Category Archives: Cost of living

Energy bills: look out! The rip-off lies are coming thick and fast

Energy prices: don’t be fooled – your bill is still going to be high. But with wholesale prices at their lowest in four years, ask your supplier why.

Before you do anything else, watch this – it’s Martin Lewis explaining what the energy price cap change in July will actually mean to you:

So the first thing you need to know is that the drop in average bills from £2,500 to £2,074 is meaningless to you because you’re probably not paying the average. You would be better-off looking at it as a 17 per cent fall and working out what that means for your personal bill – after removing the standing charges, of course.

Yes, the standing charges are remaining the same, meaning you’ll pay around £300 next year, just to be able to have electricity and gas in your home. So people using less energy can’t save much by cutting their usage.

There is a consultation on the possibility of cutting the standing charge but we need to remember that our energy firms are greedy and will do their best to keep prices as high as possible, no matter what that means to you.

In the autumn and winter, bills are likely to rise again, we’re being told. This strikes me as strange, because the energy firms buy their fuel “many months in advance”. Note that we aren’t being told how many months in advance they buy it.

If, for example, it’s seven months, then in December the price of energy should be the cheapest it’s been in two years, because of this:

Energy firms have historically claimed that they “smooth out” the fluctuating cost of their product by averaging out the price over a long period of time, as well.

But This Writer has doubts when energy analysts like Cornwall Insight say further price cuts are unlikely, especially if there’s a cold winter and the UK has to compete with other countries to buy fuel.

I thought we were supposed to be buying our fuel months, or even years, in advance.

So shouldn’t the energy price this winter be extremely low?

I think we need explicit clarity on this – I mean actual, black-and-white figures showing exactly what electricity and gas have been costing the energy firms, exactly how they’ve been “smoothing out” that cost (and between what dates) and why they are apparently failing to pass on the current savings.

How are their profits at the moment? What are they projected to be over the next year?

It seems to me that we – the consumers – are being ripped off brazenly.

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New energy price limit to be set in five days. Why is it still going to be sky-high?

Wholesale gas prices are now cheaper than before the Russia-Ukraine war pushed them through the roof.

That fall in prices should be reflected in the cost to the consumer, of course:

But it won’t.

The article states:

Households should also expect their energy bills to remain stubbornly high through the coming winter, at almost double the rates paid in 2020, and remain above pre-pandemic levels for the rest of the decade, according to analysts at Cornwall Insight.

Prices are not expected to return to pre-2020 levels until the end of the decade at the earliest – but no reason is given for that.

It is a fair point that energy sources are bought months in advance of their use, meaning that the current price falls will still take a few months to come to bear on our bills.

But this means that our bills should be capped at £1,000 or less by the end of 2023.

But they won’t. Why not?

Is this the privatised water fiasco being played out with a different national utility?

Water isn’t rare (yet) but the system was privatised on the understanding that bills would become cheaper and investment would go into modernising the water/sewage network and neither of those things have happened.

Instead, £66 billion have been taken from the public (we all need water) and given to shareholders as profit, while the privatised firms have gone around £54 billion into debt. Absolutely no effort has gone into modernising the network at all.

Now, the outcry over the pumping of sewage into our waterways has forced the water firms to agree they will modernise the system – at a cost of £10 billion (so, much less than has been given away to shareholders, and therefore an amount that could have been withheld from their dividends) that will be paid by water customers.

Clearly, greed has overtaken service provision in the boardrooms of the water firms.

Moving back to the energy firms: they have been making money hand over fist in the time since energy prices hit the roof. I’m not sure I understand how they have managed this.

If wholesale prices are coming down below what they were immediately before the Russia-Ukraine war, then it seems likely those profits will evaporate.

How do they keep the money flowing in? The answer seems clear: keep the price to the consumer artificially high.

That, I think, is the reason energy prices to the consumer will remain high, despite the cost to the companies coming down.

Ofgem, the regulator, has a responsibility to set a cap on energy prices, so it would be reasonable to ask what’s going on there.

If it isn’t going to hold the companies to their duty – providing energy to the public in the most cost-effective way possible – shouldn’t it be replaced by an organisation that will?

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Sunak meeting food producers won’t stop the main cause of rising prices: GREED

Rishi Sunak: he’s full of avarice and so are the supermarket bosses.

