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Latest voting split GE2021 CON voters – politicalbetting.com

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  • Cyclefree said:



    Since the migrant issue seems, understandably, to be the main topic of conversation on here at the moment, here is my take.

    Deterrent only works if the migrants believe that the consequences of failure are worse than their current situation or what they might have to return to. If we are to retain any vestiges of civilised behaviour we can never make make the deterrents as severe as what many of these people have already suffered. So the attempts will keep happening and people will keep dying. What we need to do is provide an alternative. We need a pressure release valve.

    David Cameron suggested a version of this back in 2015 when he said we should go into the camps bordering Syria and directly airlift out those most in need, providing them with asylum in the UK and organising the entire process of getting them here. Whilst of course many of the refugees in Northern France come from places other than the Syrian camps, the basic principle seem the same to me. We should work with the French authorities and set up facilities to process asylum seekers in France and then transport those who are successful back to the UK. At the same time the arrangement with the French should be that they deal properly with those who are unsuccessful. This is not a suggestion for just a few hundred or a few thousand but for tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands to come to the UK. It will not be popular with many of course but politics has to be about the practical and it seems to me this is the only practical way to deal with this situation. It is not ideal as this should all have been done prior to them making dangerous journeys to get to France but you work with the situation as you find it, not as you wish it to be.

    My personal preference would be for most of these migrants to be allowed in but I realise from past experience on here that that is not generally a popular solution even from those who are fairly well disposed towards them.

    Is this even possible politically? I don't know. But, to butcher Sherlock Holmes, once one has eliminated the impossible, what is left, however unpalatable, has to be the answer.

    The problem which is being ignored is this: under the various Refugee Conventions to which Britain is a party, if someone is a refugee a country is legally obliged to give them asylum. There is no numerical limit on that. There are an awful lot of people who genuinely qualify as refugees and if they make it to Britain we are obliged to take them.

    So whether the number of 20,000 or 200,000 or 2,000,000,000, we cannot turn any of them away if they qualify.

    So no wonder there is an incentive to get here or any other country. In fact we take fewer than other countries.

    But that is to miss the point. We cannot impose any numerical limits on the number of refugees we take. So the only controls we have is to limit the number who get here and/or make it very hard for people to apply.

    There is an inherent tension between a country's desire to limit in some way the number of people who come to live in it - a desire which is a legitimate one - and the obligation to provide help to refugees because we don't want to be uncivilised to those needing help.

    What is needed is some sort of upper limit on the numbers we take combined with an asylum process which is quick, fair and does not incentivise smuggling.

    If the Conventions will not permit numerical limits then countries will keep on taking harsher and harsher measures and, eventually, I suspect that some will simply leave the Conventions in order to prioritise control over numbers over offering help.
    I think everyone in a Britain with 2 billion more people in it would qualify for asylum elsewhere!
    We would have a bit more than 120 square metres each. 11 metres on a side near enough.

    More than I would have guessed.
    Pity the poor sods who get the mountain tops in Scotland...
    Would be fine to build a Blofeld / Dr Noah style redoubt from where you can kill the world.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    edited November 2021

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    I think that Bulb has £1.7m customers, so that is about £1k per customer.
    £1.7bn is the max cash requirement. The cost to the taxpayer will be far less.
    Cost at the moment is expected to be 40% of that (I posted the figure yesterday) - so it's currently £700m.

    And remember that the existing companies are having to sub that £400 from their reserves so don't expect prices to fall at any point in the next few years (there is a lot of debt to be made up).

    Even that £400 both does depend on how winter plays out and how the market changes - you best bet long term is to get as energy efficient as possible.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    Today's @Kantar_UKI Barometer poll is the first in a year to put 'Apply to join the EU' ahead of 'Stay Out'. https://bit.ly/3s02nVT
  • TOPPING said:



    "...anyone portrayed by the media as extreme..."

    Nick, Jeremy Corbyn has by his own volition, and enthusiastically, portrayed himself, and indeed matched word with action, for his entire parliamentary career as extreme.

    Are you saying he suddenly stopped believing in all the causes that he held so dear prior to becoming LotO.

    No, I don't think he would especially argue with being called extreme - he'd say something like "I say what I think and it's up to others to decide if it's extreme." I was trying to generalise to say that any leader who could be successfully portrayed as extreme left would struggle to get a majority. (Curiously, the populist media are less bothered about people taking positions identified with the far right.) Labour leaders therefore need to go out of their way to be obviously not extreme.

    What I think most people don't get about him (not that it matters much now) is that he is genuinely tolerant even of people who he totally disagrees with. - that's unusual with people outside the mainstream, as they tend to be aggressive, sarcastic and downright nasty about their opponents. I've heard him talk politely about David Cameron, Tony Blair, and numerous internal opponents. It's why he never responded to Momentum's calls to deselect centrists. It's part of his self-image that he doesn't stray from talking about policies into attacking individuals - as a good leftist, he thinks problems are structural, not personal. He was often criticised for not sticking the knife in at PMQs when a Minister got into trouble.

    I really like that, and as a leftist myself I think it's the way forward - bitterness and personal venom just puts everyone off. It's one reason I remain personally fond of him. But he's a marginal figure now so it's all rather irrelevant.
    'he is genuinely tolerant even of people who he totally disagrees with'

    Oh come on, when has he ever been remotely tolerant of anyone which might be unionist in NI, or Zionist, or anyone 'of the right'

    He's tolerant of people he wants to be tolerant of.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,165
    Pulpstar said:

    Could we build a consulate in Calais, and make it clear that you might be accepted if you go through there, but you definitely won't be if you cross ?

    Get rejected and cross anyway?
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    💥 Inside No10: Conservative MPs blame drift and division at the heart of Johnson's operation for the government's recent failings.

    A year on from Dominic Cummings departure, four camps have emerged inside Downing Street.

    Analysis with @PickardJE https://www.ft.com/content/48eaa083-8bba-40a1-8087-bd07a66b2f1a
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    edited November 2021
    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    Bulb: Hello, we're about to go bust.

    Gov't: Hello, OK we'll transfer your customers to the other big 6.

    Bulb: OK

    EON, EDF, OVO, SSE, Scottish Power, British Gas: Sorry we can't take another 1.7 million customers on at a loss.

    Gov't: You have to

    Big 6: We can't. We could, but your price cap means we're making negative contribution on each customer now.

    Gov't: Hello, is that Bulb

    Bulb: Yes.

    Gov't: We need you to keep going.

    Bulb: We can't, the banks are calling in the loans.

    Gov't: But we need you to.

    Bulb: We're going bust, and there's nothing we can do about it aside from getting in a huge chunk of cash.

    Gov't: How much do you need ?
  • eek said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    I think that Bulb has £1.7m customers, so that is about £1k per customer.
    £1.7bn is the max cash requirement. The cost to the taxpayer will be far less.
    Cost at the moment is expected to be 40% of that (I posted the figure yesterday) - so it's currently £700m.

    And remember that the existing companies are having to sub that £400 from their reserves so don't expect prices to fall at any point in the next few years (there is a lot of debt to be made up).

    Even that £400 both does depend on how winter plays out and how the market changes - you best bet long term is to get as energy efficient as possible.
    In future the regulator needs to ensure energy firms have sufficient capital to match their number of customers and hedging risks. It is crazy to allow limited companies a hugely leveraged free bet on energy prices subsidised by taxpayer (and industry competitor) implicit backstop guarantees.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941
    Scott_xP said:

    Today's @Kantar_UKI Barometer poll is the first in a year to put 'Apply to join the EU' ahead of 'Stay Out'. https://bit.ly/3s02nVT

    Low figures for both. "Apply to join" is tied with "Don't know".
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    tlg86 said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Could we build a consulate in Calais, and make it clear that you might be accepted if you go through there, but you definitely won't be if you cross ?

    Get rejected and cross anyway?
    Get removed back to the newly acquired British soil in the gap between Calais & Sangatte ?

  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,009
    Scott_xP said:

    💥 Inside No10: Conservative MPs blame drift and division at the heart of Johnson's operation for the government's recent failings.

    A year on from Dominic Cummings departure, four camps have emerged inside Downing Street.

    Analysis with @PickardJE https://www.ft.com/content/48eaa083-8bba-40a1-8087-bd07a66b2f1a

    Four camps? That doesn't sound healthy. Has anyone seen an estimate of the R number?
  • RobD said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Today's @Kantar_UKI Barometer poll is the first in a year to put 'Apply to join the EU' ahead of 'Stay Out'. https://bit.ly/3s02nVT

    Low figures for both. "Apply to join" is tied with "Don't know".
    I wouldn't know which to pluck for as both are misleading to my view which is stay out but importantly have closer and more productive ties than current policy. Technically that would make me stay out, but it would be misinterpreted.
  • eek said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    I think that Bulb has £1.7m customers, so that is about £1k per customer.
    £1.7bn is the max cash requirement. The cost to the taxpayer will be far less.
    Cost at the moment is expected to be 40% of that (I posted the figure yesterday) - so it's currently £700m.

    And remember that the existing companies are having to sub that £400 from their reserves so don't expect prices to fall at any point in the next few years (there is a lot of debt to be made up).

    Even that £400 both does depend on how winter plays out and how the market changes - you best bet long term is to get as energy efficient as possible.

    Sorry to have missed your post yesterday. Where does the 40% figure come from?
  • PhilPhil Posts: 1,919
    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    The company has gone into “special administration”. I presume (but can’t find anywhere) that this means the shareholders have been wiped out as they would be in any company that goes into administration. The only difference here is that it’s being kept running in order that people continue to receive gas supply.

    As a country we have a problem - gas prices have just spiked enormously, after being relatively stable for a decade or more. Many, many people rely on gas for heating & cooking. Keeping the gas flowing is therefore a matter of national security.

    Clearly, the only long term solution is for gas prices to rise & people to shift off gas. But quadrupling everyone’s gas bills right now is going to cause havoc - I can see why the government has decided that re-nationalising the gas supply industry is the simplest & most effective option open to them in the short term.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,624

    Andy_JS said:

    rcs1000 said:



    Yes the genuine refugees do that. That's kind of the point.

    It would be interesting, though difficult, to see an unbiased analysis of why a minority do press on to the UK. For the benefits? Hardly - benefits are much more generous elsewhere. Because they speak some English and reckon they've got a better chance here? Possibly, but pay a fortune and risk death for that? Because they know others here and feel that would make life better?

    The implication that taking risks to get here suggests they aren't genuine is a non-sequitur. Yes, step 1 is to get out of a hell-hole, and arrive in, say, Greece. But if you don't speak Greek or know any Greeks, and you do speak English and know someone in London, then step 2 may be to try to get here. That doesn't invalidate step 1.
    There is a big undocumented economy in the UK compared to most European countries.
    There are a lot of things that the government in this country just don't seem to be bothered about. This is one of them.
    So the French know Global Britain’s black economy is what pulls the migrates across the world into inflatable boats, the migrants know it, the only people being hoodwinked here are UK electorate thinking their government has a tough policy?
    So what 'pulls the migrates across the world' to a much greater degree to Germany and France? Why should France who takes 3 times the amount of migrants/refugees/asylum seekers that the UK does feel extra touchy feely about the island mentality of the UK electorate?
    Language. The *perception* that the UK labour market is much less regulated - you can get a job and work your way up....
    Sorry, perhaps I expressed my badly. On the numbers these people are drawn to a much greater degree to Germany and France than to the UK.
    The pervasive belief that everyone wants to come to the UK despite the numbers is just weird.
    People who are in France seem to think that taking a RIB across the Channel is a good idea. This strongly suggests that they see the UK as much better than staying in France.

    Getting to Germany from France would be fairly trivial by comparison.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,165
    Pulpstar said:

    tlg86 said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Could we build a consulate in Calais, and make it clear that you might be accepted if you go through there, but you definitely won't be if you cross ?

    Get rejected and cross anyway?
    Get removed back to the newly acquired British soil in the gap between Calais & Sangatte ?

    And get shot when they leave British soil?
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,880
    Phil said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    The company has gone into “special administration”. I presume (but can’t find anywhere) that this means the shareholders have been wiped out as they would be in any company that goes into administration. The only difference here is that it’s being kept running in order that people continue to receive gas supply.

    As a country we have a problem - gas prices have just spiked enormously, after being relatively stable for a decade or more. Many, many people rely on gas for heating & cooking. Keeping the gas flowing is therefore a matter of national security.

    Clearly, the only long term solution is for gas prices to rise & people to shift off gas. But quadrupling everyone’s gas bills right now is going to cause havoc - I can see why the government has decided that re-nationalising the gas supply industry is the simplest & most effective option open to them in the short term.
    Can somebody who understands this shit (ie not me, I chose my financial advisor because I approved of his car) explain why they can't just let this utterly pointless husk of a company go bust?
  • Scott_xP said:

    💥 Inside No10: Conservative MPs blame drift and division at the heart of Johnson's operation for the government's recent failings.

    A year on from Dominic Cummings departure, four camps have emerged inside Downing Street.

    Analysis with @PickardJE https://www.ft.com/content/48eaa083-8bba-40a1-8087-bd07a66b2f1a

    The kremlinology is fascinating but really the problem is Boris, just as under Theresa May, getting rid of Nick and Fiona did not noticeably improve matters. Conservative MPs know this but it is safer to blame courtiers than the king.

