If high energy prices are the new normal many of us will freeze
Winter 2024-25 looks like it’s going to be a cold one, meaning if high energy prices are the new normal many of us will freeze – and Yr Obdt Srvt here at Vox Political may be one of them.
Prices are likely to rise again, despite the wholesale cost of buying energy remaining relatively low. Apparently it’s because higher interest rates approved by the Bank of England mean the cost of investing in renewable energy sources has increased (cue tiresome Tories bleating about sticking with fossil fuels, despite the harm to the environment and climate change).
Most people won’t care about that. Families with children, disabled people, pensioners (due to the loss of the Winter Fuel Payment) and those of us on benefits will either freeze or starve while greedy energy companies take our money.
According to the BBC, the average bill will rise to “£1,738, or £21 a year more, with bills now over 50% higher than pre-Covid levels”. So a household bill is expected to rise by £1.75 per month. But that doesn’t account for the effects of a colder winter; it is only the cost per unit of energy that is capped by the regulater Ofgem, so if we have to use more units of energy, our bills will rise above that level.
The cost of the electricity and gas we use is only 42 per cent of the bill, you know. I, for one, would like to know how the other 58 per cent is spent. How much of it is profit for fatcat investors?
This Writer’s own bill has tripled since the summer – according to what I’m seeing on my meter – from £1 per day to £3 – of which £1.83 is the so-called standing charge, the cost we all have to pay, simply to be connected to the national grid.
And I’m really careful with what I spend.
To illustrate: I’m currently writing this on a laptop, sitting on my sofa, wrapped in an oodie and under a blanket, with a hot water bottle for more warmth. The heating is off.
Ambient temperature in the room is very low. If I pull down the hood of my oodie, my ears feel the cold straight away.
I fear what will happen in the future – especially with social media platforms stamping down hard on political writers like myself so you don’t get to read my articles and advertisers are disincentivised from supporting the site.
And I’m an extremely capable, resourceful member of society!
I ask myself how much worse it may be for people with less ability to look after themselves. As human beings, we have the ability to plan for the future – but also to anticipate forthcoming circumstances that could harm us badly. That can lead some of us to despair and to self-harm.
And the simple fact is that the UK is a rich country. Nobody here should be unable to afford warmth and nutrition – heat and food – over the winter.
The fact that we are is a failure of leadership. Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves should think hard on that – but I doubt it will cross their minds for a moment, in their warm, cossetted ministerial comfort.
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it’s like the winter of discontent but with the colder feeling it’s full circle for me waking up to ice in your bedroom now being revisited by our lovely government how many are going to die that be a count they won’t want