Rishi Sunak met around 70 food industry leaders at Downing Street today (May 16) to discuss ways to bring down the cost of food. It won’t do any good.

Food inflation rate in the UK, March 2015-December 2022.

The BBC News article about the meeting featured a lot of bleeding-heart talk by the people who create the actual food, saying their operational and shipping costs have increased hugely.

It doesn’t mention the fact that supermarket chains like Tesco hugely increased their profits last year.

Tesco profits between 2015-22.

Sainsbury profits 2014-15 to 2021-22.

There is no monitoring of cost prices and selling prices of food sold in supermarkets – and profit margins keep rising. This, in turn keeps inflation high.

Meanwhile, politically-motivated pundits like Ann Widdecombe on the BBC’s Politics Live tell us that it is demands for wages to rise in line with costs that triggers high inflation. This is not true – it’s just a lie to keep you poor.

Sunak won’t do the necessary, of course. Regulation is anathema to a Conservative.

High inflation, coupled with low wages, means he can get away with a bigger lie – claiming that public services (including the NHS) are not affordable.

In a balanced economy, in which the proceeds of the economy were shared fairly between business owners, executives and employees, so that everybody was able to pay a fair share towards the public good, we could have our public services and cheap, nutritious food.

We don’t get it for a simple reason: Rishi Sunak and his government don’t want us to have it.

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The UK electricity bill is the highest in the entire world

So now we know. All Rishi Sunak’s talk about working hard to get our energy bills down has been silly nonsense.

The UK has the highest electricity bills, not just in Europe or the West, but in the World.

Worse still, the UK had the third-sharpest increase in electricity prices worldwide, over the last five years.

The 35 per cent increase suggests that prices were already high before pressure from events like the Russia-Ukraine war pushed them up further.

And that suggests government mismanagement. It should be a national government’s duty to make sure its citizens get the best value for money when they pay utility bills.

Wasn’t that what privatisation was about – at least in part (the other part being investment in improving the infrastructure)?

New research reveals that the UK has the highest electricity bills. Brits pay more for their power than anywhere else on the planet.

There’s only one logical conclusion: global issues didn’t make the real difference – Tory government decisions have forced up the cost of living in the UK to breaking point.

Source: Revealed: Brits are paying the highest electricity bills in the entire world

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Greedflation again as Shell posts £7.7bn profits for just THREE MONTHS

The astonishing level of oil giant Shell’s profits for the first three months of this year is appalling enough, when you consider the extortionate prices that corporation charges for its products.

Add in the fact that this money will be handed out to corporate executives and shareholders, and we see that the Tory talk about pay rises for nurses and doctors (for example) being inflationary is bunkum; the fatcats are raking it in and we see no inflationary pressure:

Some say that this profit is a good thing, because much of it goes into pension funds for (as an example) nurses.

But of course, nurses could contribute more to their own pension funds if they weren’t forced to pay huge energy bills. And the dividends do go to private shareholders as well.

Others have tried to be smart by asking how much of this profit has been generated in the UK. The answer, though, is simple: too much. UK prices are higher than elsewhere, remember – and with no real need for it any more.

So this is a nasty example of the bane of Britain in the 2020s: Greedflation.

The major corporations are charging whatever they like for their products – especially the privatised former public utilities, who know they operate monopolies in particular parts of the UK.

There is no relationship between what they are charging for their products and the cost of providing them.

But the price they charge puts up the cost of living. People have to pay, otherwise they lose the service.

The result? UK inflation has gone through the roof.

And what are the Tories doing about it? They are victim-blaming.

Working people who are struggling to cope are calling for pay rises to accommodate these huge, greed-driven increases in the prices they have to pay, simply to survive.

And ministers in the Tory government are saying they would be responsible for inflation if they receive those increases.

That claim is – well, it’s what Peter Stefanovic describes it as, in this clip:

If you haven’t voted yet, then please take this into account if/when you do. And remember that Labour wouldn’t increase wages either!

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As others see us: German magazine offers depressing verdict on the UK

Need a miracle: after 13 years of Tory government, so does most of the United Kingdom.

