Tag Archives: solution

OVO plan to fend off energy bill crisis: the best of a bad bunch?

Energy bills: yes, it’s the same image This Site has used several times before. Gets the point across, though – doesn’t it?

Ask what should be done to save millions of households from poverty as energy bills spiral upwards and there’s no point listening to the politicians.

Scottish Power boss Keith Anderson has proposed freezing bills already.

Now Ovo energy has published a 10-point plan to deal with the crisis in the short, medium and long term.

Headline point is a request for the government to create a “tariff deficit fund” from which households can be subsidised – and to which they would have to repay the cost in the future.

It would be progressive, and Ovo suggests limiting the number of subsidised units of energy households receive, claiming richer households typically use more.

Other ideas include:

Short-term plans

  • Bring forward the £400 energy rebate
  • Increase funding for debt advisory charities
  • Set up a fuel Poverty Task Force to identify households most at risk

Medium-term plans

  • Abolish the prepayment meter “penalty”, which sees prepayment customers paying more than those on direct debit
  • Subsidise bills though a Tariff Deficit Fund, which would be repaid over several years
  • Abolish the standing charge that customers pay
  • Mobilise a national effort to insulate UK homes

Long-term plans

  • Establish a single strategic buyer for all the UK’s energy needs.
  • Bring back the Department of Energy and Climate Change
  • Introduce a carbon tax

So what do you think? Are these good ideas?

You can read the full plan on: OVO Energy

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Labour’s solution to energy prices – is it sensible and will it work?

Keir Starmer: what does he have for us? Armfuls of nothing.

The answer to the question in the headline is: probably not, although it does contain some reasonable points.

This Site mentioned the big hole in Labour’s proposals to beat the energy price increases previously – taxing the oil and gas giants on their profits won’t help if the money is used to stop them from making any profits (by ensuring that customers don’t pay more).

Bear in mind that costs are expected to rise hugely over the next few months; if people were only asked to pay the same as now, and the companies were taxed on their current profits to make up the difference, a deficit would have to appear somewhere.

And it seems Labour is basing its figures on the amount of profit made by these firms internationally – meaning that taxing them on the full amount to raise money in the UK would break international tax law.

According to the BBC,

The party also said it would raise £14bn from other measures such as dropping the £400 energy rebate, and abandoning pledges made by the the Conservative leadership contenders – such as halting the “green levy” on fuel bills, which Ms Truss is proposing, or scrapping VAT on domestic fuel bills which Mr Sunak has promised.

How does that help bill-payers when it is denying them the benefit of a £400 payment, or the benefits of suspending the green levy (which I don’t think is a good idea anyway as it gives support to the fossil fuels that are stinking up the planet and causing climate change) and scrapping VAT on domestic fuel bills? Those will all make our bills more expensive!

But other ideas, including insulating 19 million homes to reduce energy demand and securing the UK’s energy supply by taking it away from foreign countries and companies with measures including doubling onshore and offshore wind capacity and increasing production of solar, tidal, hydrogen and nuclear power (nuclear? Really?) are better.

Ultimately it makes no difference, even though the SNP and the Liberal Democrats support the proposed price cap freeze, because the Conservatives are in office and they have already said they won’t make any decisions until a new prime minister has taken over in September.

They are unlikely to take on Labour’s taxation proposals if they can find any reason to object to them – and the concern about international taxation would certainly seem to be a red flag.

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Tories could be fined 20 million Euros for conference app data breach

Tory despair: This image was originally used to show Tory Brexiters haven’t got a clue. It works equally well to describe their reaction to the app calamity.

Reactions to the Conservative conference app that allows users access to every attendee’s contact details have been appearing online.

As you can imagine, they make uncomfortable reading for Tories.

For instance:

It seems there is no way out of this one. The data breach has been identified and it has been proven that the information is available to anyone.

So what are we to make of the following announcement by Tory chairman Brandon Lewis?

Fixing the barn door after the horse has bolted?

It bodes ill for Mr Lewis, who had a lot riding on this year’s Tory conference, according to the Evening Standard:

Angela Rayner hits the right note here:

That’s extremely relevant when you consider the app malfunction has been…

This turned out to be a popular discussion point:

https://twitter.com/GuitarMoog/status/1046148490114584582

And the conference hasn’t even started yet…

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After Salzburg we thought it couldn’t get worse for Theresa May. It did

Theresa May: She looks like a horse, bridling at the EU’s rejection of her plan.

