equity and future taxpayers. Discourages energy consumption while providing everyone with a minimum amount at affordable levels. Should be easy to achieve for normal meters and smart meters, I don't know if it's feasible for prepayment meters.
Genuine question on all the plans to subsidise people's energy bills. Would we be better off putting the money into putting loft installation into everyone's homes? That would help reduce consumption which in my view should be the primary objective right now.
Well. Yes. Do you have a plan for this to be done before Winter?
No, because I'm not a politician. I have previously suggested that we need to put the country into a war-time mode and have everything focused on reducing energy consumption and increasing green electricity generation. Government can spin it as a war against climate-change AND Putin.
Well absolutely. Been saying the same for months. Problem is folk are simply blaming their particular hobby horses. We need to do everything to cut demand and increase supply. Whatever it is.
I don't understand why Truss can't say "this is what I would do on mitigating energy prices if I were elected Conservative leader and became PM". Sunak has done it, Starmer has done it. The only reason not to do it is because she does not yet know. Given how far in advance the rises have been signalled, that is not good enough.
Because she doesn't care! We've got @williamglenn and to a gentler extent @Big_G_NorthWales claiming Truss will intervene and some of us are just attacking her / the Tories. Based on what? That they believe she is a Massive Liar?
She cannot be clearer. On a "here's what I would do as Prime Minister" tour for a month and a half, meetings all across the country saying the same thing over and over and over. Hope that she already has a plan up her sleeve, or that she will pick a plan supposedly being drawn up by the Treasury is to hope she is a massive liar saying "no handouts" whilst planning handouts.
"You can trust her to act because she's a massive liar" is hardly a political position that will hold. So I believe the opposite is true - she isn't lying. I don't doubt that she will be forced to do *something*. But unlike the previous government whose belief only in Boris allowed the massive u-turn into furlough, this one has zeal behind it.
When the pile of pensioner corpses grows too high and the "you've already had a handout" excuses just provoke actual riots, they will have to act. But it will be way too late, far too little, and aimed at the people who don't need it to ameliorate the horror of handouts.
She may be changing tack, if this is to be believed.
I hold her in the same high regard as you do. However she has succeeded in politics by having principles that can be adopted or jetisoned as often as practical.
Even I have said she will be forced to act. It is what they do, when, and with what tone that is under question. She doesn't want handouts to the workshy. Repeated again last night. So when they put this together it won't be targeted. It will be universal to ensure her lot get theirs and so that she isn't rewarding failure. And it will be a loan.
Which defers rather than resolves the problem of unpayable debt.
You're lying, that's not what she said.
What she said actually is that support is on the way, but her priority is fixing the problem.
You're tilting at windmills.
I *directly quoted* her. " “What isn’t right is to just bung more money into the system, what we actually need to do is fix the supply of energy.”
Reading your pro-Truss posts is like watching a toddler throw a tantrum. You want your tax cut and people die so what. That the country is reacting in horror rather than agreeing with you has you with your arms crossed scowling and stamping the floor.
On topic they can oust the winner but then the next one just goes back to the same lunatics so what's the point?
It would be different if they could get 67% of MPs coordinating to make sure they only gave the membership sensible options but the parliamentary party isn't *that* sane either.
The point is that the next lunatic can run against the policies of the previous lunatic, despite having been their Foreign Sec or Chancellor. They can be a perpetual opposition in government which suits their audience of nostalgic fantasist moaners.
I understand that there is a hiatus is prime ministerial power. But we are still meant to have a functioning government, aren't we? Even if major decisions can't be made, messages can still be delivered.
The failure to put up anybody to do the media rounds this morning indicates that government isn't functioning. Even if they couldn't make major announcements, they could have done some messaging - "Ofgem announcement very concerning - we advise people to try to reduce their energy consumption" or whatever.
The absence of government, not just on energy but on all matters, since the leadership contest started is, to be blunt, a fucking disgrace. And I think the public have noticed.
It truely is a disgrace and Brady with his idiotic 1922 committee should hang their heads in shame, and I speak as a conservative
Sky business saying just now the scale of this crisis dwarfs covid and projects are least 100 billion is needed for the next 12 months from central government
"Like the Poll Tax. Just much more expensive." says Martin Lewis.
Much more expensive. Average Poll Tax was £360 in 1990. Thats £718 in today's money, or a couple of washing machine cycles and roast dinner in electricity costs in January's money.