    Because Boris has no identifiable political credo, it is hard to forecast what policies he will favour. Because Boris is weak on detail, he is liable to change his mind once policy implications are made clear.

    Take the Paterson affair, which the FT cites, and we have a decision (on what seemed like a clever wheeze to get Boris off the hook) made by an Old Etonian cabal, with a u-turn once Boris was rumbled. The fact (if it is a fact) there are different groups inside Number 10 is irrelevant if they are barely involved.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    Dura_Ace said:

    Phil said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    The company has gone into “special administration”. I presume (but can’t find anywhere) that this means the shareholders have been wiped out as they would be in any company that goes into administration. The only difference here is that it’s being kept running in order that people continue to receive gas supply.

    As a country we have a problem - gas prices have just spiked enormously, after being relatively stable for a decade or more. Many, many people rely on gas for heating & cooking. Keeping the gas flowing is therefore a matter of national security.

    Clearly, the only long term solution is for gas prices to rise & people to shift off gas. But quadrupling everyone’s gas bills right now is going to cause havoc - I can see why the government has decided that re-nationalising the gas supply industry is the simplest & most effective option open to them in the short term.
    Can somebody who understands this shit (ie not me, I chose my financial advisor because I approved of his car) explain why they can't just let this utterly pointless husk of a company go bust?
    The idiotic energy price cap.
  • rkrkrkrkrkrk Posts: 7,881
    Dura_Ace said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    boulay said:

    On the news just now they announced that a 5th person has been arrested in France Re the boat people who died.

    How is it that the French authorities can within 24 hours arrest 5 people, they must have enough evidence of their involvement, and not use that intelligence they must have had to arrest them before on people trafficking offences?

    It’s another key question I have is why does there not seem to be a big enough intelligence effort to infiltrate the gangs or process to stop these gangs in the same way they target drugs gangs?

    Because the French very much want them to leave.

    Do you think the UK government would be popping a bollock to stop them crossing to France if the situation were reversed?
    Dura Ace, you have such a unique writing style, have you ever thought about writing your auto biography?
    Interestingly, I was approached by a publisher of military bios after one of my Sea Harrier talks to see if I would be interested. After some talks about talks I was not interested because they insisted on no obscenity, no highly graphic recounting of what were possibly war crimes, no explicit accounts of what sailors actually do on runs ashore and they hated my proposed title - "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea" (Neutral Milk Hotel reference).
    Self-publishing is the way forwards! You've got a loyal following on here to get the first sales/pay for the inevitable law suit.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    tlg86 said:

    Pulpstar said:

    tlg86 said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Could we build a consulate in Calais, and make it clear that you might be accepted if you go through there, but you definitely won't be if you cross ?

    Get rejected and cross anyway?
    Get removed back to the newly acquired British soil in the gap between Calais & Sangatte ?

    And get shot when they leave British soil?
    Up to the French.


  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    Dura_Ace said:

    Phil said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    The company has gone into “special administration”. I presume (but can’t find anywhere) that this means the shareholders have been wiped out as they would be in any company that goes into administration. The only difference here is that it’s being kept running in order that people continue to receive gas supply.

    As a country we have a problem - gas prices have just spiked enormously, after being relatively stable for a decade or more. Many, many people rely on gas for heating & cooking. Keeping the gas flowing is therefore a matter of national security.

    Clearly, the only long term solution is for gas prices to rise & people to shift off gas. But quadrupling everyone’s gas bills right now is going to cause havoc - I can see why the government has decided that re-nationalising the gas supply industry is the simplest & most effective option open to them in the short term.
    Can somebody who understands this shit (ie not me, I chose my financial advisor because I approved of his car) explain why they can't just let this utterly pointless husk of a company go bust?
    Because the customers still need to be provided with and pay for their Gas and Electric usage and no-one else is in a position to either do so and accept the risk of doing so.

    This is the direct consequence of a cap being set below market rates
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,624
    tlg86 said:

    Pulpstar said:

    tlg86 said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Could we build a consulate in Calais, and make it clear that you might be accepted if you go through there, but you definitely won't be if you cross ?

    Get rejected and cross anyway?
    Get removed back to the newly acquired British soil in the gap between Calais & Sangatte ?

    And get shot when they leave British soil?
    Much simpler solution - re-take the Pale of Calais. That way all the migrants will be in the UK.

    It is clear that since they are attempting to claim asylum *from* France, that France is a failed state. And we always invade failed states...

    Anyone got a map of the French oil fields? - they do have some IIRC
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    Pulpstar said:

    tlg86 said:

    Pulpstar said:

    tlg86 said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Could we build a consulate in Calais, and make it clear that you might be accepted if you go through there, but you definitely won't be if you cross ?

    Get rejected and cross anyway?
    Get removed back to the newly acquired British soil in the gap between Calais & Sangatte ?

    And get shot when they leave British soil?
    Up to the French.


    Brittania can even build a heap of hotels for them there. They're already coining it as it is from the Gov't.
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 9,688
    edited November 2021
    Pulpstar said:

    Could we build a consulate in Calais, and make it clear that you might be accepted if you go through there, but you definitely won't be if you cross ?

    I don't see why something like this isn't being done. It must have occurred to the government, so what would be the obstacle?


    With refugees I think there's a big problem in that the more you accept the more will come. They should be encouraged to stay at home and fix the mess they've made in their own countries. (Slightly tongue in cheek obviously but not completely)
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    eek said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    I think that Bulb has £1.7m customers, so that is about £1k per customer.
    £1.7bn is the max cash requirement. The cost to the taxpayer will be far less.
    Cost at the moment is expected to be 40% of that (I posted the figure yesterday) - so it's currently £700m.

    And remember that the existing companies are having to sub that £400 from their reserves so don't expect prices to fall at any point in the next few years (there is a lot of debt to be made up).

    Even that £400 both does depend on how winter plays out and how the market changes - you best bet long term is to get as energy efficient as possible.

    Sorry to have missed your post yesterday. Where does the 40% figure come from?
    The £400 average per house figure comes from conversations at 2 different energy firms - as the figures matched, it's probably a good estimate (and it's for now through to April).
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    The key point of my system is they're being taken from British soil to British soil. We'd have to pay the French a fortune to buy the land from them but hey ho.
  • Dura_Ace said:

    Phil said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    The company has gone into “special administration”. I presume (but can’t find anywhere) that this means the shareholders have been wiped out as they would be in any company that goes into administration. The only difference here is that it’s being kept running in order that people continue to receive gas supply.

    As a country we have a problem - gas prices have just spiked enormously, after being relatively stable for a decade or more. Many, many people rely on gas for heating & cooking. Keeping the gas flowing is therefore a matter of national security.

    Clearly, the only long term solution is for gas prices to rise & people to shift off gas. But quadrupling everyone’s gas bills right now is going to cause havoc - I can see why the government has decided that re-nationalising the gas supply industry is the simplest & most effective option open to them in the short term.
    Can somebody who understands this shit (ie not me, I chose my financial advisor because I approved of his car) explain why they can't just let this utterly pointless husk of a company go bust?
    It has gone bust, but with too many liabilities for any other business to take it on without a huge loss, and if they shut it down now, consumers will get shafted. So the government has to take the hit.
  • MaxPB said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Phil said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    The company has gone into “special administration”. I presume (but can’t find anywhere) that this means the shareholders have been wiped out as they would be in any company that goes into administration. The only difference here is that it’s being kept running in order that people continue to receive gas supply.

    As a country we have a problem - gas prices have just spiked enormously, after being relatively stable for a decade or more. Many, many people rely on gas for heating & cooking. Keeping the gas flowing is therefore a matter of national security.

    Clearly, the only long term solution is for gas prices to rise & people to shift off gas. But quadrupling everyone’s gas bills right now is going to cause havoc - I can see why the government has decided that re-nationalising the gas supply industry is the simplest & most effective option open to them in the short term.
    Can somebody who understands this shit (ie not me, I chose my financial advisor because I approved of his car) explain why they can't just let this utterly pointless husk of a company go bust?
    The idiotic energy price cap.
    The cap is largely irrelevant. Think Northern Rock. The problem is buying short and selling long. When the short-term price peaks, Bulb (or NR) is stuffed. And as with Northern Rock, the political cost of letting consumers take the hit is too great.

    It can be seen as a failure of regulation but apparently PB Tories only see these when Labour is in office. And the only reason for mentioning the cap is so the Tory spin team can blame Ed Miliband for Conservative legislation.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842

    MaxPB said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Phil said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    The company has gone into “special administration”. I presume (but can’t find anywhere) that this means the shareholders have been wiped out as they would be in any company that goes into administration. The only difference here is that it’s being kept running in order that people continue to receive gas supply.

    As a country we have a problem - gas prices have just spiked enormously, after being relatively stable for a decade or more. Many, many people rely on gas for heating & cooking. Keeping the gas flowing is therefore a matter of national security.

    Clearly, the only long term solution is for gas prices to rise & people to shift off gas. But quadrupling everyone’s gas bills right now is going to cause havoc - I can see why the government has decided that re-nationalising the gas supply industry is the simplest & most effective option open to them in the short term.
    Can somebody who understands this shit (ie not me, I chose my financial advisor because I approved of his car) explain why they can't just let this utterly pointless husk of a company go bust?
    The idiotic energy price cap.
    The cap is largely irrelevant. Think Northern Rock. The problem is buying short and selling long. When the short-term price peaks, Bulb (or NR) is stuffed. And as with Northern Rock, the political cost of letting consumers take the hit is too great.

    It can be seen as a failure of regulation but apparently PB Tories only see these when Labour is in office. And the only reason for mentioning the cap is so the Tory spin team can blame Ed Miliband for Conservative legislation.
    The cap certainly isn't irrelevant, if there was no cap the customers could be moved to the rest of the big 6 on a SVT which would allow them to run at a normal profit.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,880
    eek said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Phil said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    The company has gone into “special administration”. I presume (but can’t find anywhere) that this means the shareholders have been wiped out as they would be in any company that goes into administration. The only difference here is that it’s being kept running in order that people continue to receive gas supply.

    As a country we have a problem - gas prices have just spiked enormously, after being relatively stable for a decade or more. Many, many people rely on gas for heating & cooking. Keeping the gas flowing is therefore a matter of national security.

    Clearly, the only long term solution is for gas prices to rise & people to shift off gas. But quadrupling everyone’s gas bills right now is going to cause havoc - I can see why the government has decided that re-nationalising the gas supply industry is the simplest & most effective option open to them in the short term.
    Can somebody who understands this shit (ie not me, I chose my financial advisor because I approved of his car) explain why they can't just let this utterly pointless husk of a company go bust?
    Because the customers still need to be provided with and pay for their Gas and Electric usage and no-one else is in a position to either do so and accept the risk of doing so.

    This is the direct consequence of a cap being set below market rates
    Sounds fucked. I presume it can and will happen again with other utterly pointless husks of companies.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,165
    Pulpstar said:

    MaxPB said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Phil said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    The company has gone into “special administration”. I presume (but can’t find anywhere) that this means the shareholders have been wiped out as they would be in any company that goes into administration. The only difference here is that it’s being kept running in order that people continue to receive gas supply.

    As a country we have a problem - gas prices have just spiked enormously, after being relatively stable for a decade or more. Many, many people rely on gas for heating & cooking. Keeping the gas flowing is therefore a matter of national security.

    Clearly, the only long term solution is for gas prices to rise & people to shift off gas. But quadrupling everyone’s gas bills right now is going to cause havoc - I can see why the government has decided that re-nationalising the gas supply industry is the simplest & most effective option open to them in the short term.
    Can somebody who understands this shit (ie not me, I chose my financial advisor because I approved of his car) explain why they can't just let this utterly pointless husk of a company go bust?
    The idiotic energy price cap.
    The cap is largely irrelevant. Think Northern Rock. The problem is buying short and selling long. When the short-term price peaks, Bulb (or NR) is stuffed. And as with Northern Rock, the political cost of letting consumers take the hit is too great.

    It can be seen as a failure of regulation but apparently PB Tories only see these when Labour is in office. And the only reason for mentioning the cap is so the Tory spin team can blame Ed Miliband for Conservative legislation.
    The cap certainly isn't irrelevant, if there was no cap the customers could be moved to the rest of the big 6 on a SVT which would allow them to run at a normal profit.
    I don't know if it's true, but someone on here said all of Bulb's customers are on variable tariffs. So they wouldn't be going bust.
  • Mr. JohnL, this 'PB Tory' repeatedly condemned the stupid price cap when first proposed by Miliband and when enacted (was it by May?). It's a dumb policy.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    edited November 2021

    MaxPB said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Phil said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    The company has gone into “special administration”. I presume (but can’t find anywhere) that this means the shareholders have been wiped out as they would be in any company that goes into administration. The only difference here is that it’s being kept running in order that people continue to receive gas supply.

    As a country we have a problem - gas prices have just spiked enormously, after being relatively stable for a decade or more. Many, many people rely on gas for heating & cooking. Keeping the gas flowing is therefore a matter of national security.

