Steve Hilton's blue-sky thinking

KJ and Chris are not impressed by the ideas of David Cameron's guru

Kicking up a fuss over cuts

Fee, KJ and Chris have second thoughts about launching a protest

Central heating or food - you won't have both if you're poor

Fee, KJ and Chris ponder the wintry dilemma facing millions thanks to the energy giants

Where there's a Will there's a way of making money

KJ and Chris discuss the getting into the murky business of will writing

Budget airlines: bringing equality to an unequal world

Fee needn't worry about the moral implications of cheap air travel

Electricity and gas bill ripoffs - to see what is happening, look at the company accounts

Continuing from last week's post on energy bill rip-offs, according to the International Energy Agency, Britain is 68.7% self-sufficient in Natural Gas.  And yet hikes in our gas and electricity bills over the last few years outstrip those in countries with virtually no reserves. Why is that?

In its Retail Market Review of March 2011, OFGEM observed that the suppliers’ behaviour continued to deteriorate when it came to pricing:

Ofgem, like a disappointed but indulgent primary school teacher, gently reproves the utilities with words such as

“It has come to our attention that suppliers may not be conducting due diligence while executing some of the new provisions of SLC**.  Therefore, we have decided to issue this guidance to help clarify certain issues.”

Given the history of the marketing licence condition and the extensive consultation exercises previously carried out (e.g. during the Probe), Ofgem firmly takes the view that suppliers should already be fully aware of, and fully capable of understanding, the spirit and letter of the obligations contained in SLC **. 

In the absence of exceptional circumstances or compelling evidence of genuine uncertainty, Ofgem is unlikely to consider it appropriate to provide any additional clarification on SLC **. 

It remains the responsibility of suppliers to ensure compliance with all licence conditions and relevant provisions of consumer protection law.”

Extract of an Ofgem ‘guidance’ letter, where SLC** is a Standard Licence Condition.

In summary, this says:

a)      We know you are doing the wrong thing.

b)      We’ve already told you what the right thing is.

c)      We know you know what the right thing is.

d)      We’re not going to tell you again.

e)      You should be doing the right thing.

f)        Erm… that’s it. Yours Sincerely etc.

If you want to know whether companies are profiteering, don’t look at the statements they make to the regulators and the public – which will all be hand-wringing stuff about how their own costs are so high - but look at what they say to their investors. Centrica, in its 2010 Annual Report, stated that since the previous year its operating profits had jumped by 29%, from £1.9 billion to £2.4 billion. British Gas, part of Centrica, contributed a 24% jump in profits to £742 million.

Parliament interrogates Murdoch

Fee and KJ ponder how to fund the BBC - and Chris has the answer

Huhne energy blackout

The gang ponder what Chris Huhne's energy policy may mean for them

A winter of discontent

The spectre of Christmas yet to come hangs over many families after British Gas raises its prices

Liebrary: British Gas' claim that wholesale energy price is pushing up bills is not true: the evidence

British Gas announcing a second price rise for the year, blaming increases in wholesale energy prices, brings to mind a classic scene from one of the great detective novels:

Gregory (a cop): "Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?"

Holmes:               "To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time."

Gregory:              "The dog did nothing in the night-time."

Holmes:               "That was the curious incident."

Sherlock Holmes, Victorian consulting detective, noted that the dog didn’t bark when the bad guy went past, deducing that the villain was friendly with the dog. Elegant stuff. I wish I’d written it – so I will.

OFGEM (a cop):“Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?”

Hari&Jake:          “To the curious movement of the wholesale gas price over the last couple of years

OFGEM:             [wiping drool from chin with elegant silk handkerchief] “The gas price has done nothing since it collapsed in 2008-09.”

Hari&Jake:          “That was the curious movement.”

Hari&Jake, Elizabethan cartooning bloggers, noting that the poodle didn’t bark when the bad guys hiked the cost of domestic energy bills, wonder whether the villains may possibly be friendly with the dog.

Everyone knows that the oil price has been very volatile for many years because of things like instability in foreign lands. Oil and Gas go together like Ripped-Off and Briton, right? The assumption is that as goes oil, there follows gas. After all, they are both made of decomposed prehistoric organic matter.

But, actually, the price of gas doesn't follow that of oil. Not even remotely. 


This chart from the Financial Times compares prices over one year. 

And the reality is, although the wholesale oil price is now nearly five times what it was ten years ago in 2001, the wholesale gas price is actually lower than it was in 2001!

But what of the price of oil, which has clearly shot up? Gas is gas, but electricity needs to be generated. Could the price of oil be pushing electricity bills up? 


Again, the answer is "no".

Law-breaking news

The gang discuss the demise of the News of the World

Retirement plans

The Dilnot report is good news all round – especially for inheritors, Chris and his wife decide

Affordable housing … but only for a few

KJ and Fee discuss the leaked letter from the communities secretary

Public sector pensions – a politician will grasp at any straw so long as someone else is drowning

According to the Department of Works and Pensions, the official poverty line for pensioners with no dependent children is


Single Person: £166 per week
Couple: £248 per week

According to the Hutton report on public sector pensions, the median pension (i.e. the amount that half the people in the group get less than) for Local Government workers and for NHS staff places them in poverty. This is even after receiving the State Pension on top of their ‘gold plated’ occupational pensions. 

That puts 790,000 Local Government and NHS pensioners in poverty. The Hutton report also shows that a further 750,000 public sector pensioners are no more than £50 a week above the poverty line.

The government is trying to take money from hundreds of thousands of Britons who are in or near poverty, to fix the crisis caused by bankers who are rolling in it. Why are MPs so heartless? As public servants, do they not feel the same pain from these severe public sector pension downgrades?





Actually, they don’t. For two main reasons
a) Their own magnificently subsidised pensions
b) Their remunerated hobbies

MPs: Do as we say on pensions, not as we do

Chris, Fee and KJ wonder why politicians aren't leading from the front over pensions reform