40yrs of neo-liberal deregulation and here we sit. Being told by the BoE to get used to a lower standard of living because nothing must be allowed to stand in the way of companies making as much profit as they can.
This shouldn’t be a windfall tax as the government will just squander the money, they should be made to pay it directly back to their customers through gas and electricity bill refunds..oil is a bit more tricky but I’m sure something could be worked out at the pump such as a 10% discount card for everyone and government monitoring of price fixing at the forecourt..
It really is a disgrace how much price gouging energy companies are engaging in.
What is their policy again? A windfall tax and freezing bills at sky high levels.
They like to moan, but they don’t really have any solutions. Bunch of awful middle managers.
Never understood the UK’s wider hatred of corporate profits, it’s almost taboo. The deal is businesses make more money and pay more tax from a fixed tax rate which fills the coffers, but for some reason we just try and loot their profits when we run out of money to pay for a generous public sector in a country with terrible skills shortages and relying on immigrants to do all the real work. Things just get worse and we get more desperate to tax them more and push them further away.
On the energy front, if the price of something goes up and costs a certain amount to produce, you are going to see more profit. I think these people are ridiculously out of touch with the real world, gone are the days of Blair where we could pretend we were world police. If you want to solve the issue stop treating Russia how we are treating them, that’s the only way to deal with this.
(50 % sarcasm)
Strange, I didn’t know that Britain was at war. Oh wait…
Who does she think kicks these things off, Shell and BP must be the biggest customers of the Foreign Office.
Halliburton -> Produce drilling equipment and “special services” -> Hire Dick Cheney as CEO -> Send him back to the White House to invade and sanction every oil producing country in the world.
Well, isn’t this quite the spectacle? Energy companies reaping ‘war profits’ from the sky-high oil and gas prices, while average families scrape together pennies to keep the lights on. This windfall tax the government implemented is nothing more than a half-hearted band-aid attempting to staunch a haemorrhaging wound. It’s as if they’re trying to quench a forest fire with a watering can.
In all honesty, we need to face the cold, hard truth: laissez-faire capitalism is crumbling when it comes to essential utilities. And this cherry-picked windfall tax is akin to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
Perhaps the Labour party should shift gears, stop dilly-dallying, and put forth a policy of price controls.
The elephant in the room is that the soaring energy prices are the primary culprit behind this rampant inflation and the potential collapse of our economy. We are in desperate need of radical measures, not some symbolic gestures of appeasement, hoping that this monumental crisis will magically resolve itself.
Change how electricity prices work.
Producing cheap renewable electricity and forcing everyone to sell it at the same price as expensive electricity generated by gas is what is causing the massive profits.
The markup is huge.
British gas made about £6 profit per domestic energy customer last year. It’s not as simple as people are making out.
In that case as we are very deeply engaged in proxy World War 3 would the oil companies mind paying a bit more tax to pay for all the aid we are giving to Ukraine ?
Perhaps it’s time to have a national coalition war cabinet, with a minister for war. While we’re at it we could have one for the climate crisis?
Can we just have a government that takes things seriously and collects some tax?
With heating and leccy bills having almost trebled.. all that money ends up in someone’s pockets
12 comments
40yrs of neo-liberal deregulation and here we sit. Being told by the BoE to get used to a lower standard of living because nothing must be allowed to stand in the way of companies making as much profit as they can.
This shouldn’t be a windfall tax as the government will just squander the money, they should be made to pay it directly back to their customers through gas and electricity bill refunds..oil is a bit more tricky but I’m sure something could be worked out at the pump such as a 10% discount card for everyone and government monitoring of price fixing at the forecourt..
It really is a disgrace how much price gouging energy companies are engaging in.
What is their policy again? A windfall tax and freezing bills at sky high levels.
They like to moan, but they don’t really have any solutions. Bunch of awful middle managers.
Never understood the UK’s wider hatred of corporate profits, it’s almost taboo. The deal is businesses make more money and pay more tax from a fixed tax rate which fills the coffers, but for some reason we just try and loot their profits when we run out of money to pay for a generous public sector in a country with terrible skills shortages and relying on immigrants to do all the real work. Things just get worse and we get more desperate to tax them more and push them further away.
On the energy front, if the price of something goes up and costs a certain amount to produce, you are going to see more profit. I think these people are ridiculously out of touch with the real world, gone are the days of Blair where we could pretend we were world police. If you want to solve the issue stop treating Russia how we are treating them, that’s the only way to deal with this.
(50 % sarcasm)
Strange, I didn’t know that Britain was at war. Oh wait…
Who does she think kicks these things off, Shell and BP must be the biggest customers of the Foreign Office.
Halliburton -> Produce drilling equipment and “special services” -> Hire Dick Cheney as CEO -> Send him back to the White House to invade and sanction every oil producing country in the world.
Well, isn’t this quite the spectacle? Energy companies reaping ‘war profits’ from the sky-high oil and gas prices, while average families scrape together pennies to keep the lights on. This windfall tax the government implemented is nothing more than a half-hearted band-aid attempting to staunch a haemorrhaging wound. It’s as if they’re trying to quench a forest fire with a watering can.
In all honesty, we need to face the cold, hard truth: laissez-faire capitalism is crumbling when it comes to essential utilities. And this cherry-picked windfall tax is akin to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
Perhaps the Labour party should shift gears, stop dilly-dallying, and put forth a policy of price controls.
The elephant in the room is that the soaring energy prices are the primary culprit behind this rampant inflation and the potential collapse of our economy. We are in desperate need of radical measures, not some symbolic gestures of appeasement, hoping that this monumental crisis will magically resolve itself.
Change how electricity prices work.
Producing cheap renewable electricity and forcing everyone to sell it at the same price as expensive electricity generated by gas is what is causing the massive profits.
The markup is huge.
British gas made about £6 profit per domestic energy customer last year. It’s not as simple as people are making out.
In that case as we are very deeply engaged in proxy World War 3 would the oil companies mind paying a bit more tax to pay for all the aid we are giving to Ukraine ?
Perhaps it’s time to have a national coalition war cabinet, with a minister for war. While we’re at it we could have one for the climate crisis?
Can we just have a government that takes things seriously and collects some tax?
With heating and leccy bills having almost trebled.. all that money ends up in someone’s pockets