The outlook is beyond grim …

 

There’s only one issue in today’s dead-tree-press: the rise in energy bills. The headlines are apocalyptic, with The Mirror wailing at the government: “Do Something” (link). Yes, it’s bad, and yes, the outlook according to ‘experts’ is terrible. 

It must be even worse when the still ‘working’ Chancellor, Mr Zahawi, told the DT that people on ‘middle incomes’ also would need help:

“​​Middle-earners on salaries of £45,000 will need help from the Government to pay their energy bills, the Chancellor warned on Friday. In an interview with the Telegraph 11 days before the new Prime Minister takes office, Nadhim Zahawi said that support cannot be confined to families on benefits and added that gas prices could remain punishingly high for two years.” (paywalled link)

In a similar vein of warnings, The Times tells their readers that “Britain is facing a year of double-digit inflation as soaring energy bills wipe out the savings of millions of households, economists have warned.” (link, paywalled) while the Guardian is even deeper into ‘disaster’ warnings when they write: 

“Millions of households are bracing for a winter catastrophe of rising energy bills that experts say will plunge people into destitution and cause an increase in avoidable deaths without urgent government support. […] The poorest single adults would, [the Rowntree Trust] said, see their finances wiped out by “stratospheric” energy bills representing 120% of their income after housing costs, leaving many destitute.” (link)

For the Red Tops, the DM, as always, provides the best summary in their headlines:

“Britain’s Big Squeeze ‘is going to REALLY clobber the middle class’: Chancellor Zahawi warns households on £45,000 could struggle with soaring living costs amid fears 80% energy price cap hike will wipe out savings of SIX MILLION families” (link)

You might like to read the whole thing since it’s a non-paywalled copy, more or less, of Mr Zahawi’s interview with the DT. In summary, the situation is terrible: we ordinary people will become utterly impoverished and some will die.

Cynical old cow that I am, I’m very much reminded of the MSM articles in the first months of the covid years when total lockdown was the ‘solution’. That virus was like an ‘Act of God’ and nobody could do anything about it except comply if they wanted to save their lives – and protect yon Sacred Cow. Moreover, the whole of the World was affected … well, as it turned out later, Africa wasn’t really, nor India, while China took extraordinary measures which our SAGEs gleefully copied. 

This time round China and India aren’t affected because they experience no energy ‘crisis’: they haven’t sanctioned Russia and are receiving gas, coal and petrol at discount prices. Rumour in some German MSM has it that India is selling the oil they buy from Russia at a mark-up to Germany. So – not really an ‘Act of God’, is it!

Of course, ‘experts’ are again in forecasting mode, just as during the covid years. See this:

“The regulator Ofgem announced yesterday that the energy price cap would rise from £1,971 to £3,549 a year on October 1, with analysts forecasting further rises to above £5,000 in January and as much as £7,000 in April. […] An additional 2.2 million households are expected to run out of savings by 2024, taking the total who face fuel poverty to more than 6 million.” (link, paywalled)

Why is it that the Westminster MSM, think tanks and ‘experts’, seem to accept this rise in energy prices and energy bills as if it were another ‘Act of God’? Why is it that they demand that ‘government must do something’ – the something being more hand-outs from the Treasury, as if nobody would need to pay them back with higher taxes?

Moreover, how come that government ‘sources’ are disquietingly quiet and that politicians have been silent, as the Speccie bemoans in their email newsletter last evening:

“Why has the government been so quiet today? Normally when there’s a news story with the kind of tangible implications for people like today’s energy price cap hike, ministers are everywhere. And not just on the day of the announcement, but in the week running up to it.  But with the current government, it was too much even to send a minister out to do broadcast in the immediate aftermath of the Ofgem announcement this morning that the energy price cap is going up a jaw-dropping 80 per cent.“(speccie email newsletter, 27/8/22)

It’s not just the government or Tory politicians being AWOL, the Guardian had a dithering little report yesterday, that Starmer’s proposal to freeze the current price cap, was sadly underfunded according to ‘Fact Check’. So Labour is now attacking that entity (link) rather than asking, for example, to scrap VAT and green crap surcharges. Oh dear.

Moreover, it’s not just politicians washing their hands, it’s Ofgem as well. See this observation in a DT opinion piece:

“Perhaps Ofgem boss Jonathan Brearley has concluded, not unfairly, that he could soon be out of the door and is determined to go out fighting. “The Government needs to act urgently and decisively to address the situation,” he said, which is as good as saying he has given up trying to.” (paywalled link)

No one in the Westminster cabal even asks why prices will stay sky-high. It’s as if they have accepted this as the ‘new normal’. Remember the outcry when La Truss proposed windfall taxes? Only a month ago we learned that profits for Centrica (British Gas) and Shell ‘soared’ (link). Only a month ago the FT reported:

“Centrica has called on the UK government to support households hammered by the energy crisis despite the owner of British Gas reinstating its dividend for the first time since 2020 and its profits surging fivefold.” (link). 

It’s as if this is now just another ‘new normal’ about which nothing can be done. Yesterday evening Neil McCoy-Ward resumed publishing his videos (link) and remarked in an aside that it was quite remarkable how the profits of energy firms rose in tandem with Ofgem price caps. Again – nothing can be done about this, not when Ofgem’s chief, Mr Brearley, believes it’s not for him to interfere in ‘high’ politics, saying that

“[…] high energy prices could be here to stay and laid the blame on Russia for “slowly and deliberately turning off the gas to Europe. […] We do need to be prepared for a world where this does last some time.” (link, paywalled)

Isn’t it amazing how Ofgem and the rest hide their failings behind the argument that it’s all “because: Putin!” Now add another reason to the excuse that nothing can be done (my emphasis):

“[Ofgem’s]  failings by now are fairly well understood but a decision to allow the price cap to change every three months, essentially to protect the cash flows of suppliers, was surely the worst. It is customers that need shielding the most, not the industry.” (paywalled link)

Indeed – but here’s the snag: Whitehall, Tory, Labour are not going to remove the precious VAT, never mind green surcharges. Above all, none of them will even think about removing the sanctions against Russia. They would rather see millions become utterly impoverished, they’d rather preen in front of the MSM with ludicrous ‘advice’ about not using warm showers, never mind full baths, but just use a wash flannel. They would rather we all stayed at home, not using our cars, to ‘save petrol’. Oh – with rising electricity bills how much will running those precious electric cars cost? 

Just as with covid, we peasants are told to suck it up, to accept inflation as a ‘new normal’ fact of life, to accept losing our savings, to accept freezing in winter and become ill. They seem to think that we’re now well-trained lemmings who do as they tell us to. Perhaps cowering at home isn’t such a bad thing though, given the rise in muggings and burglaries which the police is disinclined to do anything about.

The outlook is beyond grim indeed because those who are responsible for running this country have abdicated their responsibilities. Better enjoy this last Bank Holiday weekend: winter is coming … hopefully not as harsh as the one a dozen years ago …



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