"At the moment, the price of electricity is set by the last kilowatt needed to balance the grid, currently the cost of gas by an obscene margin. The fossil tail (44pc of total power last year) is wagging the clean dog (56pc). The gains of cheaper renewables are not being passed on."
in this case nationalising does nothing unless you can change the cost of energy. It's not in the power of government to control the cost of exports.
The real risk of nationalising is governments getting invovled in an international market and countries playing beggar thy neighbour with access to energy.
Better to support consumers (both residential and commercial), massively invest in renewables and cheaper sources of energy, including nuclear, and invest massively in efficacy (ie insulation etc)
Behind the scenes, countries playing beggar thy neighbour with energy is exactly what is being expected. That will be the next story, once we have moved on from the price cap.
The simple fact is that prices are astronomical because demand at present outstrips supply. That means a dramatic reduction in demand, rationing, or blackouts (or a combination of all three).
"The industry’s teleconference suggests the problem is broader than just rising costs. Increasingly, the words “emergency” and “shortages” are being used, with participants focusing on when, rather than if, a crisis will hit..... .....A key concern is what happens if European countries introduce beggar-thy-neighbor policies by shutting down cross-border electricity flows, as Norway has already said it’s considering. "
I don't understand why Truss can't say "this is what I would do on mitigating energy prices if I were elected Conservative leader and became PM". Sunak has done it, Starmer has done it. The only reason not to do it is because she does not yet know. Given how far in advance the rises have been signalled, that is not good enough.
Because she doesn't care! We've got @williamglenn and to a gentler extent @Big_G_NorthWales claiming Truss will intervene and some of us are just attacking her / the Tories. Based on what? That they believe she is a Massive Liar?
She cannot be clearer. On a "here's what I would do as Prime Minister" tour for a month and a half, meetings all across the country saying the same thing over and over and over. Hope that she already has a plan up her sleeve, or that she will pick a plan supposedly being drawn up by the Treasury is to hope she is a massive liar saying "no handouts" whilst planning handouts.
"You can trust her to act because she's a massive liar" is hardly a political position that will hold. So I believe the opposite is true - she isn't lying. I don't doubt that she will be forced to do *something*. But unlike the previous government whose belief only in Boris allowed the massive u-turn into furlough, this one has zeal behind it.
When the pile of pensioner corpses grows too high and the "you've already had a handout" excuses just provoke actual riots, they will have to act. But it will be way too late, far too little, and aimed at the people who don't need it to ameliorate the horror of handouts.
She may be changing tack, if this is to be believed.
I hold her in the same high regard as you do. However she has succeeded in politics by having principles that can be adopted or jetisoned as often as practical.
Even I have said she will be forced to act. It is what they do, when, and with what tone that is under question. She doesn't want handouts to the workshy. Repeated again last night. So when they put this together it won't be targeted. It will be universal to ensure her lot get theirs and so that she isn't rewarding failure. And it will be a loan.
Which defers rather than resolves the problem of unpayable debt.
You're lying, that's not what she said.
What she said actually is that support is on the way, but her priority is fixing the problem.
You're tilting at windmills.
I *directly quoted* her. " “What isn’t right is to just bung more money into the system, what we actually need to do is fix the supply of energy.”
Reading your pro-Truss posts is like watching a toddler throw a tantrum. You want your tax cut and people die so what. That the country is reacting in horror rather than agreeing with you has you with your arms crossed scowling and stamping the floor.
Yes, to "just" bung more money into the system "isn't right".
But she also explicitly said that support is on the way and you're lying by saying she said it isn't. Outright lie.
Support is on the way, but it shouldn't just be that.
The hours long discussion about energy bills would be more interesting if occasionally four things were mentioned:
1) The government has no money except our money
2) At the moment our grandchildren's credit card has been maxed out by a combination of the banking crisis, pandemic and general uselessness
3) The gigantic profits of wicked oil and gas pay vastly into the wicked pension funds of Joe Public
4) Taxpayers and those hit by massive energy prices are largely the same people
And one unasked question raised: Who exactly pays for all this free money?
Big investment in north sea gas & renewables generally, fasttracking of all existing projects. Keep bills higher than they otherwise would have been once the wholesale price for the UK drops (As it will be forced to by the renewable energy). Help for the vulnerable in the meantime; loans for middle earners to invest in solar, ASHPs and batterys.
There is nothing physical that could be done by the end of the year - no new power stations of any kind.