    Clearly, the only long term solution is for gas prices to rise & people to shift off gas. But quadrupling everyone’s gas bills right now is going to cause havoc - I can see why the government has decided that re-nationalising the gas supply industry is the simplest & most effective option open to them in the short term.
    Can somebody who understands this shit (ie not me, I chose my financial advisor because I approved of his car) explain why they can't just let this utterly pointless husk of a company go bust?
    The idiotic energy price cap.
    The cap is largely irrelevant. Think Northern Rock. The problem is buying short and selling long. When the short-term price peaks, Bulb (or NR) is stuffed. And as with Northern Rock, the political cost of letting consumers take the hit is too great.

    It can be seen as a failure of regulation but apparently PB Tories only see these when Labour is in office. And the only reason for mentioning the cap is so the Tory spin team can blame Ed Miliband for Conservative legislation.
    The cap isn't irrelevant. Suppose you are supplying 1m homes and you are told to supply another 200,000? How do you do that except by buying at the current variable market rate.

    Now Bulb may have had a strange (to you) business model of dynamic price changes to reflect the current market price but 1.7million customers liked that business model, it wasn't illegal and it made sense to people who I suspect were market savvy.

    The issue really is a very simple one, the cap needs to reflect current market prices and it very clearly doesn't - and equally those people who are happy to be on a dynamic pricing model should have been left on it sans cap.
  • Pulpstar said:

    MaxPB said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Phil said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    The company has gone into “special administration”. I presume (but can’t find anywhere) that this means the shareholders have been wiped out as they would be in any company that goes into administration. The only difference here is that it’s being kept running in order that people continue to receive gas supply.

    As a country we have a problem - gas prices have just spiked enormously, after being relatively stable for a decade or more. Many, many people rely on gas for heating & cooking. Keeping the gas flowing is therefore a matter of national security.

    Clearly, the only long term solution is for gas prices to rise & people to shift off gas. But quadrupling everyone’s gas bills right now is going to cause havoc - I can see why the government has decided that re-nationalising the gas supply industry is the simplest & most effective option open to them in the short term.
    Can somebody who understands this shit (ie not me, I chose my financial advisor because I approved of his car) explain why they can't just let this utterly pointless husk of a company go bust?
    The idiotic energy price cap.
    The cap is largely irrelevant. Think Northern Rock. The problem is buying short and selling long. When the short-term price peaks, Bulb (or NR) is stuffed. And as with Northern Rock, the political cost of letting consumers take the hit is too great.

    It can be seen as a failure of regulation but apparently PB Tories only see these when Labour is in office. And the only reason for mentioning the cap is so the Tory spin team can blame Ed Miliband for Conservative legislation.
    The cap certainly isn't irrelevant, if there was no cap the customers could be moved to the rest of the big 6 on a SVT which would allow them to run at a normal profit.
    If the cap were the cause, all the suppliers would have gone bust. The problem is that, as with Northern Rock, the failed companies were buying in the short-term markets but selling to consumers at prices fixed over the long term.
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 7,461

    Dura_Ace said:

    Phil said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    The company has gone into “special administration”. I presume (but can’t find anywhere) that this means the shareholders have been wiped out as they would be in any company that goes into administration. The only difference here is that it’s being kept running in order that people continue to receive gas supply.

    As a country we have a problem - gas prices have just spiked enormously, after being relatively stable for a decade or more. Many, many people rely on gas for heating & cooking. Keeping the gas flowing is therefore a matter of national security.

    Clearly, the only long term solution is for gas prices to rise & people to shift off gas. But quadrupling everyone’s gas bills right now is going to cause havoc - I can see why the government has decided that re-nationalising the gas supply industry is the simplest & most effective option open to them in the short term.
    Can somebody who understands this shit (ie not me, I chose my financial advisor because I approved of his car) explain why they can't just let this utterly pointless husk of a company go bust?
    It has gone bust, but with too many liabilities for any other business to take it on without a huge loss, and if they shut it down now, consumers will get shafted. So the government has to take the hit.
    It's not really 'the government' taking the hit though, is it? Surely it's either energy bill payers, taxpayers, or both?
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,881
    Dura_Ace said:

    Phil said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    The company has gone into “special administration”. I presume (but can’t find anywhere) that this means the shareholders have been wiped out as they would be in any company that goes into administration. The only difference here is that it’s being kept running in order that people continue to receive gas supply.

    As a country we have a problem - gas prices have just spiked enormously, after being relatively stable for a decade or more. Many, many people rely on gas for heating & cooking. Keeping the gas flowing is therefore a matter of national security.

    Clearly, the only long term solution is for gas prices to rise & people to shift off gas. But quadrupling everyone’s gas bills right now is going to cause havoc - I can see why the government has decided that re-nationalising the gas supply industry is the simplest & most effective option open to them in the short term.
    Can somebody who understands this shit (ie not me, I chose my financial advisor because I approved of his car) explain why they can't just let this utterly pointless husk of a company go bust?
    Because the other companies would not want to take on the customers at a loss (due to the price cap). The cap is the issue.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,401
    eek said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Phil said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    The company has gone into “special administration”. I presume (but can’t find anywhere) that this means the shareholders have been wiped out as they would be in any company that goes into administration. The only difference here is that it’s being kept running in order that people continue to receive gas supply.

    As a country we have a problem - gas prices have just spiked enormously, after being relatively stable for a decade or more. Many, many people rely on gas for heating & cooking. Keeping the gas flowing is therefore a matter of national security.

    Clearly, the only long term solution is for gas prices to rise & people to shift off gas. But quadrupling everyone’s gas bills right now is going to cause havoc - I can see why the government has decided that re-nationalising the gas supply industry is the simplest & most effective option open to them in the short term.
    Can somebody who understands this shit (ie not me, I chose my financial advisor because I approved of his car) explain why they can't just let this utterly pointless husk of a company go bust?
    Because the customers still need to be provided with and pay for their Gas and Electric usage and no-one else is in a position to either do so and accept the risk of doing so.

    This is the direct consequence of a cap being set below market rates
    No, it's a direct consequence of a bunch of chancers exploiting a deregulated market and failing to hedge their costs when their revenues were capped.

    The proper suppliers have played a smarter game.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842

    Pulpstar said:

    MaxPB said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Phil said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    The company has gone into “special administration”. I presume (but can’t find anywhere) that this means the shareholders have been wiped out as they would be in any company that goes into administration. The only difference here is that it’s being kept running in order that people continue to receive gas supply.

    As a country we have a problem - gas prices have just spiked enormously, after being relatively stable for a decade or more. Many, many people rely on gas for heating & cooking. Keeping the gas flowing is therefore a matter of national security.

    Clearly, the only long term solution is for gas prices to rise & people to shift off gas. But quadrupling everyone’s gas bills right now is going to cause havoc - I can see why the government has decided that re-nationalising the gas supply industry is the simplest & most effective option open to them in the short term.
    Can somebody who understands this shit (ie not me, I chose my financial advisor because I approved of his car) explain why they can't just let this utterly pointless husk of a company go bust?
    The idiotic energy price cap.
    The cap is largely irrelevant. Think Northern Rock. The problem is buying short and selling long. When the short-term price peaks, Bulb (or NR) is stuffed. And as with Northern Rock, the political cost of letting consumers take the hit is too great.

    It can be seen as a failure of regulation but apparently PB Tories only see these when Labour is in office. And the only reason for mentioning the cap is so the Tory spin team can blame Ed Miliband for Conservative legislation.
    The cap certainly isn't irrelevant, if there was no cap the customers could be moved to the rest of the big 6 on a SVT which would allow them to run at a normal profit.
    If the cap were the cause, all the suppliers would have gone bust. The problem is that, as with Northern Rock, the failed companies were buying in the short-term markets but selling to consumers at prices fixed over the long term.
    They are going bust, the only ones not at risk are the international big 6 that have more reserves than the rest. I imagine the big 6 are putting the Gov't under intense pressure behind the scenes to raise the cap over the next few years or they'll all simply walk out of the UK domestic market. The Gov't either needs to nationalise, raise the cap or big loans. We've seen the start of the big loans route..
  • Pulpstar said:

    MaxPB said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Phil said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    The company has gone into “special administration”. I presume (but can’t find anywhere) that this means the shareholders have been wiped out as they would be in any company that goes into administration. The only difference here is that it’s being kept running in order that people continue to receive gas supply.

    As a country we have a problem - gas prices have just spiked enormously, after being relatively stable for a decade or more. Many, many people rely on gas for heating & cooking. Keeping the gas flowing is therefore a matter of national security.

    Clearly, the only long term solution is for gas prices to rise & people to shift off gas. But quadrupling everyone’s gas bills right now is going to cause havoc - I can see why the government has decided that re-nationalising the gas supply industry is the simplest & most effective option open to them in the short term.
    Can somebody who understands this shit (ie not me, I chose my financial advisor because I approved of his car) explain why they can't just let this utterly pointless husk of a company go bust?
    The idiotic energy price cap.
    The cap is largely irrelevant. Think Northern Rock. The problem is buying short and selling long. When the short-term price peaks, Bulb (or NR) is stuffed. And as with Northern Rock, the political cost of letting consumers take the hit is too great.

    It can be seen as a failure of regulation but apparently PB Tories only see these when Labour is in office. And the only reason for mentioning the cap is so the Tory spin team can blame Ed Miliband for Conservative legislation.
    The cap certainly isn't irrelevant, if there was no cap the customers could be moved to the rest of the big 6 on a SVT which would allow them to run at a normal profit.
    If the cap were the cause, all the suppliers would have gone bust. The problem is that, as with Northern Rock, the failed companies were buying in the short-term markets but selling to consumers at prices fixed over the long term.
    That's the reason for Bulb going bust yes, and its their failed business.

    Its not the reason why the Big 6 won't take on Bulb's customers on a SVT though.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842

    Dura_Ace said:

    Phil said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    The company has gone into “special administration”. I presume (but can’t find anywhere) that this means the shareholders have been wiped out as they would be in any company that goes into administration. The only difference here is that it’s being kept running in order that people continue to receive gas supply.

    As a country we have a problem - gas prices have just spiked enormously, after being relatively stable for a decade or more. Many, many people rely on gas for heating & cooking. Keeping the gas flowing is therefore a matter of national security.

    Clearly, the only long term solution is for gas prices to rise & people to shift off gas. But quadrupling everyone’s gas bills right now is going to cause havoc - I can see why the government has decided that re-nationalising the gas supply industry is the simplest & most effective option open to them in the short term.
    Can somebody who understands this shit (ie not me, I chose my financial advisor because I approved of his car) explain why they can't just let this utterly pointless husk of a company go bust?
    It has gone bust, but with too many liabilities for any other business to take it on without a huge loss, and if they shut it down now, consumers will get shafted. So the government has to take the hit.
    It's not really 'the government' taking the hit though, is it? Surely it's either energy bill payers, taxpayers, or both?
    Well energy bill payers and taxpayer tend to be the same people..
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,263


    People who are in France seem to think that taking a RIB across the Channel is a good idea. This strongly suggests that they see the UK as much better than staying in France.

    Getting to Germany from France would be fairly trivial by comparison.

    Most refugees in France don't try to come to Britain. Obviously some do and take huge risks to do it, but the balance is around 4:1 preferring France or feeling that their chances are better there.

    Those are two facts that are not really in dispute. Perhaps if it was less dangerous it would be more even, though?
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772
    edited November 2021

    eek said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    I think that Bulb has £1.7m customers, so that is about £1k per customer.
    £1.7bn is the max cash requirement. The cost to the taxpayer will be far less.
    Cost at the moment is expected to be 40% of that (I posted the figure yesterday) - so it's currently £700m.

    And remember that the existing companies are having to sub that £400 from their reserves so don't expect prices to fall at any point in the next few years (there is a lot of debt to be made up).

    Even that £400 both does depend on how winter plays out and how the market changes - you best bet long term is to get as energy efficient as possible.
    In future the regulator needs to ensure energy firms have sufficient capital to match their number of customers and hedging risks. It is crazy to allow limited companies a hugely leveraged free bet on energy prices subsidised by taxpayer (and industry competitor) implicit backstop guarantees.
    There's effectively no limit to the capital that might be required to cover unhedged commitments to supply energy at a fixed rate. How many people would have thought that the astronomical increases in wholesale prices this winter were ever possible?

    So you'd have to ban selling fixed price deals without hedging.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,926
    edited November 2021
    eek said:

    MaxPB said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Phil said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    The company has gone into “special administration”. I presume (but can’t find anywhere) that this means the shareholders have been wiped out as they would be in any company that goes into administration. The only difference here is that it’s being kept running in order that people continue to receive gas supply.

    As a country we have a problem - gas prices have just spiked enormously, after being relatively stable for a decade or more. Many, many people rely on gas for heating & cooking. Keeping the gas flowing is therefore a matter of national security.

    Clearly, the only long term solution is for gas prices to rise & people to shift off gas. But quadrupling everyone’s gas bills right now is going to cause havoc - I can see why the government has decided that re-nationalising the gas supply industry is the simplest & most effective option open to them in the short term.
    Can somebody who understands this shit (ie not me, I chose my financial advisor because I approved of his car) explain why they can't just let this utterly pointless husk of a company go bust?
    The idiotic energy price cap.
    The cap is largely irrelevant. Think Northern Rock. The problem is buying short and selling long. When the short-term price peaks, Bulb (or NR) is stuffed. And as with Northern Rock, the political cost of letting consumers take the hit is too great.