Faced with an absolute refusal of her useless ‘Chequers’ plan from the EU, Theresa May has doubled down on her own position – with a public statement that piles embarrassment upon humiliation.

She said this:

And this:

I don’t often swear on This Site but I am sure you will understand me when I say: What a bag of sh*t.

What was she trying to achieve with this broadcast? One look at the two Union Flags behind her and you’re thinking of nationalistic pride. Defiance, perhaps? “Britain stands alone”? The “Dunkirk spirit”?

But this is not defiance. This is petulance.

And it is stupidity:

Commentators from all sides have piled in to pour ridicule on Mrs May’s latest attempt to appear strong:

https://twitter.com/MattTurner4L/status/1043128686164279296

She did insult them; she said she would be a “bloody difficult woman” – right, Angela Rayner?

Right. Tom Pride has put her behaviour in a nutshell:

Is that respect? No.

Her demand that the EU propose a solution to Brexit’s insoluble problems is laughable.

So, what are we to conclude?

https://twitter.com/JJenkinsSJB/status/1043127960084066304

That seems clear.

Leaders and representatives of other political parties had their say, too:

It hasn’t all been condemnation, though. Look at the state of this Express headline:

The facts tell a different story, though:

This is true. Every time Mrs May opens her mouth, she makes the entire country poorer.

And Britons living in the EU remain in limbo. What will happen to them? Or don’t they count to Mrs May?

Add it all up and the effect of her little speech is not Churchillian but evokes lines from Shakespear instead:

“A tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

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All over the world, smarter people than Tories have found the answer to homelessness: Give people homes!

The solution to homelessness that is currently being practised to such great effect in Finland is geared towards those with addictions – but is essentially no different to the Utah plan This Writer reported three years ago.

The benefits are the same – to the homeless and to society as a whole.

It is amazing, then, that there may still be “sceptics” arguing against this solution that saves money and resources.

Who are these people? Tories?

As homelessness has rocketed in the UK – up 134% since 2010 – it has fallen by 35% in Finland over a similar period of time. The Finnish government is now aiming to abolish it altogether in the coming years.

It turns out its solution is painfully simple and blindingly obvious: give homes to homeless people.

Sceptics will argue that giving homes to homeless people is a recipe for disaster. Aren’t we just subsidising addiction? Won’t we end up with huge bills when it all goes wrong? Don’t people need an incentive to get their lives back on track and engage in services?

Actually, no. The evidence from Finland – as well as numerous other pilot schemes across the world – shows the opposite is true. When people are given homes, homelessness is radically reduced, engagement in support services goes up and recovery rates from addiction are comparable to a “treatment first” approach. Even more impressive is that there are overall savings for government, as people’s use of emergency health services and the criminal justice system is lessened.

Source: Finland has found the answer to homelessness. It couldn’t be simpler | Harry Quilter-Pinner | Opinion | The Guardian

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WASPI women stage noisy walkout of Commons after minister denies them pensions help

WASPI protesters (these were in Norfolk) [Image: Eastern Daily Press.]

Proceedings in Parliament became a little noisier than usual yesterday – and for a good reason:

I’ll let Labour’s Laura Pidcock explain:

Mr Opperman had just refused to provide any transitional help for women who are facing an increase in the age at which they will be paid the state pension.

Changes to the state pension age for women were introduced in Acts of Parliament in 1995 and 2011 and mean that, by 2020, 2.6 million women will have to wait until they are 66 before receiving their pension.

Mr Opperman, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, said: “People living and staying healthier for longer is to be welcomed, but the Government must not ignore the fact that it also brings enormous financial and demographic pressures. The key choice that a Government face when seeking to control state pension spend is to increase the state pension age or pay lower pensions, with an inevitable impact on pensioner poverty. The only alternative is to ask the working generation to pay an ever larger share of their income to support pensioners.

“In July 2017 the Government published their first review of the state pension age, which set out a coherent strategy targeted at strengthening and sustaining the UK state pension system for many decades to come. It accepts the key recommendation of John Cridland’s independent review which was to increase the state pension age from 67 to 68 between 2037 and 2039.