The most that can be accomplished is installing some containerised diesel genrators. Maybe buy some containerised battery storage units from Tesla - $900,000 for 3MWh - if they have any available. But this is just tinkering at the edges and providing support for some vital services.
The only major measures that can be taken in the next few months to actually help people (and the country in general) are financial, at this point.
Labour have an extraordinary opportunity here to provide national leadership with a coherent plan for energy - with short term shoring up of costs via subsidies, medium term nationalisation of grid and suppliers, and long term a proper plan for improving renewable infrastructure (with jobs, training etc.), as well as climate response plan to improve infrastructure including insulation, public transport infrastructure etc.
The beauty of it is that it really is bread and butter Labour stuff too.
Genuine question on all the plans to subsidise people's energy bills. Would we be better off putting the money into putting loft installation into everyone's homes? That would help reduce consumption which in my view should be the primary objective right now.
The problem, as ever there is a problem, try getting contractors to insulate your home as they are booked for months ahead It simply is not practical to think millions of homes can quickly be insulated even if the money is there
Not much help to those who live in flats (or multistory buildings)? (Usually loft space belongs to the site Management Company rather than the owner of the flat below it).
I understand that there is a hiatus is prime ministerial power. But we are still meant to have a functioning government, aren't we? Even if major decisions can't be made, messages can still be delivered.
The failure to put up anybody to do the media rounds this morning indicates that government isn't functioning. Even if they couldn't make major announcements, they could have done some messaging - "Ofgem announcement very concerning - we advise people to try to reduce their energy consumption" or whatever.
The absence of government, not just on energy but on all matters, since the leadership contest started is, to be blunt, a fucking disgrace. And I think the public have noticed.
It truely is a disgrace and Brady with his idiotic 1922 committee should hang their heads in shame, and I speak as a conservative
Sky business saying just now the scale of this crisis dwarfs covid and projects are least 100 billion is needed for the next 12 months from central government
"Like the Poll Tax. Just much more expensive." says Martin Lewis.
Much more expensive. Average Poll Tax was £360 in 1990. Thats £718 in today's money, or a couple of washing machine cycles and roast dinner in electricity costs in January's money.
I don't understand why Truss can't say "this is what I would do on mitigating energy prices if I were elected Conservative leader and became PM". Sunak has done it, Starmer has done it. The only reason not to do it is because she does not yet know. Given how far in advance the rises have been signalled, that is not good enough.
Because she doesn't care! We've got @williamglenn and to a gentler extent @Big_G_NorthWales claiming Truss will intervene and some of us are just attacking her / the Tories. Based on what? That they believe she is a Massive Liar?
She cannot be clearer. On a "here's what I would do as Prime Minister" tour for a month and a half, meetings all across the country saying the same thing over and over and over. Hope that she already has a plan up her sleeve, or that she will pick a plan supposedly being drawn up by the Treasury is to hope she is a massive liar saying "no handouts" whilst planning handouts.
"You can trust her to act because she's a massive liar" is hardly a political position that will hold. So I believe the opposite is true - she isn't lying. I don't doubt that she will be forced to do *something*. But unlike the previous government whose belief only in Boris allowed the massive u-turn into furlough, this one has zeal behind it.
When the pile of pensioner corpses grows too high and the "you've already had a handout" excuses just provoke actual riots, they will have to act. But it will be way too late, far too little, and aimed at the people who don't need it to ameliorate the horror of handouts.
She may be changing tack, if this is to be believed.
I hold her in the same high regard as you do. However she has succeeded in politics by having principles that can be adopted or jetisoned as often as practical.
Even I have said she will be forced to act. It is what they do, when, and with what tone that is under question. She doesn't want handouts to the workshy. Repeated again last night. So when they put this together it won't be targeted. It will be universal to ensure her lot get theirs and so that she isn't rewarding failure. And it will be a loan.
Which defers rather than resolves the problem of unpayable debt.
You're lying, that's not what she said.
What she said actually is that support is on the way, but her priority is fixing the problem.
You're tilting at windmills.
I *directly quoted* her. " “What isn’t right is to just bung more money into the system, what we actually need to do is fix the supply of energy.”
Reading your pro-Truss posts is like watching a toddler throw a tantrum. You want your tax cut and people die so what. That the country is reacting in horror rather than agreeing with you has you with your arms crossed scowling and stamping the floor.