    It can be seen as a failure of regulation but apparently PB Tories only see these when Labour is in office. And the only reason for mentioning the cap is so the Tory spin team can blame Ed Miliband for Conservative legislation.
    The cap isn't irrelevant. Suppose you are supplying 1m homes and you are told to supply another 200,000? How do you do that except by buying at the current variable market rate.

    Now Bulb may have had a strange (to you) business model of dynamic price changes to reflect the current market price but 1.7million customers liked that business model, it wasn't illegal and it made sense to people who I suspect were market savvy.

    The issue really is a very simple one, the cap needs to reflect current market prices and it very clearly doesn't.
    Don't fall for Tory spinners moving the goal posts. The cap is not why Bulb and the other two dozen chancers went bust. That is as I have explained. CCHQ wishes to ignore the 22 failures and explain instead why the sensible suppliers do not want to take over Bulb's contracts. And that is so they can blame Ed Miliband for what was actually Conservative legislation and regulation.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575

    eek said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Phil said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    The company has gone into “special administration”. I presume (but can’t find anywhere) that this means the shareholders have been wiped out as they would be in any company that goes into administration. The only difference here is that it’s being kept running in order that people continue to receive gas supply.

    As a country we have a problem - gas prices have just spiked enormously, after being relatively stable for a decade or more. Many, many people rely on gas for heating & cooking. Keeping the gas flowing is therefore a matter of national security.

    Clearly, the only long term solution is for gas prices to rise & people to shift off gas. But quadrupling everyone’s gas bills right now is going to cause havoc - I can see why the government has decided that re-nationalising the gas supply industry is the simplest & most effective option open to them in the short term.
    Can somebody who understands this shit (ie not me, I chose my financial advisor because I approved of his car) explain why they can't just let this utterly pointless husk of a company go bust?
    Because the customers still need to be provided with and pay for their Gas and Electric usage and no-one else is in a position to either do so and accept the risk of doing so.

    This is the direct consequence of a cap being set below market rates
    No, it's a direct consequence of a bunch of chancers exploiting a deregulated market and failing to hedge their costs when their revenues were capped.

    The proper suppliers have played a smarter game.
    But the cap makes it impossible for the 'proper suppliers' to take on the customers of your bunch of chancers.
  • PhilPhil Posts: 1,919
    Dura_Ace said:

    Phil said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    The company has gone into “special administration”. I presume (but can’t find anywhere) that this means the shareholders have been wiped out as they would be in any company that goes into administration. The only difference here is that it’s being kept running in order that people continue to receive gas supply.

    As a country we have a problem - gas prices have just spiked enormously, after being relatively stable for a decade or more. Many, many people rely on gas for heating & cooking. Keeping the gas flowing is therefore a matter of national security.

    Clearly, the only long term solution is for gas prices to rise & people to shift off gas. But quadrupling everyone’s gas bills right now is going to cause havoc - I can see why the government has decided that re-nationalising the gas supply industry is the simplest & most effective option open to them in the short term.
    Can somebody who understands this shit (ie not me, I chose my financial advisor because I approved of his car) explain why they can't just let this utterly pointless husk of a company go bust?
    After being roughly range bound between 25-75 pence / therm for more than a decade, natural gas spot prices went through the roof this Autumn (for a variety of reasons) and are now trading at something like 4-5x the long term average. Current prices are about 225p / therm: https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/uk-natural-gas

    In 2019 (IIRC) the UK government had put in place a price cap on the price / therm gas companies could charge (mostly to prevent outrageous money grubbing by companies looking to exploit clients who’s only option was to be on pre-payment meters I think). As a result, any gas supply company who hadn’t hedged their natural gas supply contract & was buying gas on the spot market went from being profitable to losing a ton of money on every single customer overnight. Once they’d burnt through their reserves, bankruptcy was inevitable. Previously, customers of a bankrupt supplier would be quietly taken up by other players in the market, but who wants to take on a £1000 / annum / customer liability right now? Absolutely no-one, unsurprisingly.

    So now the government is looking at the gas prices & thinking: we /really/ don’t want to add £1500 to the average household bill at this point in time, with the economy in a fragile state after covid. Oh, plus the headlines we’re going to get over the winter if we don’t do something are going to be dire: Grannies freezing to death do not make good copy for the government after all. Hence the thinking that it’s probably cheaper in the medium term term to pay out the difference between spot gas costs & the price cap over this winter for those companies that go bankrupt because they failed to hedge effectively & then decide what to do longer term in the spring.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575
    Everything you need to know about North Korea...

    North Korean sentenced to death after students caught watching Squid Game
    Locals say rich parents were able to bribe authorities to spare a student from punishment.
    https://www.rfa.org/english/news/korea/squidgame-11232021180155.html
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,281
    On topic, the most interesting thing is so few voters switching between the two main parties.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    The other way the Gov't could have done it would be to let the new suppliers take on Bulb's customers and granted (Not loaned) the extra funding to make it worth their while.

    Nice if you're a shareholder in one of the big 6...
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851
    Pulpstar said:

    MaxPB said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Phil said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    The company has gone into “special administration”. I presume (but can’t find anywhere) that this means the shareholders have been wiped out as they would be in any company that goes into administration. The only difference here is that it’s being kept running in order that people continue to receive gas supply.

    As a country we have a problem - gas prices have just spiked enormously, after being relatively stable for a decade or more. Many, many people rely on gas for heating & cooking. Keeping the gas flowing is therefore a matter of national security.

    Clearly, the only long term solution is for gas prices to rise & people to shift off gas. But quadrupling everyone’s gas bills right now is going to cause havoc - I can see why the government has decided that re-nationalising the gas supply industry is the simplest & most effective option open to them in the short term.
    Can somebody who understands this shit (ie not me, I chose my financial advisor because I approved of his car) explain why they can't just let this utterly pointless husk of a company go bust?
    The idiotic energy price cap.
    The cap is largely irrelevant. Think Northern Rock. The problem is buying short and selling long. When the short-term price peaks, Bulb (or NR) is stuffed. And as with Northern Rock, the political cost of letting consumers take the hit is too great.

    It can be seen as a failure of regulation but apparently PB Tories only see these when Labour is in office. And the only reason for mentioning the cap is so the Tory spin team can blame Ed Miliband for Conservative legislation.
    The cap certainly isn't irrelevant, if there was no cap the customers could be moved to the rest of the big 6 on a SVT which would allow them to run at a normal profit.
    These Cos should have some hedging in place though. Bit of the old risk management. To me it looks like they more took an agricultural punt on the market. Eg back when yield curves were steep and positive some operators would just lend long and borrow short and so long as things stayed stable they'd count the profits and pretend they were smart.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851

    Pulpstar said:

    MaxPB said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Phil said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    The company has gone into “special administration”. I presume (but can’t find anywhere) that this means the shareholders have been wiped out as they would be in any company that goes into administration. The only difference here is that it’s being kept running in order that people continue to receive gas supply.

    As a country we have a problem - gas prices have just spiked enormously, after being relatively stable for a decade or more. Many, many people rely on gas for heating & cooking. Keeping the gas flowing is therefore a matter of national security.

    Clearly, the only long term solution is for gas prices to rise & people to shift off gas. But quadrupling everyone’s gas bills right now is going to cause havoc - I can see why the government has decided that re-nationalising the gas supply industry is the simplest & most effective option open to them in the short term.
    Can somebody who understands this shit (ie not me, I chose my financial advisor because I approved of his car) explain why they can't just let this utterly pointless husk of a company go bust?
    The idiotic energy price cap.
    The cap is largely irrelevant. Think Northern Rock. The problem is buying short and selling long. When the short-term price peaks, Bulb (or NR) is stuffed. And as with Northern Rock, the political cost of letting consumers take the hit is too great.

    It can be seen as a failure of regulation but apparently PB Tories only see these when Labour is in office. And the only reason for mentioning the cap is so the Tory spin team can blame Ed Miliband for Conservative legislation.
    The cap certainly isn't irrelevant, if there was no cap the customers could be moved to the rest of the big 6 on a SVT which would allow them to run at a normal profit.
    If the cap were the cause, all the suppliers would have gone bust. The problem is that, as with Northern Rock, the failed companies were buying in the short-term markets but selling to consumers at prices fixed over the long term.
    Yep.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    kinabalu said:

    Pulpstar said:

    MaxPB said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Phil said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    The company has gone into “special administration”. I presume (but can’t find anywhere) that this means the shareholders have been wiped out as they would be in any company that goes into administration. The only difference here is that it’s being kept running in order that people continue to receive gas supply.

    As a country we have a problem - gas prices have just spiked enormously, after being relatively stable for a decade or more. Many, many people rely on gas for heating & cooking. Keeping the gas flowing is therefore a matter of national security.

    Clearly, the only long term solution is for gas prices to rise & people to shift off gas. But quadrupling everyone’s gas bills right now is going to cause havoc - I can see why the government has decided that re-nationalising the gas supply industry is the simplest & most effective option open to them in the short term.
    Can somebody who understands this shit (ie not me, I chose my financial advisor because I approved of his car) explain why they can't just let this utterly pointless husk of a company go bust?
    The idiotic energy price cap.
    The cap is largely irrelevant. Think Northern Rock. The problem is buying short and selling long. When the short-term price peaks, Bulb (or NR) is stuffed. And as with Northern Rock, the political cost of letting consumers take the hit is too great.

    It can be seen as a failure of regulation but apparently PB Tories only see these when Labour is in office. And the only reason for mentioning the cap is so the Tory spin team can blame Ed Miliband for Conservative legislation.
    The cap certainly isn't irrelevant, if there was no cap the customers could be moved to the rest of the big 6 on a SVT which would allow them to run at a normal profit.
    These Cos should have some hedging in place though. Bit of the old risk management. To me it looks like they more took an agricultural punt on the market. Eg back when yield curves were steep and positive some operators would just lend long and borrow short and so long as things stayed stable they'd count the profits and pretend they were smart.
    How can you effectively hedge if there's a cap ?
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,771
    boulay said:

    On the news just now they announced that a 5th person has been arrested in France Re the boat people who died.

    How is it that the French authorities can within 24 hours arrest 5 people, they must have enough evidence of their involvement, and not use that intelligence they must have had to arrest them before on people trafficking offences?

    It’s another key question I have is why does there not seem to be a big enough intelligence effort to infiltrate the gangs or process to stop these gangs in the same way they target drugs gangs?

    France is following a perfectly sane policy (and which is the same as the policy in both Switzerland and Norway) of encouraging asylum seekers to self deport.

    If an asylum seeker in Northern Ireland was walking towards the Irish border, should we tackle him to the ground to prevent him leaving the country?
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772
    eek said:

    MaxPB said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Phil said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    The company has gone into “special administration”. I presume (but can’t find anywhere) that this means the shareholders have been wiped out as they would be in any company that goes into administration. The only difference here is that it’s being kept running in order that people continue to receive gas supply.

    As a country we have a problem - gas prices have just spiked enormously, after being relatively stable for a decade or more. Many, many people rely on gas for heating & cooking. Keeping the gas flowing is therefore a matter of national security.

    Clearly, the only long term solution is for gas prices to rise & people to shift off gas. But quadrupling everyone’s gas bills right now is going to cause havoc - I can see why the government has decided that re-nationalising the gas supply industry is the simplest & most effective option open to them in the short term.
    Can somebody who understands this shit (ie not me, I chose my financial advisor because I approved of his car) explain why they can't just let this utterly pointless husk of a company go bust?
    The idiotic energy price cap.
    The cap is largely irrelevant. Think Northern Rock. The problem is buying short and selling long. When the short-term price peaks, Bulb (or NR) is stuffed. And as with Northern Rock, the political cost of letting consumers take the hit is too great.

    It can be seen as a failure of regulation but apparently PB Tories only see these when Labour is in office. And the only reason for mentioning the cap is so the Tory spin team can blame Ed Miliband for Conservative legislation.
    The cap isn't irrelevant. Suppose you are supplying 1m homes and you are told to supply another 200,000? How do you do that except by buying at the current variable market rate.

    Now Bulb may have had a strange (to you) business model of dynamic price changes to reflect the current market price but 1.7million customers liked that business model, it wasn't illegal and it made sense to people who I suspect were market savvy.

    The issue really is a very simple one, the cap needs to reflect current market prices and it very clearly doesn't - and equally those people who are happy to be on a dynamic pricing model should have been left on it sans cap.
    Interesting. I didn't know that Bulb sold at very variable rates. The cap basically makes their model impossible.

    Different situation to the unhedged cowboys.
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775


    People who are in France seem to think that taking a RIB across the Channel is a good idea. This strongly suggests that they see the UK as much better than staying in France.

    Getting to Germany from France would be fairly trivial by comparison.

    Most refugees in France don't try to come to Britain. Obviously some do and take huge risks to do it, but the balance is around 4:1 preferring France or feeling that their chances are better there.

    Those are two facts that are not really in dispute. Perhaps if it was less dangerous it would be more even, though?
    Exactly. Like with so many issues we risk missing the truth, and therefore the best policies, by assuming a group of people are some homogeneous blob with singular and simple motivations.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,771

    Andy_JS said:

    rcs1000 said:



    Yes the genuine refugees do that. That's kind of the point.

    It would be interesting, though difficult, to see an unbiased analysis of why a minority do press on to the UK. For the benefits? Hardly - benefits are much more generous elsewhere. Because they speak some English and reckon they've got a better chance here? Possibly, but pay a fortune and risk death for that? Because they know others here and feel that would make life better?