“The review is clear about increasing life expectancy and the challenges it poses. People are living longer. Almost 6,000 people in the UK turned 100 in 2016, compared with 3,000 in 2002. By 2035 there will be more than twice as many people over 100 as there are now.”

It was while he was saying these words that the WASPI (Women Against State Pension Inequality) representatives in the public gallery stood up and, at first, turned their backs on Mr Opperman, before shouting “Shame on you!” and staging a mass walkout.

This Writer can sympathise. Not only was Mr Opperman quoting inaccurate statistics about longevity – people have started living shorter lives since the Conservatives came to office – but he was also wrong about an increase in the amount working-age people would be asked to spend on pensions – the National Insurance fund for Great Britain was in surplus by nearly £21 billion in October last year, while the Northern Ireland fund was half a billion pounds in surplus, and there is no reason to believe that the transitional arrangements being requested would put that fund into deficit.

One particularly strong argument in favour of transitional arrangements is the fact that the women who are being affected were not given sufficient warning of the change and will suffer considerable financial difficulty as a result.

So the WASPI women were right; Mr Opperman should be ashamed.

The debate served a useful purpose – the Commons agreed to call on the Government to publish proposals to provide a non-means tested bridging solution for all women born on or after April 6, 1950, who are affected by changes to the State Pension age in the 1995 and 2011 Pension Acts.

No doubt the miserly Tories will refuse the request – they would rather provide useless tax breaks to bankers, after all – but their response will undoubtedly provide another nail in the coffin of the arrogant and incompetent minority Conservative government.

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More mistakes in the script? Correcting Cameron’s New Year speech

David Cameron’s New Year message – what a disgrace!

Standing uncomfortably in an empty factory (one presumes the workers were all on part-time contracts to save bosses money in holiday pay and national insurance), the comedy Prime Minister looked nervous as he reeled off a list of statements the Conservative Party wants the proles to believe, going into 2014.

What a shame his words were so easy to debunk.

If you can bear to hear it, play the video (above). I did, and wrote the following response in real time – as his speech was taking place. Then I sent it to his Facebook page. Here are my words:

“Mr Cameron,

“When you weren’t elected into office, the economy was on the up – and your policies killed it stone dead for three years. You haven’t cut the deficit significantly for years (it’s been stuck at £120 billion or thereabouts). You have cut income tax for the super-rich; raising the tax allowance for the poor (which you claim is a cut) means they don’t pay National Insurance (if anybody hadn’t noticed) and it will take them longer to qualify for retirement pension.

“You only decided to cut fuel duty because Labour came out with a better policy – and nobody was fooled by your choice.

“The jobs created under your government are part-time, zero-hours, or fake ‘self-employed’ in which the worker is contracted to larger companies and receives lower-than-minimum-wages for the amount of time spent. Stop talking nonsense about ‘jobs taxes’ – all this does is show that you do not understand the principles behind National Insurance.

“How many people did your ‘welfare’ work kill last year? We don’t know because your Department for Work and Pensions is terrified that releasing the figures will cause a national scandal.

“As for your immigration policy – apart from the tangential tightening of monitoring around the minimum wage, all your new measures are already enshrined in law; you have created phantom solutions to a phantom problem.

“Building an economy for people who work hard and “play by the rules”, is it? There’s a new condition in there, and people should be warned that your rules are not intended to benefit hard-working people but to free their employers from any responsibility towards those who generate their bloated salaries for them.

“I’m surprised you didn’t choke on your comments about education, after the fiasco that has led to the closure of one free school and special measures for several others.

“As far as the Scottish referendum is concerned, if any government, through its policies, could do more to push an entire country out of the United Kingdom, I don’t see how.

“I look forward to your response on the welfare deaths. In 2011 they stood at 73 per week, which was a scandal at the time. New figures will show whether you have been merely misguided or intentionally genocidal.

“Happy New Year? It will be a lot happier if you and your entire Parliamentary party resigned. How many of them know anything about struggling to make ends meet, in debt and in a place where there are no jobs to be had?

“You know nothing about hard work.”

Did anyone else notice he said nothing about the National Health Service, that his government has brought down from its most popular and efficient moment ever – slandering it and legislating to ensure private profit-driven firms could get into it, turning it away from healthcare and into money generation?

If ever there was a time to fight back for our cherished publicly-funded institutions, it is now.

That is the real message we should take from this soulless mouthpiece and his empty words.

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