Yes, to "just" bung more money into the system "isn't right".
But she also explicitly said that support is on the way and you're lying by saying she said it isn't. Outright lie.
Support is on the way, but it shouldn't just be that.
If support is on the way she has had a somewhat Damascene conversion then. It remains to be seen what it is and how effective it is.
Her only promises so far reward the wealthiest in society and do nothing for the poorest.
There are two issues here. The short term pain and the medium to long term energy security of the nation. She needs to tackle both. Fixing on the medium to long term at the expense of the short term simply means she won't be around to implement anything post the next election.
I don't understand why Truss can't say "this is what I would do on mitigating energy prices if I were elected Conservative leader and became PM". Sunak has done it, Starmer has done it. The only reason not to do it is because she does not yet know. Given how far in advance the rises have been signalled, that is not good enough.
Because she doesn't care! We've got @williamglenn and to a gentler extent @Big_G_NorthWales claiming Truss will intervene and some of us are just attacking her / the Tories. Based on what? That they believe she is a Massive Liar?
She cannot be clearer. On a "here's what I would do as Prime Minister" tour for a month and a half, meetings all across the country saying the same thing over and over and over. Hope that she already has a plan up her sleeve, or that she will pick a plan supposedly being drawn up by the Treasury is to hope she is a massive liar saying "no handouts" whilst planning handouts.
"You can trust her to act because she's a massive liar" is hardly a political position that will hold. So I believe the opposite is true - she isn't lying. I don't doubt that she will be forced to do *something*. But unlike the previous government whose belief only in Boris allowed the massive u-turn into furlough, this one has zeal behind it.
When the pile of pensioner corpses grows too high and the "you've already had a handout" excuses just provoke actual riots, they will have to act. But it will be way too late, far too little, and aimed at the people who don't need it to ameliorate the horror of handouts.
She may be changing tack, if this is to be believed.
I hold her in the same high regard as you do. However she has succeeded in politics by having principles that can be adopted or jetisoned as often as practical.
Even I have said she will be forced to act. It is what they do, when, and with what tone that is under question. She doesn't want handouts to the workshy. Repeated again last night. So when they put this together it won't be targeted. It will be universal to ensure her lot get theirs and so that she isn't rewarding failure. And it will be a loan.
Which defers rather than resolves the problem of unpayable debt.
You're lying, that's not what she said.
What she said actually is that support is on the way, but her priority is fixing the problem.
You're tilting at windmills.
I *directly quoted* her. " “What isn’t right is to just bung more money into the system, what we actually need to do is fix the supply of energy.”
Reading your pro-Truss posts is like watching a toddler throw a tantrum. You want your tax cut and people die so what. That the country is reacting in horror rather than agreeing with you has you with your arms crossed scowling and stamping the floor.
Yes, to "just" bung more money into the system "isn't right".
But she also explicitly said that support is on the way and you're lying by saying she said it isn't. Outright lie.
Support is on the way, but it shouldn't just be that.
Laughable. This is going to cost scores of billions. "YOU ARE LYING ABOUT THE BELOVED LIZ". Whatever. Just me and pretty much the entire media this morning, all smearing her name and her reputation.
I understand that there is a hiatus is prime ministerial power. But we are still meant to have a functioning government, aren't we? Even if major decisions can't be made, messages can still be delivered.
The failure to put up anybody to do the media rounds this morning indicates that government isn't functioning. Even if they couldn't make major announcements, they could have done some messaging - "Ofgem announcement very concerning - we advise people to try to reduce their energy consumption" or whatever.
The absence of government, not just on energy but on all matters, since the leadership contest started is, to be blunt, a fucking disgrace. And I think the public have noticed.
It truely is a disgrace and Brady with his idiotic 1922 committee should hang their heads in shame, and I speak as a conservative
Sky business saying just now the scale of this crisis dwarfs covid and projects are least 100 billion is needed for the next 12 months from central government
"Like the Poll Tax. Just much more expensive." says Martin Lewis.
My moneysavingexpert tip of the week. Join a nearby gym for your showers.
A 6 minute power shower is about 3kWH or £1.50 under the new electricity price cap. Could be £3 for the following one. Most gym memberships will be fully paid for in showers!
"At the moment, the price of electricity is set by the last kilowatt needed to balance the grid, currently the cost of gas by an obscene margin. The fossil tail (44pc of total power last year) is wagging the clean dog (56pc). The gains of cheaper renewables are not being passed on."
in this case nationalising does nothing unless you can change the cost of energy. It's not in the power of government to control the cost of exports.