    The implication that taking risks to get here suggests they aren't genuine is a non-sequitur. Yes, step 1 is to get out of a hell-hole, and arrive in, say, Greece. But if you don't speak Greek or know any Greeks, and you do speak English and know someone in London, then step 2 may be to try to get here. That doesn't invalidate step 1.
    There is a big undocumented economy in the UK compared to most European countries.
    There are a lot of things that the government in this country just don't seem to be bothered about. This is one of them.
    So the French know Global Britain’s black economy is what pulls the migrates across the world into inflatable boats, the migrants know it, the only people being hoodwinked here are UK electorate thinking their government has a tough policy?
    Thats what the government should focus on. Tackling the black economy. Shutting down any sweat shops and dodgy nail bars.
    Remove the demand for illegal immigration.

    It's always been the most sensible solution.
  • Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sleazy broken Scottish Nationalism on the slide

    A poll by YouGov for The Times finds that 40 per cent of people say they would vote yes in another referendum, a drop of one point compared with the company’s last survey in May.

    The proportion of people who would vote no remained at 46 per cent, while 9 per cent said they were unsure, up by one point. The remainder would not vote or refused to say.



    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/voters-lose-interest-on-union-question-25mzsz3r8

    Astonishing that despite Brexit and PM Boris Sturgeon has actually managed to see Yes fall by 5% below the 45% it got in the 2014 referendum.

    No wonder Salmond and Alba are so furious and of course no prospect of a legal indyref2 under this Tory government either
    Wait till you see how much No has lost since the 2014 referendum.
    Quite. 46/86 is 53%. Which is down. Margin of 7 percentage points or so as opposed to 10 in 2014.
    The point, guys, is that no-one is interested in IndyRef, whatever their theoretical inclinations are if there was one.

    Not gonna happen.

    Eventually Nicola will depart the stage, as will Boris.
    And yet here you are commenting on it.
    Since you’ve been predicting Sturgeon will be leaving daily and twice on a Tuesday since last year, can we call you Burgodamus?
  • Pulpstar said:

    kinabalu said:

    Pulpstar said:

    MaxPB said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Phil said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    The company has gone into “special administration”. I presume (but can’t find anywhere) that this means the shareholders have been wiped out as they would be in any company that goes into administration. The only difference here is that it’s being kept running in order that people continue to receive gas supply.

    As a country we have a problem - gas prices have just spiked enormously, after being relatively stable for a decade or more. Many, many people rely on gas for heating & cooking. Keeping the gas flowing is therefore a matter of national security.

    Clearly, the only long term solution is for gas prices to rise & people to shift off gas. But quadrupling everyone’s gas bills right now is going to cause havoc - I can see why the government has decided that re-nationalising the gas supply industry is the simplest & most effective option open to them in the short term.
    Can somebody who understands this shit (ie not me, I chose my financial advisor because I approved of his car) explain why they can't just let this utterly pointless husk of a company go bust?
    The idiotic energy price cap.
    The cap is largely irrelevant. Think Northern Rock. The problem is buying short and selling long. When the short-term price peaks, Bulb (or NR) is stuffed. And as with Northern Rock, the political cost of letting consumers take the hit is too great.

    It can be seen as a failure of regulation but apparently PB Tories only see these when Labour is in office. And the only reason for mentioning the cap is so the Tory spin team can blame Ed Miliband for Conservative legislation.
    The cap certainly isn't irrelevant, if there was no cap the customers could be moved to the rest of the big 6 on a SVT which would allow them to run at a normal profit.
    These Cos should have some hedging in place though. Bit of the old risk management. To me it looks like they more took an agricultural punt on the market. Eg back when yield curves were steep and positive some operators would just lend long and borrow short and so long as things stayed stable they'd count the profits and pretend they were smart.
    How can you effectively hedge if there's a cap ?
    Futures, options, swaps, derivatives? Standard City stuff.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sleazy broken Scottish Nationalism on the slide

    A poll by YouGov for The Times finds that 40 per cent of people say they would vote yes in another referendum, a drop of one point compared with the company’s last survey in May.

    The proportion of people who would vote no remained at 46 per cent, while 9 per cent said they were unsure, up by one point. The remainder would not vote or refused to say.



    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/voters-lose-interest-on-union-question-25mzsz3r8

    Astonishing that despite Brexit and PM Boris Sturgeon has actually managed to see Yes fall by 5% below the 45% it got in the 2014 referendum.

    No wonder Salmond and Alba are so furious and of course no prospect of a legal indyref2 under this Tory government either
    The actual Yes figure is 46.5% - which is above the 2014 referendum figure.

    But of course you are muddling figures which include and which exclude DKs.

    Professor Curtice would not be impressed.
    It is 40% including DKs, so in terms of all voters below the 45% from 2014 as I said
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,165

    Pulpstar said:

    kinabalu said:

    Pulpstar said:

    MaxPB said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Phil said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    The company has gone into “special administration”. I presume (but can’t find anywhere) that this means the shareholders have been wiped out as they would be in any company that goes into administration. The only difference here is that it’s being kept running in order that people continue to receive gas supply.

    As a country we have a problem - gas prices have just spiked enormously, after being relatively stable for a decade or more. Many, many people rely on gas for heating & cooking. Keeping the gas flowing is therefore a matter of national security.

    Clearly, the only long term solution is for gas prices to rise & people to shift off gas. But quadrupling everyone’s gas bills right now is going to cause havoc - I can see why the government has decided that re-nationalising the gas supply industry is the simplest & most effective option open to them in the short term.
    Can somebody who understands this shit (ie not me, I chose my financial advisor because I approved of his car) explain why they can't just let this utterly pointless husk of a company go bust?
    The idiotic energy price cap.
    The cap is largely irrelevant. Think Northern Rock. The problem is buying short and selling long. When the short-term price peaks, Bulb (or NR) is stuffed. And as with Northern Rock, the political cost of letting consumers take the hit is too great.

    It can be seen as a failure of regulation but apparently PB Tories only see these when Labour is in office. And the only reason for mentioning the cap is so the Tory spin team can blame Ed Miliband for Conservative legislation.
    The cap certainly isn't irrelevant, if there was no cap the customers could be moved to the rest of the big 6 on a SVT which would allow them to run at a normal profit.
    These Cos should have some hedging in place though. Bit of the old risk management. To me it looks like they more took an agricultural punt on the market. Eg back when yield curves were steep and positive some operators would just lend long and borrow short and so long as things stayed stable they'd count the profits and pretend they were smart.
    How can you effectively hedge if there's a cap ?
    Futures, options, swaps, derivatives? Standard City stuff.
    Do you think that's what the Big 6 have done and that's why they are all still trading? Or could it be that they can borrow for longer than the smaller companies?
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,401
    Nigelb said:

    eek said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Phil said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    The company has gone into “special administration”. I presume (but can’t find anywhere) that this means the shareholders have been wiped out as they would be in any company that goes into administration. The only difference here is that it’s being kept running in order that people continue to receive gas supply.

    As a country we have a problem - gas prices have just spiked enormously, after being relatively stable for a decade or more. Many, many people rely on gas for heating & cooking. Keeping the gas flowing is therefore a matter of national security.

    Clearly, the only long term solution is for gas prices to rise & people to shift off gas. But quadrupling everyone’s gas bills right now is going to cause havoc - I can see why the government has decided that re-nationalising the gas supply industry is the simplest & most effective option open to them in the short term.
    Can somebody who understands this shit (ie not me, I chose my financial advisor because I approved of his car) explain why they can't just let this utterly pointless husk of a company go bust?
    Because the customers still need to be provided with and pay for their Gas and Electric usage and no-one else is in a position to either do so and accept the risk of doing so.

    This is the direct consequence of a cap being set below market rates
    No, it's a direct consequence of a bunch of chancers exploiting a deregulated market and failing to hedge their costs when their revenues were capped.

    The proper suppliers have played a smarter game.
    But the cap makes it impossible for the 'proper suppliers' to take on the customers of your bunch of chancers.
    Why should they take them on? They have hedged based on their requirements for their own customers, not somebody else's.

    Of course, I advocate nationalised utility suppliers, like we used to have. Providing a public service in the supply of essential energy supplies. Not operating a bloody casino.

    I expect that those who set up the suppliers with the oh so clever names made sure that they trousered plenty of cash before the brown stuff hit the fan and the taxpayer is, yet again, left to wipe up the mess.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,149
    edited November 2021
    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sleazy broken Scottish Nationalism on the slide

    A poll by YouGov for The Times finds that 40 per cent of people say they would vote yes in another referendum, a drop of one point compared with the company’s last survey in May.

    The proportion of people who would vote no remained at 46 per cent, while 9 per cent said they were unsure, up by one point. The remainder would not vote or refused to say.



    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/voters-lose-interest-on-union-question-25mzsz3r8

    Astonishing that despite Brexit and PM Boris Sturgeon has actually managed to see Yes fall by 5% below the 45% it got in the 2014 referendum.

    No wonder Salmond and Alba are so furious and of course no prospect of a legal indyref2 under this Tory government either
    The actual Yes figure is 46.5% - which is above the 2014 referendum figure.

    But of course you are muddling figures which include and which exclude DKs.

    Professor Curtice would not be impressed.
    It is 40% including DKs, so in terms of all voters below the 45% from 2014 as I said
    Look at the data. It is 40% EXCLUDING DKs.

    The data that you were commenting on. Quoted in your post.
  • eek said:

    MaxPB said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Phil said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    The company has gone into “special administration”. I presume (but can’t find anywhere) that this means the shareholders have been wiped out as they would be in any company that goes into administration. The only difference here is that it’s being kept running in order that people continue to receive gas supply.

    As a country we have a problem - gas prices have just spiked enormously, after being relatively stable for a decade or more. Many, many people rely on gas for heating & cooking. Keeping the gas flowing is therefore a matter of national security.

    Clearly, the only long term solution is for gas prices to rise & people to shift off gas. But quadrupling everyone’s gas bills right now is going to cause havoc - I can see why the government has decided that re-nationalising the gas supply industry is the simplest & most effective option open to them in the short term.
    Can somebody who understands this shit (ie not me, I chose my financial advisor because I approved of his car) explain why they can't just let this utterly pointless husk of a company go bust?
    The idiotic energy price cap.
    The cap is largely irrelevant. Think Northern Rock. The problem is buying short and selling long. When the short-term price peaks, Bulb (or NR) is stuffed. And as with Northern Rock, the political cost of letting consumers take the hit is too great.

    It can be seen as a failure of regulation but apparently PB Tories only see these when Labour is in office. And the only reason for mentioning the cap is so the Tory spin team can blame Ed Miliband for Conservative legislation.
    The cap isn't irrelevant. Suppose you are supplying 1m homes and you are told to supply another 200,000? How do you do that except by buying at the current variable market rate.

    Now Bulb may have had a strange (to you) business model of dynamic price changes to reflect the current market price but 1.7million customers liked that business model, it wasn't illegal and it made sense to people who I suspect were market savvy.

    The issue really is a very simple one, the cap needs to reflect current market prices and it very clearly doesn't - and equally those people who are happy to be on a dynamic pricing model should have been left on it sans cap.
    Interesting. I didn't know that Bulb sold at very variable rates. The cap basically makes their model impossible.

    Different situation to the unhedged cowboys.
    Same situation. If you sell to consumers over the long term at any price below the cap, you need to make sure you can buy the stuff at lower prices over the same long term.
  • How many energy companies are left?
  • sladeslade Posts: 1,921
    A rich selection of local by-elections today. Firstly we have the Conservative defence in the North Yorkshire PCC. Then there are Labour defences in Basildon, Halton, Newcastle under Lyme, Nuneaton and Bedworth. In Wandsworth there is a WIA elected as Labour defence. There are Con defences in Hambledon, Tunbridge Wells, and West Suffolk. The Lib Dems have a single defence in Wirral. Finally there the the unusual ones ( some very unusual!), In Allerdale there is a Non-Aligned defence; in Lancaster an Ind elected as Labour defence; and in Wigan a Ind defence after months of legal argument.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,772
    rcs1000 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    rcs1000 said:



    Yes the genuine refugees do that. That's kind of the point.

    It would be interesting, though difficult, to see an unbiased analysis of why a minority do press on to the UK. For the benefits? Hardly - benefits are much more generous elsewhere. Because they speak some English and reckon they've got a better chance here? Possibly, but pay a fortune and risk death for that? Because they know others here and feel that would make life better?

    The implication that taking risks to get here suggests they aren't genuine is a non-sequitur. Yes, step 1 is to get out of a hell-hole, and arrive in, say, Greece. But if you don't speak Greek or know any Greeks, and you do speak English and know someone in London, then step 2 may be to try to get here. That doesn't invalidate step 1.
    There is a big undocumented economy in the UK compared to most European countries.
    There are a lot of things that the government in this country just don't seem to be bothered about. This is one of them.
    So the French know Global Britain’s black economy is what pulls the migrates across the world into inflatable boats, the migrants know it, the only people being hoodwinked here are UK electorate thinking their government has a tough policy?
    Thats what the government should focus on. Tackling the black economy. Shutting down any sweat shops and dodgy nail bars.
    Remove the demand for illegal immigration.

