LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Government impoverishing an already struggling nation

Not that it is any hindrance to their continued destruction of Britain. Anyone who thinks we’re getting our fuel cheaper should think again, we’re merely getting it on credit, the old “live now, pay later” method.

The oil and gas cartels are still charging us at the Ofgem rates, but our government has arranged a loan called the Energy Price Guarantee for us so that we can pay for part of it later. And as for our PM’s statement that the loan would decrease over time, forget it. The Ofgem caps are increasing every six months, so at present we are paying 34p per kWh for our power and the government is paying 18p, but next April our bills will still say 34p but the government will be paying 70p, and if anyone was listening to what she really said when it was announced, that money is not a gift, it is an accumulating debt that will eventually have to be paid back to them in some form by working and middle class taxpayers.

The Ofgem cap and Energy Price Guarantee figures for the supply of gas are different, but the method of calculation is also the same.

The only way it could have been a price cut is if, like the rest of the western world, the government had charged it back to the supplier in an excess profit tax or similar system, but since the Conservative government and the fossil fuel cartels are virtually one and the same, that’s not going to happen. Except that of course it has happened, but instead of surcharging the oil and gas companies’ profits our PM is considering a levy on the profits of the renewable energy suppliers, presumably to protect the profits of the Conservative Party members oil and gas associates, as the cost of supplying renewable energy is currently nine times cheaper than that being charged for gas.  

The signing by our government of the updated Energy Charter Treaty will of course ensure the repayment by the ordinary British people of all these Energy Price Guarantee loans whenever they become due, no matter what government is in power at the time, as it will the overblown profits on all the new Oil and Gas Exploration licences that Jacob Rees-Mogg will shortly be signing.

So, courtesy of the Conservative government and the constituents who voted them in, a further impoverishment of our already struggling nation.

In one month’s time, November 6-19 to be exact, COP27, the sequel to our shameful performance in Glasgow last year, will open in Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt, at which time our Government’s already abandoned stewardship of the world’s efforts to stem climate change will come to an end.

I have been told that Liz Truss has visited our new King Charles the Third, who was due to attend the conference and speak at the assembly as Queen Elizabeth did last year, and told him not to attend. I hope he does attend and speak as previously arranged.

I, for one, would like to hear what our new monarch, the most environmentally enlightened member of our Royal Family, has to say about our reneging on all the commitments our ex-PM made in Glasgow, but I fear I am going to be disappointed.

The grip of our rapacious government around our nation’s throat is already too tight.

Charles David Foulstone, Rotherham Green Party