The real risk of nationalising is governments getting invovled in an international market and countries playing beggar thy neighbour with access to energy.
Better to support consumers (both residential and commercial), massively invest in renewables and cheaper sources of energy, including nuclear, and invest massively in efficacy (ie insulation etc)
Behind the scenes, countries playing beggar thy neighbour with energy is exactly what is being expected. That will be the next story, once we have moved on from the price cap.
The simple fact is that prices are astronomical because demand at present outstrips supply. That means a dramatic reduction in demand, rationing, or blackouts (or a combination of all three).
"The industry’s teleconference suggests the problem is broader than just rising costs. Increasingly, the words “emergency” and “shortages” are being used, with participants focusing on when, rather than if, a crisis will hit..... .....A key concern is what happens if European countries introduce beggar-thy-neighbor policies by shutting down cross-border electricity flows, as Norway has already said it’s considering. "
For the love of God send Ursula von der Leyen on a fact finding mission to South Georgia until this crisis is past.
Comments
I really am not the person you try to paint me as
Reference the East Riding result, it does seem that there is a Tory to LibDem swing rather than any strengthening in the Labour vote.
And my fellow Essex resident doesn't seem enamoured of what appears to be the next Conservative party leader!
The left should not claim it is a breakdown of the free market, rather they should rubbish the claims of economically illiterate Tories like Liz Truss who believe it is wrong for a government to interfere in a free market, when it has never been free anyway.
And by the way Truss leads in conservative mps support
It's one of those unknowables but it cuts both ways. Swings and roundabouts.
"Martin Lewis: lives will be lost this winter without more help
Money saving expert Martin Lewis has warned that people will die this winter because they can’t afford to heat their homes, unless the government provides more support with energy bills.
Lewis tells the Today programme that the new price cap, from 1 October, is 37% of the new state pension. It’s a even bigger proportion for those who retired earlier, and for those on universal credit.
Lewis says:
This is a catastrophe, plain and simple. Unaffordable. [...]
If we do not get further government intervention, on top of what was announced in May, then lives will be lost this winter.[...]
Lewis also points out that the £3,549 price cap figure is an average for those on direct debit –- those with higher than average energy use will pay more, as will those on pre-payment meters.
There is nothing somebody from paying ten thousand pounds a year, Lewis adds; he fears households with adults or childen with disabilities who need special electrical equipment could pay that much."
Edit: and not necessarily oldies either.
She cannot be clearer. On a "here's what I would do as Prime Minister" tour for a month and a half, meetings all across the country saying the same thing over and over and over. Hope that she already has a plan up her sleeve, or that she will pick a plan supposedly being drawn up by the Treasury is to hope she is a massive liar saying "no handouts" whilst planning handouts.
"You can trust her to act because she's a massive liar" is hardly a political position that will hold. So I believe the opposite is true - she isn't lying. I don't doubt that she will be forced to do *something*. But unlike the previous government whose belief only in Boris allowed the massive u-turn into furlough, this one has zeal behind it.
When the pile of pensioner corpses grows too high and the "you've already had a handout" excuses just provoke actual riots, they will have to act. But it will be way too late, far too little, and aimed at the people who don't need it to ameliorate the horror of handouts.
She promises to 'ensure people get the support needed to get through these tough times'
But she doesn't go further than her existing plans to cut taxes and scrap green levies
https://twitter.com/Steven_Swinford/status/1563072806698422272
The trouble with that approach is that it's the opposite of targeted, the biggest gains accrue to the richest. That isn't necessarily evil, but it's inevitable. (And why progressive tax cuts tend to focus on raising thresholds not lowering rates).
You may not like the New Statesman, but it's hard to argue with numbers like this;
My point was that the delay in announcing support itself, whilst pretending not to to bolster her perceived Thatcherite credentials, is unnecessary, reckless and sociopathic.
1) The government has no money except our money
2) At the moment our grandchildren's credit card has been maxed out by a combination of the banking crisis, pandemic and general uselessness
3) The gigantic profits of wicked oil and gas pay vastly into the wicked pension funds of Joe Public
4) Taxpayers and those hit by massive energy prices are largely the same people
And one unasked question raised: Who exactly pays for all this free money?
https://twitter.com/PaulBrandITV/status/1563073592547745793
She's said the priority is fixing the problem. That's right, so it should be. Support can be given as a secondary lesser priority but the priority must be to fix the problem, or else support won't just be needed this winter it will be needed every winter.