    It's always been the most sensible solution.
    It's like the drug laws. We catch and severely punish the least competent and the unlucky, at best winnowing the herd, but none of it makes any difference whilst the demand for illegal drugs remains undiminished.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,149
    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sleazy broken Scottish Nationalism on the slide

    A poll by YouGov for The Times finds that 40 per cent of people say they would vote yes in another referendum, a drop of one point compared with the company’s last survey in May.

    The proportion of people who would vote no remained at 46 per cent, while 9 per cent said they were unsure, up by one point. The remainder would not vote or refused to say.



    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/voters-lose-interest-on-union-question-25mzsz3r8

    Astonishing that despite Brexit and PM Boris Sturgeon has actually managed to see Yes fall by 5% below the 45% it got in the 2014 referendum.

    No wonder Salmond and Alba are so furious and of course no prospect of a legal indyref2 under this Tory government either
    The actual Yes figure is 46.5% - which is above the 2014 referendum figure.

    But of course you are muddling figures which include and which exclude DKs.

    Professor Curtice would not be impressed.
    It is 40% including DKs, so in terms of all voters below the 45% from 2014 as I said
    Just to point out the fallacy in this particular variant of HYUFDomathics.

    In an election or referendum, the DKs are ignored.

    To generate an opinion poll result comparable to an election, the DKs have to be excluded fromt he calculation. So only the 40 percentage points for Yes and the 46 percentage points for No are counted.

    The percentages haver to be recalculated eg 40 divided by (40 plus 46) gives 46 and a half true percent. Which is up from 2014.
  • Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sleazy broken Scottish Nationalism on the slide

    A poll by YouGov for The Times finds that 40 per cent of people say they would vote yes in another referendum, a drop of one point compared with the company’s last survey in May.

    The proportion of people who would vote no remained at 46 per cent, while 9 per cent said they were unsure, up by one point. The remainder would not vote or refused to say.



    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/voters-lose-interest-on-union-question-25mzsz3r8

    Astonishing that despite Brexit and PM Boris Sturgeon has actually managed to see Yes fall by 5% below the 45% it got in the 2014 referendum.

    No wonder Salmond and Alba are so furious and of course no prospect of a legal indyref2 under this Tory government either
    Wait till you see how much No has lost since the 2014 referendum.
    Quite. 46/86 is 53%. Which is down. Margin of 7 percentage points or so as opposed to 10 in 2014.
    The point, guys, is that no-one is interested in IndyRef, whatever their theoretical inclinations are if there was one.

    Not gonna happen.

    Eventually Nicola will depart the stage, as will Boris.
    And yet here you are commenting on it.
    Since you’ve been predicting Sturgeon will be leaving daily and twice on a Tuesday since last year, can we call you Burgodamus?
    I don't think most commentators south of the wall get it - I certainly didn't until I moved here.

    The SNP government is popular, largely seen as competent and well-meaning, and is faced by opposition parties in regular disarray.

    In May we had an election where the government was elected to a 4th term. On a record turnout. With a record number of votes cast for the SNP, an 18% increase on their 2016 vote which was a 13% increase on their 2011 vote. Its phenomenal.

    So why would Sturgeon be going anywhere?
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851
    Pulpstar said:

    kinabalu said:

    Pulpstar said:

    MaxPB said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Phil said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    The company has gone into “special administration”. I presume (but can’t find anywhere) that this means the shareholders have been wiped out as they would be in any company that goes into administration. The only difference here is that it’s being kept running in order that people continue to receive gas supply.

    As a country we have a problem - gas prices have just spiked enormously, after being relatively stable for a decade or more. Many, many people rely on gas for heating & cooking. Keeping the gas flowing is therefore a matter of national security.

    Clearly, the only long term solution is for gas prices to rise & people to shift off gas. But quadrupling everyone’s gas bills right now is going to cause havoc - I can see why the government has decided that re-nationalising the gas supply industry is the simplest & most effective option open to them in the short term.
    Can somebody who understands this shit (ie not me, I chose my financial advisor because I approved of his car) explain why they can't just let this utterly pointless husk of a company go bust?
    The idiotic energy price cap.
    The cap is largely irrelevant. Think Northern Rock. The problem is buying short and selling long. When the short-term price peaks, Bulb (or NR) is stuffed. And as with Northern Rock, the political cost of letting consumers take the hit is too great.

    It can be seen as a failure of regulation but apparently PB Tories only see these when Labour is in office. And the only reason for mentioning the cap is so the Tory spin team can blame Ed Miliband for Conservative legislation.
    The cap certainly isn't irrelevant, if there was no cap the customers could be moved to the rest of the big 6 on a SVT which would allow them to run at a normal profit.
    These Cos should have some hedging in place though. Bit of the old risk management. To me it looks like they more took an agricultural punt on the market. Eg back when yield curves were steep and positive some operators would just lend long and borrow short and so long as things stayed stable they'd count the profits and pretend they were smart.
    How can you effectively hedge if there's a cap ?
    If prices rocket miles above the cap and stay there for ages all companies without big reserves will go bust. But those with some hedging in place - eg forward buy contracts - have a degree of protection and have bought themselves time. It seems some of these outfits neglected to do any of this, hence are front of the queue for falling over.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,401
    Andy_JS said:

    On topic, the most interesting thing is so few voters switching between the two main parties.

    To me that is to be expected. The voter who jumps between the two is a rare beast. Apparent red-blue swings are the superficial reading of a multitude of more complex movements in voting intention.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,401
    Pulpstar said:

    kinabalu said:

    Pulpstar said:

    MaxPB said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Phil said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    The company has gone into “special administration”. I presume (but can’t find anywhere) that this means the shareholders have been wiped out as they would be in any company that goes into administration. The only difference here is that it’s being kept running in order that people continue to receive gas supply.

    As a country we have a problem - gas prices have just spiked enormously, after being relatively stable for a decade or more. Many, many people rely on gas for heating & cooking. Keeping the gas flowing is therefore a matter of national security.

    Clearly, the only long term solution is for gas prices to rise & people to shift off gas. But quadrupling everyone’s gas bills right now is going to cause havoc - I can see why the government has decided that re-nationalising the gas supply industry is the simplest & most effective option open to them in the short term.
    Can somebody who understands this shit (ie not me, I chose my financial advisor because I approved of his car) explain why they can't just let this utterly pointless husk of a company go bust?
    The idiotic energy price cap.
    The cap is largely irrelevant. Think Northern Rock. The problem is buying short and selling long. When the short-term price peaks, Bulb (or NR) is stuffed. And as with Northern Rock, the political cost of letting consumers take the hit is too great.

    It can be seen as a failure of regulation but apparently PB Tories only see these when Labour is in office. And the only reason for mentioning the cap is so the Tory spin team can blame Ed Miliband for Conservative legislation.
    The cap certainly isn't irrelevant, if there was no cap the customers could be moved to the rest of the big 6 on a SVT which would allow them to run at a normal profit.
    These Cos should have some hedging in place though. Bit of the old risk management. To me it looks like they more took an agricultural punt on the market. Eg back when yield curves were steep and positive some operators would just lend long and borrow short and so long as things stayed stable they'd count the profits and pretend they were smart.
    How can you effectively hedge if there's a cap ?
    If you can't hedge below the cap, you exit the market.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    Andy_JS said:

    On topic, the most interesting thing is so few voters switching between the two main parties.

    To me that is to be expected. The voter who jumps between the two is a rare beast. Apparent red-blue swings are the superficial reading of a multitude of more complex movements in voting intention.
    Really - although I'm a natural Lib Dem voter except when I lived with my parents my vote has been Labour / Tory based on who I perceive to be the least worst option.
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 3,853

    eek said:

    MaxPB said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Phil said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    The company has gone into “special administration”. I presume (but can’t find anywhere) that this means the shareholders have been wiped out as they would be in any company that goes into administration. The only difference here is that it’s being kept running in order that people continue to receive gas supply.

    As a country we have a problem - gas prices have just spiked enormously, after being relatively stable for a decade or more. Many, many people rely on gas for heating & cooking. Keeping the gas flowing is therefore a matter of national security.

    Clearly, the only long term solution is for gas prices to rise & people to shift off gas. But quadrupling everyone’s gas bills right now is going to cause havoc - I can see why the government has decided that re-nationalising the gas supply industry is the simplest & most effective option open to them in the short term.
    Can somebody who understands this shit (ie not me, I chose my financial advisor because I approved of his car) explain why they can't just let this utterly pointless husk of a company go bust?
    The idiotic energy price cap.
    The cap is largely irrelevant. Think Northern Rock. The problem is buying short and selling long. When the short-term price peaks, Bulb (or NR) is stuffed. And as with Northern Rock, the political cost of letting consumers take the hit is too great.

    It can be seen as a failure of regulation but apparently PB Tories only see these when Labour is in office. And the only reason for mentioning the cap is so the Tory spin team can blame Ed Miliband for Conservative legislation.
    The cap isn't irrelevant. Suppose you are supplying 1m homes and you are told to supply another 200,000? How do you do that except by buying at the current variable market rate.

    Now Bulb may have had a strange (to you) business model of dynamic price changes to reflect the current market price but 1.7million customers liked that business model, it wasn't illegal and it made sense to people who I suspect were market savvy.

    The issue really is a very simple one, the cap needs to reflect current market prices and it very clearly doesn't - and equally those people who are happy to be on a dynamic pricing model should have been left on it sans cap.
    Interesting. I didn't know that Bulb sold at very variable rates. The cap basically makes their model impossible.

    Different situation to the unhedged cowboys.
    Same situation. If you sell to consumers over the long term at any price below the cap, you need to make sure you can buy the stuff at lower prices over the same long term.
    Lets say all the companies buying gas have hedged to buy long at a capped cost.

    The problem at the moment is lack of supply. Who gets cut off first?
  • tlg86 said:

    Pulpstar said:

    kinabalu said:

    Pulpstar said:

    MaxPB said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Phil said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    The company has gone into “special administration”. I presume (but can’t find anywhere) that this means the shareholders have been wiped out as they would be in any company that goes into administration. The only difference here is that it’s being kept running in order that people continue to receive gas supply.

    As a country we have a problem - gas prices have just spiked enormously, after being relatively stable for a decade or more. Many, many people rely on gas for heating & cooking. Keeping the gas flowing is therefore a matter of national security.

    Clearly, the only long term solution is for gas prices to rise & people to shift off gas. But quadrupling everyone’s gas bills right now is going to cause havoc - I can see why the government has decided that re-nationalising the gas supply industry is the simplest & most effective option open to them in the short term.
    Can somebody who understands this shit (ie not me, I chose my financial advisor because I approved of his car) explain why they can't just let this utterly pointless husk of a company go bust?
    The idiotic energy price cap.
    The cap is largely irrelevant. Think Northern Rock. The problem is buying short and selling long. When the short-term price peaks, Bulb (or NR) is stuffed. And as with Northern Rock, the political cost of letting consumers take the hit is too great.

    It can be seen as a failure of regulation but apparently PB Tories only see these when Labour is in office. And the only reason for mentioning the cap is so the Tory spin team can blame Ed Miliband for Conservative legislation.
    The cap certainly isn't irrelevant, if there was no cap the customers could be moved to the rest of the big 6 on a SVT which would allow them to run at a normal profit.
    These Cos should have some hedging in place though. Bit of the old risk management. To me it looks like they more took an agricultural punt on the market. Eg back when yield curves were steep and positive some operators would just lend long and borrow short and so long as things stayed stable they'd count the profits and pretend they were smart.
    How can you effectively hedge if there's a cap ?
    Futures, options, swaps, derivatives? Standard City stuff.
    Do you think that's what the Big 6 have done and that's why they are all still trading? Or could it be that they can borrow for longer than the smaller companies?
    I believe the older, wiser companies have indeed hedged.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772
    edited November 2021

    How many energy companies are left?

    This website has a list, though it was last updated a few weeks ago, so it doesn't show Bulb as bust yet.

    https://www.theenergyshop.com/energy-suppliers

    Seems like there are still a surprisingly large number (around 40).
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575
    Man Is Exonerated in Rape Case Described in Alice Sebold’s Memoir
    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/23/nyregion/anthony-broadwater-alice-sebold.html
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,401
    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sleazy broken Scottish Nationalism on the slide

    A poll by YouGov for The Times finds that 40 per cent of people say they would vote yes in another referendum, a drop of one point compared with the company’s last survey in May.

    The proportion of people who would vote no remained at 46 per cent, while 9 per cent said they were unsure, up by one point. The remainder would not vote or refused to say.



    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/voters-lose-interest-on-union-question-25mzsz3r8

    Astonishing that despite Brexit and PM Boris Sturgeon has actually managed to see Yes fall by 5% below the 45% it got in the 2014 referendum.

    No wonder Salmond and Alba are so furious and of course no prospect of a legal indyref2 under this Tory government either
    The actual Yes figure is 46.5% - which is above the 2014 referendum figure.

    But of course you are muddling figures which include and which exclude DKs.

    Professor Curtice would not be impressed.
    It is 40% including DKs, so in terms of all voters below the 45% from 2014 as I said
    Here we go again. So you agree that a majority do not explicitly support the Union?
  • Dura_Ace said:

    Phil said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    The company has gone into “special administration”. I presume (but can’t find anywhere) that this means the shareholders have been wiped out as they would be in any company that goes into administration. The only difference here is that it’s being kept running in order that people continue to receive gas supply.