The German magazine Der Spiegel (The Mirror) has offered readers in that country a depressing summary of life in the UK – with predictions of worse to come:

Food shortages, moldy apartments, a lack of medical workers: The United Kingdom is facing a perfect storm of struggle, and millions are sliding into poverty. There is little to suggest that improvement will come anytime soon.

Things aren’t going well for the United Kingdom these days. For the past several months, the flow of bad news has been constant, the country’s coffers are empty, public administration is ineffective and the nation’s corporations are struggling. As this winter came to an end, more than 7 million people were waiting for a doctor’s appointment, including tens of thousands of people suffering from heart disease and cancer. According to government estimates, some 650,000 legal cases are still waiting to be addressed in a court of law. And those needing a passport or driver’s license must frequently wait for several months.

Boarded up windows and signs reading “To Let” and “To Rent” have become a common sight on the country’s high streets, while numerous products have disappeared from supermarket shelves. Recently, a number of chains announced that they would be rationing cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers for the foreseeable future.

Last year, 560 pubs closed their doors forever, with thousands more soon to follow, according to the industry association. Without Oxfam, the Salvation Army and other charitable organizations that operate second-hand stores, numerous city centers would have almost no shops left at all.

Last week, the International Monetary Fund forecast that in no other industrialized nation would the economy develop as poorly as in Britain this year. Even Russia is expected to end up ahead of the UK.

Whereas the number of billionaires in the UK – at 177 – is higher than it has ever been, millions of Britons have slid into poverty. Newspapers and television channels are full of cheap recipes and shows like Jamie Oliver’s “£1 Wonders.” Since December, hardly a day has passed without a strike by bus drivers, medical workers, teachers, public servants, university employees or rail workers. Last week, assistant doctors across the country went on strike for four days, with the media calling on the populace to avoid all activities that could result in injury.

Nowhere is the feeling of having “lost the future” stronger than in Britain, according to the public opinion pollsters from Ipsos. In 2008, the year of the banking and financial crisis, 12 percent of people in the UK believed that their children would be worse off than them. Now, that number is 41 percent, Ipsos has found.

The magazine doesn’t mince words when discussing responsibility for the crisis. It’s down to the Conservative government in general – and Boris Johnson in particular, it seems:

Many simply no longer trust their speechifying politicians in Westminster to get much done. The Tory party, which has been in power now for a dozen years, has gone through four prime ministers since 2016 alone.

Even if the fifth in the series, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, is doing all he can to leave behind the period of sloganeering and slapstick, the UK isn’t likely to recover from his predecessors any time soon. Particularly not from Boris Johnson, who still refuses to admit any personal responsibility for the plight in which Britain finds itself and continues to bleat in a huff from the sidelines.

Even as his country slid further and further into the abyss, Johnson spent years absorbing all political momentum like a black hole, instead throwing his energy into projects like bringing back imperial measurements, announcing his intent to build a sinfully expensive royal yacht named Britannia and convincing the populace that he was building a “global,” or even a “galactic Britain,” a reference to the country’s budding space program.

Yet in early January, when the first 11 satellites ever to be launched from British soil were to head into space from Cornwall, the mission failed, and they ended up in the Atlantic instead. Excitement about the launch had been limited anyway, with an earthly populace that would have been happy with functioning school toilets.

The article goes on to examine a few case studies – including the National Health Service, on which it quotes the current average waiting time for an ambulance: 93 minutes.

“This country was already on its knees before Brexit, before the endless phase of political trench warfare and before the pandemic,” the article concludes.

“And now, it seems as though it has dialed 999 and is waiting in vain for the paramedics to show up.”

That’s how they see the UK in Germany. Considering where Der Spiegel lays the blame, is it something to think about when casting your vote in the local elections – and the general election that will eventually follow?

Source: Britain in Crisis: The UK Faces a Steep Climb Out of a Deep Hole – DER SPIEGEL

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Greedflation: companies are fuelling inflation by overcharging us to build profit

French protesters have stormed the Paris stock exchange: will greedflation prompt the British to do worse?

Whenever the Conservatives tell us wage increases are driving inflation, be aware that they are lying.

Inflation isn’t being driven by wage demands but by greedy companies that are using the cost-of-living crisis to drive up prices and boost their profits.