Support should be a safety net where needed, not a way of life.
Truss is right on this, and you are wrong.
After contacting a person they agreed could move to a variable DD -there appears to be no discount for having a DD which will mean I only pay what we use each month. This variable DD can apparently only be set up by phone or email but after the payment of £66 a month from the government probably means a bill of about £50 or £60 from October.
Thank goodness we downsized and no longer have an always on gas AGA . Though might be top of my wife's list when we win the lottery!
No-one was available.
https://twitter.com/CalumAM/status/1563047064573198338
1.07 Liz Truss 93%
14.5 Rishi Sunak 7%
Next Conservative leader
1.06 Liz Truss 94%
15 Rishi Sunak 7%
It's not as if the oldies vote Tory, is it, either?
https://www.ternbicycles.com/en/bikes/472/gsd
https://twitter.com/TorstenBell/status/1563074278085767171
But PMs don't just have to handle their top priority, they have to handle lesser priorities too. Simply saying your priority is X is not saying you will do nothing whatsoever about Not-X.
The head of OFGEM was on SKY News earlier. Looks like he will be doing the rounds today.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/truss-changes-tack-over-energy-bills-after-previously-saying-she-favours-tax-cuts-over-handouts/ar-AA116LWV?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=88d6f65729d64888f1fdf599ec5e27e5
Reasons why that is better:
The current system cannot work. Millions will stop paying. Courts have no resource to enforce payment for that many even if they can separate out the can't pay and won't pay. Suppliers will go bankrupt as mandated to continue with supplying the non payers. The remaining suppliers then get the losses of the bankrupt suppliers further added on to their costs.
This is likely a one off negative windfall cost. For those with limited resources, i.e. most of the country, it is much better to spread out the cost over many years than trying to pay it as a one off. Central government can borrow such money far more cheaply than individuals.
Splitting the cost proportionately to tax payments is fairer than splitting by households especially after a decade when the very richest have done disproportionately well due to government policies.
I have called for these increased energy bills to be written off as unpayable. "But what is the cost to the energy company" people said. And that is fair, but what is the cost to the energy company of trying to collect unpayable bills?
They are unpayable in the sense that consumers simply do not have the resources to pay them. So lets assume debt builds up and the energy company then spends money on enforcement action. Which eventually results in a payment plan where they get a fraction of the debt back.
Unpayable bill. Plus legal and admin expenses. To recover minimal money. Then rinse and repeat for millions. So we face a huge bill even if we don't act. This is going to bankrupt half our hospitality sector and a load of shops for good measure. The economic hit of them folding needs to be added to the cost side of inaction.
I keep pointing out that business is profit and loss. Energy company profits means other companies losses. So suggesting the energy companies take a hit this winter is only what is happening on the other side of the equation if they don't.
We still need to aspire for net zero. Scrapping green levies does no good at all. If anything we should be, at least, keeping them as we need to speed up the dash to renewables and not just Wind and Solar but also tidal.
Green levies are inconsequential when the average bill is £3,500
I take your perspectives on this under increasing amounts of advisement.
https://fullfact.org/economy/labour-energy-bills-seasonal-consumption/
I hold her in the same high regard as you do. However she has succeeded in politics by having principles that can be adopted or jetisoned as often as practical.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/truss-changes-tack-over-energy-bills-after-previously-saying-she-favours-tax-cuts-over-handouts/ar-AA116LWV?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=88d6f65729d64888f1fdf599ec5e27e5
I am trying to take some simple measures to reduce costs:
- Reduce length of time the hot water gas is on. Previously was 3 hours/day (split morning and evening). Now getting away with 1 hour/day.
- When it gets cold to start wearing base layers to avoid putting the heating on
- Stop tumble dryer usage
Will the impact of people across all of Europe taking similar actions reduce demand and therefore end up with prices coming down? I do think sometime in the next 2 years we will see negative inflation.
The failure to put up anybody to do the media rounds this morning indicates that government isn't functioning. Even if they couldn't make major announcements, they could have done some messaging - "Ofgem announcement very concerning - we advise people to try to reduce their energy consumption" or whatever.
The absence of government, not just on energy but on all matters, since the leadership contest started is, to be blunt, a fucking disgrace. And I think the public have noticed.