    As a country we have a problem - gas prices have just spiked enormously, after being relatively stable for a decade or more. Many, many people rely on gas for heating & cooking. Keeping the gas flowing is therefore a matter of national security.

    Clearly, the only long term solution is for gas prices to rise & people to shift off gas. But quadrupling everyone’s gas bills right now is going to cause havoc - I can see why the government has decided that re-nationalising the gas supply industry is the simplest & most effective option open to them in the short term.
    Can somebody who understands this shit (ie not me, I chose my financial advisor because I approved of his car) explain why they can't just let this utterly pointless husk of a company go bust?
    It has gone bust, but with too many liabilities for any other business to take it on without a huge loss, and if they shut it down now, consumers will get shafted. So the government has to take the hit.
    It's not really 'the government' taking the hit though, is it? Surely it's either energy bill payers, taxpayers, or both?
    Yes taxpayers are subsidising Bulb customers to the tune of £1000 apiece (less x% to cover payroll, operating costs and fees for Bulb employees and adminstrators). This is to buy time for the government while it figures out what to do about the surge in gas prices when the cap comes around for its next review in April.
  • Nigelb said:

    eek said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Phil said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    The company has gone into “special administration”. I presume (but can’t find anywhere) that this means the shareholders have been wiped out as they would be in any company that goes into administration. The only difference here is that it’s being kept running in order that people continue to receive gas supply.

    As a country we have a problem - gas prices have just spiked enormously, after being relatively stable for a decade or more. Many, many people rely on gas for heating & cooking. Keeping the gas flowing is therefore a matter of national security.

    Clearly, the only long term solution is for gas prices to rise & people to shift off gas. But quadrupling everyone’s gas bills right now is going to cause havoc - I can see why the government has decided that re-nationalising the gas supply industry is the simplest & most effective option open to them in the short term.
    Can somebody who understands this shit (ie not me, I chose my financial advisor because I approved of his car) explain why they can't just let this utterly pointless husk of a company go bust?
    Because the customers still need to be provided with and pay for their Gas and Electric usage and no-one else is in a position to either do so and accept the risk of doing so.

    This is the direct consequence of a cap being set below market rates
    No, it's a direct consequence of a bunch of chancers exploiting a deregulated market and failing to hedge their costs when their revenues were capped.

    The proper suppliers have played a smarter game.
    But the cap makes it impossible for the 'proper suppliers' to take on the customers of your bunch of chancers.
    Why should they take them on? They have hedged based on their requirements for their own customers, not somebody else's.

    Of course, I advocate nationalised utility suppliers, like we used to have. Providing a public service in the supply of essential energy supplies. Not operating a bloody casino.

    I expect that those who set up the suppliers with the oh so clever names made sure that they trousered plenty of cash before the brown stuff hit the fan and the taxpayer is, yet again, left to wipe up the mess.
    The privatised energy ‘system’ is tragedy played as farce. Which raving idiot decided that having a bunch of fake suppliers competing with each to supply exactly the same stream of energy, which is in fact supplied by somebody else, was ever a good idea?

    Nationalise it FFS.
    I remember when utilities, the railways, car manufacturers et al were "nationalised". Also, more laughably known as "in public ownership". They were all totally and utterly shit. And sorry, for all their faults, much much shitter than they are today. The man in Whitehall really does not know best.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,771
    Phil said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    The company has gone into “special administration”. I presume (but can’t find anywhere) that this means the shareholders have been wiped out as they would be in any company that goes into administration. The only difference here is that it’s being kept running in order that people continue to receive gas supply.

    As a country we have a problem - gas prices have just spiked enormously, after being relatively stable for a decade or more. Many, many people rely on gas for heating & cooking. Keeping the gas flowing is therefore a matter of national security.

    Clearly, the only long term solution is for gas prices to rise & people to shift off gas. But quadrupling everyone’s gas bills right now is going to cause havoc - I can see why the government has decided that re-nationalising the gas supply industry is the simplest & most effective option open to them in the short term.
    There are massive amounts of gas out there, the problem is that the marginal supplier (US shale gas) stopped drilling at the start of the pandemic.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    CON: 39% (-)
    LAB: 36% (+2)
    LDEM: 10% (+2)
    GRN: 5% (-3)

    via
    @Kantar
    , 18 - 22 Nov
    https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1463816123326115842?s=20
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sleazy broken Scottish Nationalism on the slide

    A poll by YouGov for The Times finds that 40 per cent of people say they would vote yes in another referendum, a drop of one point compared with the company’s last survey in May.

    The proportion of people who would vote no remained at 46 per cent, while 9 per cent said they were unsure, up by one point. The remainder would not vote or refused to say.



    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/voters-lose-interest-on-union-question-25mzsz3r8

    Astonishing that despite Brexit and PM Boris Sturgeon has actually managed to see Yes fall by 5% below the 45% it got in the 2014 referendum.

    No wonder Salmond and Alba are so furious and of course no prospect of a legal indyref2 under this Tory government either
    The actual Yes figure is 46.5% - which is above the 2014 referendum figure.

    But of course you are muddling figures which include and which exclude DKs.

    Professor Curtice would not be impressed.
    It is 40% including DKs, so in terms of all voters below the 45% from 2014 as I said
    Here we go again. So you agree that a majority do not explicitly support the Union?
    The majority explicitly supported the Union in 2014 in a once in a generation referendum and this Tory government as long as it remains in power will not allow another indyref2 for at least a generation until 2014 has elapsed
  • boulayboulay Posts: 3,773
    rcs1000 said:

    boulay said:

    On the news just now they announced that a 5th person has been arrested in France Re the boat people who died.

    How is it that the French authorities can within 24 hours arrest 5 people, they must have enough evidence of their involvement, and not use that intelligence they must have had to arrest them before on people trafficking offences?

    It’s another key question I have is why does there not seem to be a big enough intelligence effort to infiltrate the gangs or process to stop these gangs in the same way they target drugs gangs?

    France is following a perfectly sane policy (and which is the same as the policy in both Switzerland and Norway) of encouraging asylum seekers to self deport.

    If an asylum seeker in Northern Ireland was walking towards the Irish border, should we tackle him to the ground to prevent him leaving the country?
    If Northern Ireland became a magnet to migrants as a stepping stone to getting into the Republic and the build up of migrants was causing problems in Northern Ireland the surely the best thing to do would be to tackle the migrant and every other one, remove the idea that it’s a stepping stone to RoI and then other migrants might think, “hang on there isn’t much point massing in Northern Ireland anymore as the buggers keep arresting us and sending us back home”.

    So whilst it’s initially harder work to deal with the problem the longer term benefits are worth it.

    I know it’s a bit of a crap analogy but it would be like the Dutch police saying they aren’t going to stop drug traffickers from loading ships to the UK with drugs because the drugs are the UK’s problem when they get there - that’s true however the knock on effect would be that it draws more and more players to the Netherlands to traffick drugs to the UK as they won’t be dealt with and then you get the associated problems in the Netherlands of increased rival drug gangs etc.

    If they find a way to make it pointless/impossible to send drugs from the Netherlands then there is less pull to drugs gangs to be based there for the purpose of trafficking to the UK thus reducing their own problems.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,149
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sleazy broken Scottish Nationalism on the slide

    A poll by YouGov for The Times finds that 40 per cent of people say they would vote yes in another referendum, a drop of one point compared with the company’s last survey in May.

    The proportion of people who would vote no remained at 46 per cent, while 9 per cent said they were unsure, up by one point. The remainder would not vote or refused to say.



    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/voters-lose-interest-on-union-question-25mzsz3r8

    Astonishing that despite Brexit and PM Boris Sturgeon has actually managed to see Yes fall by 5% below the 45% it got in the 2014 referendum.

    No wonder Salmond and Alba are so furious and of course no prospect of a legal indyref2 under this Tory government either
    The actual Yes figure is 46.5% - which is above the 2014 referendum figure.

    But of course you are muddling figures which include and which exclude DKs.

    Professor Curtice would not be impressed.
    It is 40% including DKs, so in terms of all voters below the 45% from 2014 as I said
    Here we go again. So you agree that a majority do not explicitly support the Union?
    The majority explicitly supported the Union in 2014 in a once in a generation referendum and this Tory government as long as it remains in power will not allow another indyref2 for at least a generation until 2014 has elapsed
    You just don't want to admit you made a crass schoolboy error with your stats.

    Time to see a nice Deltic photo, I think.
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 12,415
    rcs1000 said:

    boulay said:

    On the news just now they announced that a 5th person has been arrested in France Re the boat people who died.

    How is it that the French authorities can within 24 hours arrest 5 people, they must have enough evidence of their involvement, and not use that intelligence they must have had to arrest them before on people trafficking offences?

    It’s another key question I have is why does there not seem to be a big enough intelligence effort to infiltrate the gangs or process to stop these gangs in the same way they target drugs gangs?

    France is following a perfectly sane policy (and which is the same as the policy in both Switzerland and Norway) of encouraging asylum seekers to self deport.

    If an asylum seeker in Northern Ireland was walking towards the Irish border, should we tackle him to the ground to prevent him leaving the country?
    Is this an Essay question, or were you really expecting a quick answer?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sleazy broken Scottish Nationalism on the slide

    A poll by YouGov for The Times finds that 40 per cent of people say they would vote yes in another referendum, a drop of one point compared with the company’s last survey in May.

    The proportion of people who would vote no remained at 46 per cent, while 9 per cent said they were unsure, up by one point. The remainder would not vote or refused to say.



    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/voters-lose-interest-on-union-question-25mzsz3r8

    Astonishing that despite Brexit and PM Boris Sturgeon has actually managed to see Yes fall by 5% below the 45% it got in the 2014 referendum.

    No wonder Salmond and Alba are so furious and of course no prospect of a legal indyref2 under this Tory government either
    The actual Yes figure is 46.5% - which is above the 2014 referendum figure.

    But of course you are muddling figures which include and which exclude DKs.

    Professor Curtice would not be impressed.
    It is 40% including DKs, so in terms of all voters below the 45% from 2014 as I said
    Here we go again. So you agree that a majority do not explicitly support the Union?
    The majority explicitly supported the Union in 2014 in a once in a generation referendum and this Tory government as long as it remains in power will not allow another indyref2 for at least a generation until 2014 has elapsed
    You just don't want to admit you made a crass schoolboy error with your stats.

    Time to see a nice Deltic photo, I think.
    No error at all.

    45% of all voters voted Yes in 2014, only 40% of all voters back Yes now amongst all voters, a disaster for Sturgeon
  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,092

    eek said:

    MaxPB said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Phil said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    The company has gone into “special administration”. I presume (but can’t find anywhere) that this means the shareholders have been wiped out as they would be in any company that goes into administration. The only difference here is that it’s being kept running in order that people continue to receive gas supply.

    As a country we have a problem - gas prices have just spiked enormously, after being relatively stable for a decade or more. Many, many people rely on gas for heating & cooking. Keeping the gas flowing is therefore a matter of national security.

    Clearly, the only long term solution is for gas prices to rise & people to shift off gas. But quadrupling everyone’s gas bills right now is going to cause havoc - I can see why the government has decided that re-nationalising the gas supply industry is the simplest & most effective option open to them in the short term.
    Can somebody who understands this shit (ie not me, I chose my financial advisor because I approved of his car) explain why they can't just let this utterly pointless husk of a company go bust?
    The idiotic energy price cap.
    The cap is largely irrelevant. Think Northern Rock. The problem is buying short and selling long. When the short-term price peaks, Bulb (or NR) is stuffed. And as with Northern Rock, the political cost of letting consumers take the hit is too great.

    It can be seen as a failure of regulation but apparently PB Tories only see these when Labour is in office. And the only reason for mentioning the cap is so the Tory spin team can blame Ed Miliband for Conservative legislation.
    The cap isn't irrelevant. Suppose you are supplying 1m homes and you are told to supply another 200,000? How do you do that except by buying at the current variable market rate.

    Now Bulb may have had a strange (to you) business model of dynamic price changes to reflect the current market price but 1.7million customers liked that business model, it wasn't illegal and it made sense to people who I suspect were market savvy.

    The issue really is a very simple one, the cap needs to reflect current market prices and it very clearly doesn't - and equally those people who are happy to be on a dynamic pricing model should have been left on it sans cap.
    Interesting. I didn't know that Bulb sold at very variable rates. The cap basically makes their model impossible.

    Different situation to the unhedged cowboys.
    Same situation. If you sell to consumers over the long term at any price below the cap, you need to make sure you can buy the stuff at lower prices over the same long term.
    Lets say all the companies buying gas have hedged to buy long at a capped cost.

    The problem at the moment is lack of supply. Who gets cut off first?
    Industrial users - initially those on interruptible contracts.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851
    edited November 2021

    Nigelb said:

    eek said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Phil said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    The company has gone into “special administration”. I presume (but can’t find anywhere) that this means the shareholders have been wiped out as they would be in any company that goes into administration. The only difference here is that it’s being kept running in order that people continue to receive gas supply.

    As a country we have a problem - gas prices have just spiked enormously, after being relatively stable for a decade or more. Many, many people rely on gas for heating & cooking. Keeping the gas flowing is therefore a matter of national security.