Take a look at the degree by which food prices have risen:

Claudia Webbe puts the situation – and the reason for it – in a nutshell:

Now read this:

That is what the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank seem to have discovered, according to The Guardian:

The IMF and the ECB wouldn’t put it in these terms, of course, but both support the idea that companies are gouging their customers when they can. The non-technical term for what is going on is greedflation.

Companies [are] doing rather better out of the cost of living crisis than workers… The flipside of steeply rising prices but only modestly higher wages [is] that profit margins [have] “surged”.

Unite, one of the UK’s biggest unions, published a report in March that blamed systematic profiteering across the economy for fuelling the cost of living crisis. Energy companies, supermarkets, shipping companies, car dealers and food manufacturers had all cashed in on drought, war, and strong demand after the pandemic to “push prices and profits through the roof”.

The eurozone’s central bank looked at the contribution of profits to inflation over nearly a quarter of century, and found that between 1999 and 2022, profits were responsible for one-third of the inflation rate on average. In 2022 alone, profits contributed to two-thirds of the rise.

But whereas the ECB – from its president, Christine Lagarde, downwards – is fully exercised by the threat posed by greedflation, policymakers in the UK seem far more relaxed. There have been plenty of calls for wage restraint, most notably from Andrew Bailey, the governor of the Bank of England, but far fewer for price restraint… Price controls, of the sort used in the 1970s, are seen as to be avoided at all costs.

Instead, inflation is being controlled by increasing interest rates – which sucks demand from the economy and reduces pressure for wage rises by incurring job losses (meaning that, once again, too many jobseekers end up competing for too few jobs and the bosses can pay whatever they want).

But workers who have taken pay cut after pay cut for more than a decade are close to breaking point and something has to give way soon.

Will we see scenes like what has happened in France over pensions, with protesters storming bastions of capitalism like the stock exchange and trashing it? Will we see worse?

It’s a good question. The British have very long tempers and have put up with a lot – so much, in fact, that nobody knows what they might do if those tempers snap.

It seems likely that, if they do not moderate their own rhetoric and curb corporate greedflation soon, the Tories might find out.

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Ofgem’s new rules could harm the people they’re supposed to help

Is this an example of a well-intentioned scheme backfiring, or of an ill-intentioned plan doing exactly what it’s supposed to?

In response to a backlash after it was discovered that employees of some energy suppliers, including British Gas, had been breaking into the homes of people who had been defaulting on their bill payments to forcibly install pre-payment meters, the regulator Ofgem has imposed new rules.

Energy firms have agreed to the voluntary code. It includes a ban on forcibly installing prepayment meters in the homes of people over the age of 85.

Companies will only be able to force the change if they stick to a set of voluntary restrictions and must make at least 10 attempts to contact a customer.

They must also carry out a site welfare visit before a such a meter can be installed and will need to avoid forced installations where a “continuous supply” of energy is needed for health reasons, such as for the terminally ill.

Energy firms will also be required to make representatives fitting meters wear body cameras or audio equipment.

But some have warned that the new rules aren’t good enough:

It seems Ofgem has not taken account of the fact that 29 per cent of households are now in debt to their energy supplier.

Critics say the regulator had an opportunity to introduce targeted debt relief for those who are most in need of it – but didn’t.

Nor has Ofgem considered the energy needs of people with disabilities or health conditions in its definition of the kind of vulnerability that would make a bill-payer exempt from having a pre-payment meter in any circumstances, it seems.

There is also the question of how people will prove their medical conditions without being humiliated by an energy firm health inspection.

Ofgem has said it will consult on whether the new code of practice can be made legally binding before the winter.

Labour seems to be in two minds about the situation. According to the Morning Star article mentioned above, Ed Miliband said Ofgem’s scheme was “not good enough”.

But Jonathan Ashworth seemed to have a different opinion:

Worse than that, the changes may mean energy bills increase – to cover their own cost:

How can that be, in any way, fair?

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Now Labour is falsely claiming benefit claimants are stopping others from getting help

Jonathan Ashworth: his claim that a crackdown on benefit fraud could have funded an extra cost-of-living payment is false.

Cast your disgusted eyes over this:

Dr Ryan continues:

It’s true that benefit fraud and error accounted for four per cent of DWP payments during 2021-22 – around £8.6 billion.

But this may be explained by the fact that the Covid-19 crisis was ongoing during much of that time; fraudsters took advantage of the opportunities to claim Universal Credit that the government provided.

