A court ruling has demonstrated the real trickle-down effect: spreading costs not profit.
The ruling, reported in the i, declared that businesses were mis-sold energy contracts after the deregulation of the UK energy market in 2000.
A chilling consequence is that energy companies are now warning they may raise prices for domestic customers – to cover the fallout. That is clearly unfair to domestic customers and shows how the consequences of poor regulation can trickle down.
Notice those last two words? This case is a stark example of how, far too often, the real “trickle-down” effect in our economy isn’t about wealth or prosperity—but about risk, cost, and failure being passed to ordinary people.
Buy Cruel Britannia in print here. Buy the Cruel Britannia ebook here. Or just click on the image!
Deregulation is often sold as a way to boost efficiency, drive innovation, and reduce prices through competition. But this case makes clear what happens when deregulation is paired with weak oversight: companies prioritise profits, transparency suffers, and the public ends up footing the bill for corporate mistakes.
The original promise of trickle-down economics—that benefits given to the top will flow down to everyone else—rarely materialises (can you think of a time when it ever did?) – but what do reliably trickle down are the consequences.
When the system breaks, it isn’t shareholders or executives who bear the burden. It’s the millions of households already struggling with high bills and squeezed wages.
If this is the model being pushed forward in other sectors, as Labour leader Keir Starmer seems to suggest in his openness to deregulation in post-Brexit Britain, then it demands much more scrutiny than it is currently getting.
Deregulation without strong consumer protection is not a route to fairness—it’s a fast track to a system where even more profits are privatised and costs are socialised.
We should stop pretending that the benefits of deregulation are shared equally. What we’re seeing, time and again, is that the risks are.
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The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
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The real trickle-down effect: spreading costs not profit
A court ruling has demonstrated the real trickle-down effect: spreading costs not profit.
The ruling, reported in the i, declared that businesses were mis-sold energy contracts after the deregulation of the UK energy market in 2000.
A chilling consequence is that energy companies are now warning they may raise prices for domestic customers – to cover the fallout. That is clearly unfair to domestic customers and shows how the consequences of poor regulation can trickle down.
Notice those last two words? This case is a stark example of how, far too often, the real “trickle-down” effect in our economy isn’t about wealth or prosperity—but about risk, cost, and failure being passed to ordinary people.
Buy Cruel Britannia in print here. Buy the Cruel Britannia ebook here. Or just click on the image!
Deregulation is often sold as a way to boost efficiency, drive innovation, and reduce prices through competition. But this case makes clear what happens when deregulation is paired with weak oversight: companies prioritise profits, transparency suffers, and the public ends up footing the bill for corporate mistakes.
The original promise of trickle-down economics—that benefits given to the top will flow down to everyone else—rarely materialises (can you think of a time when it ever did?) – but what do reliably trickle down are the consequences.
When the system breaks, it isn’t shareholders or executives who bear the burden. It’s the millions of households already struggling with high bills and squeezed wages.
If this is the model being pushed forward in other sectors, as Labour leader Keir Starmer seems to suggest in his openness to deregulation in post-Brexit Britain, then it demands much more scrutiny than it is currently getting.
Deregulation without strong consumer protection is not a route to fairness—it’s a fast track to a system where even more profits are privatised and costs are socialised.
We should stop pretending that the benefits of deregulation are shared equally. What we’re seeing, time and again, is that the risks are.
Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:
Be among the first to know what’s going on! Here are the ways to manage it:
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (bottom right of the home page). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical
3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/
Join the Vox Political Facebook page.
4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com
5) Follow Vox Political writer Mike Sivier on BlueSky
6) Join the MeWe page at https://mewe.com/p-front/voxpolitical
7) Feel free to comment!
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.
Cruel Britannia is available
in either print or eBook format here:
The Livingstone Presumption is available
in either print or eBook format here:
Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:
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