    Clearly, the only long term solution is for gas prices to rise & people to shift off gas. But quadrupling everyone’s gas bills right now is going to cause havoc - I can see why the government has decided that re-nationalising the gas supply industry is the simplest & most effective option open to them in the short term.
    Can somebody who understands this shit (ie not me, I chose my financial advisor because I approved of his car) explain why they can't just let this utterly pointless husk of a company go bust?
    Because the customers still need to be provided with and pay for their Gas and Electric usage and no-one else is in a position to either do so and accept the risk of doing so.

    This is the direct consequence of a cap being set below market rates
    No, it's a direct consequence of a bunch of chancers exploiting a deregulated market and failing to hedge their costs when their revenues were capped.

    The proper suppliers have played a smarter game.
    But the cap makes it impossible for the 'proper suppliers' to take on the customers of your bunch of chancers.
    Why should they take them on? They have hedged based on their requirements for their own customers, not somebody else's.

    Of course, I advocate nationalised utility suppliers, like we used to have. Providing a public service in the supply of essential energy supplies. Not operating a bloody casino.

    I expect that those who set up the suppliers with the oh so clever names made sure that they trousered plenty of cash before the brown stuff hit the fan and the taxpayer is, yet again, left to wipe up the mess.
    The privatised energy ‘system’ is tragedy played as farce. Which raving idiot decided that having a bunch of fake suppliers competing with each to supply exactly the same stream of energy, which is in fact supplied by somebody else, was ever a good idea?

    I’m now on my fourth fake cowboy ‘supplier’ in 12 months. Sick of emails, bills and meter readings. It’s the definition of boring chores.

    Nationalise it FFS.
    Yes, if the product is standard and essential, and if a big supplier of it can't be allowed to go bust in the normal way of a failed commercial enterprise, this is a pointer to something that at the very least should be strongly considered for public ownership. By which I mean the question should be flipped to be, what compelling reason is there for this to be in the private sector?
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,281
    edited November 2021
    HYUFD said:

    CON: 39% (-)
    LAB: 36% (+2)
    LDEM: 10% (+2)
    GRN: 5% (-3)

    via
    @Kantar
    , 18 - 22 Nov
    https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1463816123326115842?s=20

    Labour only up 3% on the general election and the LDs actually down 2%. Interesting, after nearly 12 years of Conservative or Conservative-led government.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sleazy broken Scottish Nationalism on the slide

    A poll by YouGov for The Times finds that 40 per cent of people say they would vote yes in another referendum, a drop of one point compared with the company’s last survey in May.

    The proportion of people who would vote no remained at 46 per cent, while 9 per cent said they were unsure, up by one point. The remainder would not vote or refused to say.



    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/voters-lose-interest-on-union-question-25mzsz3r8

    Astonishing that despite Brexit and PM Boris Sturgeon has actually managed to see Yes fall by 5% below the 45% it got in the 2014 referendum.

    No wonder Salmond and Alba are so furious and of course no prospect of a legal indyref2 under this Tory government either
    The actual Yes figure is 46.5% - which is above the 2014 referendum figure.

    But of course you are muddling figures which include and which exclude DKs.

    Professor Curtice would not be impressed.
    It is 40% including DKs, so in terms of all voters below the 45% from 2014 as I said
    Just to point out the fallacy in this particular variant of HYUFDomathics.

    In an election or referendum, the DKs are ignored.

    To generate an opinion poll result comparable to an election, the DKs have to be excluded fromt he calculation. So only the 40 percentage points for Yes and the 46 percentage points for No are counted.

    The percentages haver to be recalculated eg 40 divided by (40 plus 46) gives 46 and a half true percent. Which is up from 2014.
    No they don't, indeed in 2014 most DKs went No giving No an even bigger lead than final polls.

    So to be accurate you have to include DKs
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    geoffw said:

    eek said:

    MaxPB said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Phil said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    The company has gone into “special administration”. I presume (but can’t find anywhere) that this means the shareholders have been wiped out as they would be in any company that goes into administration. The only difference here is that it’s being kept running in order that people continue to receive gas supply.

    As a country we have a problem - gas prices have just spiked enormously, after being relatively stable for a decade or more. Many, many people rely on gas for heating & cooking. Keeping the gas flowing is therefore a matter of national security.

    Clearly, the only long term solution is for gas prices to rise & people to shift off gas. But quadrupling everyone’s gas bills right now is going to cause havoc - I can see why the government has decided that re-nationalising the gas supply industry is the simplest & most effective option open to them in the short term.
    Can somebody who understands this shit (ie not me, I chose my financial advisor because I approved of his car) explain why they can't just let this utterly pointless husk of a company go bust?
    The idiotic energy price cap.
    The cap is largely irrelevant. Think Northern Rock. The problem is buying short and selling long. When the short-term price peaks, Bulb (or NR) is stuffed. And as with Northern Rock, the political cost of letting consumers take the hit is too great.

    It can be seen as a failure of regulation but apparently PB Tories only see these when Labour is in office. And the only reason for mentioning the cap is so the Tory spin team can blame Ed Miliband for Conservative legislation.
    The cap isn't irrelevant. Suppose you are supplying 1m homes and you are told to supply another 200,000? How do you do that except by buying at the current variable market rate.

    Now Bulb may have had a strange (to you) business model of dynamic price changes to reflect the current market price but 1.7million customers liked that business model, it wasn't illegal and it made sense to people who I suspect were market savvy.

    The issue really is a very simple one, the cap needs to reflect current market prices and it very clearly doesn't - and equally those people who are happy to be on a dynamic pricing model should have been left on it sans cap.
    Interesting. I didn't know that Bulb sold at very variable rates. The cap basically makes their model impossible.

    Different situation to the unhedged cowboys.
    Same situation. If you sell to consumers over the long term at any price below the cap, you need to make sure you can buy the stuff at lower prices over the same long term.
    Lets say all the companies buying gas have hedged to buy long at a capped cost.

    The problem at the moment is lack of supply. Who gets cut off first?
    Industrial users - initially those on interruptible contracts.
    German industry is increasingly worried about this, loads of them expect to have to shut down in December and January because gas supplies will be diverted to heating people's houses.
  • When we people say we have to work with the French, are we going to send in riot police to help the Gendarmes break up makeshift camps in Dunkirk? That seems to be what being a "transit country" as Macron just described it means..

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-europe-59410982
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,771
    In news that will surprise exactly no one, early reviews suggest that Peter Jackson's Get Back is far too long.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    edited November 2021

    Nigelb said:

    eek said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Phil said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    The company has gone into “special administration”. I presume (but can’t find anywhere) that this means the shareholders have been wiped out as they would be in any company that goes into administration. The only difference here is that it’s being kept running in order that people continue to receive gas supply.

    As a country we have a problem - gas prices have just spiked enormously, after being relatively stable for a decade or more. Many, many people rely on gas for heating & cooking. Keeping the gas flowing is therefore a matter of national security.

    Clearly, the only long term solution is for gas prices to rise & people to shift off gas. But quadrupling everyone’s gas bills right now is going to cause havoc - I can see why the government has decided that re-nationalising the gas supply industry is the simplest & most effective option open to them in the short term.
    Can somebody who understands this shit (ie not me, I chose my financial advisor because I approved of his car) explain why they can't just let this utterly pointless husk of a company go bust?
    Because the customers still need to be provided with and pay for their Gas and Electric usage and no-one else is in a position to either do so and accept the risk of doing so.

    This is the direct consequence of a cap being set below market rates
    No, it's a direct consequence of a bunch of chancers exploiting a deregulated market and failing to hedge their costs when their revenues were capped.

    The proper suppliers have played a smarter game.
    But the cap makes it impossible for the 'proper suppliers' to take on the customers of your bunch of chancers.
    Why should they take them on? They have hedged based on their requirements for their own customers, not somebody else's.

    Of course, I advocate nationalised utility suppliers, like we used to have. Providing a public service in the supply of essential energy supplies. Not operating a bloody casino.

    I expect that those who set up the suppliers with the oh so clever names made sure that they trousered plenty of cash before the brown stuff hit the fan and the taxpayer is, yet again, left to wipe up the mess.
    The privatised energy ‘system’ is tragedy played as farce. Which raving idiot decided that having a bunch of fake suppliers competing with each to supply exactly the same stream of energy, which is in fact supplied by somebody else, was ever a good idea?

    Nationalise it FFS.
    I remember when utilities, the railways, car manufacturers et al were "nationalised". Also, more laughably known as "in public ownership". They were all totally and utterly shit. And sorry, for all their faults, much much shitter than they are today. The man in Whitehall really does not know best.
    If you don't me asking, how old are you - there's a generation; and I'd include myself in this being 40 that has no idea how good or bad stuff was under nationalisation because we've never simply never experienced it.

    Again no comment on the virtues or otherwise of nationalisation vs privatisation - just a note that younger people will have any clue who the likes of Red Robbo and Scargill were.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603

    Nigelb said:

    eek said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Phil said:

    ping said:

    Jeez. £1.7bn of taxpayers money to keep bulb running.

    Outrageous.

    The solution is simple. Ditch the cap to keep these companies solvent. If the govt is going to spend money, it should be on protecting the poorest via UC, not directly subsidising energy bills.

    The company has gone into “special administration”. I presume (but can’t find anywhere) that this means the shareholders have been wiped out as they would be in any company that goes into administration. The only difference here is that it’s being kept running in order that people continue to receive gas supply.

    As a country we have a problem - gas prices have just spiked enormously, after being relatively stable for a decade or more. Many, many people rely on gas for heating & cooking. Keeping the gas flowing is therefore a matter of national security.

    Clearly, the only long term solution is for gas prices to rise & people to shift off gas. But quadrupling everyone’s gas bills right now is going to cause havoc - I can see why the government has decided that re-nationalising the gas supply industry is the simplest & most effective option open to them in the short term.
    Can somebody who understands this shit (ie not me, I chose my financial advisor because I approved of his car) explain why they can't just let this utterly pointless husk of a company go bust?
    Because the customers still need to be provided with and pay for their Gas and Electric usage and no-one else is in a position to either do so and accept the risk of doing so.

    This is the direct consequence of a cap being set below market rates
    No, it's a direct consequence of a bunch of chancers exploiting a deregulated market and failing to hedge their costs when their revenues were capped.

    The proper suppliers have played a smarter game.
    But the cap makes it impossible for the 'proper suppliers' to take on the customers of your bunch of chancers.
    Why should they take them on? They have hedged based on their requirements for their own customers, not somebody else's.

    Of course, I advocate nationalised utility suppliers, like we used to have. Providing a public service in the supply of essential energy supplies. Not operating a bloody casino.

    I expect that those who set up the suppliers with the oh so clever names made sure that they trousered plenty of cash before the brown stuff hit the fan and the taxpayer is, yet again, left to wipe up the mess.
    The privatised energy ‘system’ is tragedy played as farce. Which raving idiot decided that having a bunch of fake suppliers competing with each to supply exactly the same stream of energy, which is in fact supplied by somebody else, was ever a good idea?

    I’m now on my fourth fake cowboy ‘supplier’ in 12 months. Sick of emails, bills and meter readings. It’s the definition of boring chores.

    Nationalise it FFS.
    The issue is the energy price cap, companies are unable to charge the market rate, Bulb specifically only has a single standard variable rate tariff. The reason they went bankrupt is because they were unable to push that variable rate up to the market rate for gas. Get rid of the price cap and a lot of the problems in the sector go away. It was and remains a terrible policy. It was shit what Ed Miliband proposed it and it was shit when Theresa May implemented it and it's shit today. A completely unnecessary distortion of the market that will simply see companies gold under the weight of losses vs wholesale price gas.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,249
    rcs1000 said:

    boulay said:

    On the news just now they announced that a 5th person has been arrested in France Re the boat people who died.

    How is it that the French authorities can within 24 hours arrest 5 people, they must have enough evidence of their involvement, and not use that intelligence they must have had to arrest them before on people trafficking offences?

    It’s another key question I have is why does there not seem to be a big enough intelligence effort to infiltrate the gangs or process to stop these gangs in the same way they target drugs gangs?

    France is following a perfectly sane policy (and which is the same as the policy in both Switzerland and Norway) of encouraging asylum seekers to self deport.

    If an asylum seeker in Northern Ireland was walking towards the Irish border, should we tackle him to the ground to prevent him leaving the country?
    Yes, we should and would tackle him, if he was carrying a child and crossing potentially lethal water

    That's the difference. The French are callously allowing children to die, to rid themselves of a problem. There are videos of armed police standing by, in broad daylight, doing nothing, as the migrants climb into the boats - with kids

    The cops claim they are intimidated by "the numbers" but it is bollocks. They have guns, the migrants don't.

    Sure they can't stop every boat, but they aren't even trying
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 12,415
    edited November 2021
    Andy_JS said:

    HYUFD said:

    CON: 39% (-)
    LAB: 36% (+2)
    LDEM: 10% (+2)
    GRN: 5% (-3)

    via
    @Kantar
    , 18 - 22 Nov
    https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1463816123326115842?s=20

    Labour only up 3% on the general election and the LDs actually down 2%. Interesting, after nearly 12 years of Conservative or Conservative-led government.
    For the benefit of comparing like with like

    14 to 19 Oct Kantar had it
    39% 34% 8
    23-27 Sept
    43% 30% 11

    The take out there is Kantar finding more Labour support each time they poll?
This discussion has been closed.