For comparison: in the last year before the Covid crisis, 2019-20, the Mirror article states that benefit fraud and error cost £4.4 billion (about 2.4 per cent), so we can see how much it rocketed during the pandemic years.

The Mirror article discusses a Parliamentary report last year (2022) stating that levels of fraud and error in the benefits system were “unacceptably high” and that it “is yet to show any sign of falling back to pre-pandemic levels”.

But that can hardly be surprising, considering the fact that the last Covid-19-related restrictions were not lifted until February that year.

Figures for 2022-23 are not yet available – which is unsurprising as it is less than a week since that financial year ended. It will be interesting to see the estimated level of benefit fraud for that period, compared with the previous year.

It should not be forgotten that the DWP is proactive in claiming back money that has been lost to benefit fraud, and reported savings of £2 billion over the last year due to correcting and preventing fraud and error.

Finally, it should be remembered that the DWP is notorious for underpaying people who are in genuine need. These underpayments amounted to £2.1 billion in 2021-22.

What may we conclude from the facts?

Try this:

The benefit system is almost entirely free of fraud and error, with only around two per cent recorded normally.

Overpayments to fraudsters who entered the system during the Covid-19 crisis are being recovered, with half the amount overpaid in 2021-22 already regained.

Many benefit overpayments are due to errors on the part of claimants whose health conditions make it hard for them to understand the complexities of the system. Those overpayments are caught and claimed back – causing “severe hardship” to the claimants.

The DWP also makes errors that affect payments.

Underpayments to people who deserve more meant £2.1 billion that should have been handed out in 2021-22 was not.

Therefore:

Ashworth’s sums are probably wrong.

But there is another aspect of this that everybody seems to be ignoring:

It doesn’t matter that his sums are wrong because the amount of fraud and error in the benefit system has nothing at all to do with cost-of-living hardship payments.

If the Conservative government wanted to give out an extra £300 payment to those of us who need it, that is what would happen.

It would simply tell the Bank of England to create the money (yes, out of thin air) and that cash would then be spent into our bank accounts at the appropriate time.

Any concerns about inflationary pressures could be eased by taxing a similar amount out of the system. The easiest way would be a wealth tax on the super-rich or corporations, but the way those people are racking up profits at the moment, it probably wouldn’t even be necessary to impose that; an equivalent amount may come back to the Treasury via current tax levels.

So Ashworth’s entire argument is nonsense. He – and the right-wing Labour leadership he represents – should be ashamed of even mentioning it.

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My fellow carers: check now to find out if you could qualify for the cost-of-living payment

This doesn’t affect me, despite being a carer, because I don’t qualify for other benefits and live in a household with someone who’ll get the cost-of-living payment anyway.

But if you are a carer and are not currently thought to be eligible for the payment, the advice is: use an online calculator to see if you qualify for a means-tested benefit, because then you might get the cost-of-living payment too.

Here’s the important stuff:

In May last year there were 936,766 people receiving weekly payments of £69.70 for Carer’s Allowance.

Carer’s Allowance will rise in line with inflation next month and increase from £69.70 per week to £76.75, however, claimants will not be eligible for the new £900 cost of living payment unless they are also in receipt of a qualifying, means-tested benefit. The £900 payment will be delivered in three lump sums of £301, £300 and £299, with the first payment due between April 25 and May 17, 2023.

Statistically… 60 per cent of unpaid carers are living in a household where someone is in receipt of a qualifying means-tested benefit.

DWP Minister Tom Pursglove, urged unpaid carers to check their eligibility for means-tested benefits to make sure they are not missing out on additional support – which could then make them eligible for the £900 cost of living payment.

“Depending on personal circumstances, carers may be eligible for means-tested benefits, including Universal Credit and Pension Credit. Means-tested benefits can be paid to carers at a higher rate than those without caring responsibilities through the Carer Element in Universal Credit and the additional amounts for carers in other benefits respectively.

“We would encourage anyone who is providing unpaid care, and who is not already in receipt of a means-tested benefit, to check on GOV.UK to confirm whether there are other benefits they may be entitled to.”

So, carers: what are you waiting for?

Source: People claiming Carer’s Allowance might not qualify directly for new £301 cost of living payment due in April – Daily Record

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