Nationalise greedy energy companies to save UK's small businesses - Bird Lovegod

There’s no price cap on commercial energy supplies, indeed the whole concept of ‘price capping’ is flawed because the caps keep increasing, but placing that obviousness aside for now, if you think you are under pressure as a home heater, think about businesses.

Last week I spoke to a fish and chip shop. They now pay £5 for a fillet of fish. Why? Because trawlers run on diesel and wholesalers deliver in vans and now the cost of heating oil to fry is getting beyond the point where the business is viable. Fish and chips for two people is the best part of £20.

I spoke with the leaseholder of a pub. A large pub. He hasn’t paid himself a wage in two years. Brexit has added 11 per cent on to the cost of wine. And the electricity bill is £800 a week. And that’s in summer.

There’s a combination of factors involved in the energy crisis. I’d suggest the main one is the greed and market manipulation of the energy companies.

Prices didn’t start going wild after Russia invaded Ukraine in February. They started rocketing in December 2021, three weeks after the climate change conference COP26. That, in my opinion, is when the energy companies decided on their response to the global intention to make their businesses obsolete. Their response is to maximise profits by continuously increasing prices to a commodity we cannot do without. To control, and demonstrate the control, they have over entire countries’ economies.

It’s not just homes. It’s schools, hospitals, businesses.

We are being extorted, and in the UK only the Government can do anything about it. Right now, we don’t even have a functioning Government, and our ex-PM is role playing Churchill and telling us to take it on the chin for the sake of Ukraine.

Payments to households are necessary, and will enable energy companies to raise prices further. The actual answer is to take energy out of the market altogether, to nationalise it and run it as a national service, as far as is possible. To aim for 100 per cent energy self sufficiency, and then move to 100 per cent green energy self sufficiency. The Conservative Party will not do this, because it goes against their half blind ideology.

The inevitable response from the helpless masses is to try to use less energy. The energy companies are well aware of this and will wear it as a figleaf to cover their naked greed. The energy companies are slightly driving down usage and hugely driving up profits and dependency. Clearly. Obviously. Ruthlessly.

Energy is becoming a luxury. And the cost of it impacts every single thing, from a pint of beer to fish and chips, to cars to flights and everything else. Inflation cannot be controlled unless the energy sector is controlled.

The energy sector, as a mindless, heartless, self serving entity, does not care about human suffering, and does not care about environmental destruction. It cares about the numbers it can accumulate and the power it can exert over governments and everyone else in order to continue doing more of what it is doing.

They are making record profits, whilst charging record prices, and the Government is now giving money to households in the form of indirect subsidies which enable more of the same.

They have revealed their true colours. And we should believe them. Winter is coming.

And the UK needs to take back control.

Bird Lovegod is MD of EthicalMuch