Full Fact is the sort of organisation that the likes of Reeves will agree with wholeheartedly when it supports her worldview but will rubbish when they dare to contradict it.
Which doesn't bode well for Mr J if he ever tries to do a James IX and III, though also for Mr Sunak or Ms Truss.
It is a regulated market. Fucking regulate them for a change. Reset the metrics on how the different sources are prices so that renewables are actually cheap instead of artificially inflated. Remove the insane transmission surcharges so that renewables cost more to ship than any other source.
You can do all of that without spending a fortune buying shares.
The Maggie clone needs to get a grip on reality . Do the fxcking u turn and stop all this no handouts blah blah bollox!
The most that can be accomplished is installing some containerised diesel genrators. Maybe buy some containerised battery storage units from Tesla - $900,000 for 3MWh - if they have any available. But this is just tinkering at the edges and providing support for some vital services.
The only major measures that can be taken in the next few months to actually help people (and the country in general) are financial, at this point.
Just as the batshit left say if we nationalise the energy sector our problems go away the batshit right thinks all we need to do is frack and our problems go away.
CoL for worker is increasing by 10%+ and pay settlements probably closer to 5%. Even if non pay inflation was negative workers will be looking to catch up with lost real income for some years to come and be aggressive on pay demands and expectations.
https://twitter.com/JavierBlas/status/1562821466198278153
Which defers rather than resolves the problem of unpayable debt.
Sky business saying just now the scale of this crisis dwarfs covid and projects are least 100 billion is needed for the next 12 months from central government
Do you have a plan for this to be done before Winter?
It would be different if they could get 67% of MPs coordinating to make sure they only gave the membership sensible options but the parliamentary party isn't *that* sane either.
What she said actually is that support is on the way, but her priority is fixing the problem.
You're tilting at windmills.
The real risk of nationalising is governments getting invovled in an international market and countries playing beggar thy neighbour with access to energy.
Better to support consumers (both residential and commercial), massively invest in renewables and cheaper sources of energy, including nuclear, and invest massively in efficacy (ie insulation etc)
Make up your own political metaphor.
It simply is not practical to think millions of homes can quickly be insulated even if the money is there
They got this price rise accurate within £50.
Forecasting £5,386 in January, and £6,616 in April
It is what is done with it that is what matters.
Problem is folk are simply blaming their particular hobby horses.
We need to do everything to cut demand and increase supply. Whatever it is.
Reading your pro-Truss posts is like watching a toddler throw a tantrum. You want your tax cut and people die so what. That the country is reacting in horror rather than agreeing with you has you with your arms crossed scowling and stamping the floor.
The simple fact is that prices are astronomical because demand at present outstrips supply. That means a dramatic reduction in demand, rationing, or blackouts (or a combination of all three).
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-08-26/european-energy-crisis-listening-to-electricity-traders-is-very-very-scary
Paywalled, but -
"The industry’s teleconference suggests the problem is broader than just rising costs. Increasingly, the words “emergency” and “shortages” are being used, with participants focusing on when, rather than if, a crisis will hit..... .....A key concern is what happens if European countries introduce beggar-thy-neighbor policies by shutting down cross-border electricity flows, as Norway has already said it’s considering. "
But she also explicitly said that support is on the way and you're lying by saying she said it isn't. Outright lie.
Support is on the way, but it shouldn't just be that.
Natural gas prices are now higher than when Russia invaded Ukraine
Nearly £600 a Therm
https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/uk-natural-gas
Westminster VI:
🌹LAB: 40%
🌳CON: 26%
🔶LDM: 11%
Best PM:
🌹Starmer: 41%
🌳Truss: 22%
🌹Starmer: 40%
🌳Sunak: 23%
https://www.gbnews.uk/news/brits-want-keir-starmer-to-become-prime-minister-over-both-liz-truss-and-rishi-sunak-gb-news-peoples-poll-finds/357586
rise already.
The beauty of it is that it really is bread and butter Labour stuff too.
Her only promises so far reward the wealthiest in society and do nothing for the poorest.
There are two issues here. The short term pain and the medium to long term energy security of the nation. She needs to tackle both. Fixing on the medium to long term at the expense of the short term simply means she won't be around to implement anything post the next election.
How do we sleep at night?
A 6 minute power shower is about 3kWH or £1.50 under the new electricity price cap. Could be £3 for the following one. Most gym memberships will be fully paid for in showers!