´óÏó´«Ã½

ROOSTED CHICKENS?

Might it be that flogging of ones utilities is like making a pie out of seed-corn?

I seem to remember Cornwall once 'ran out' of water. Has anyone thought through 'who owns which water' and who would have to beg where - while thirsty?

Remember that drifting tanker that did not ask for help but discussed, at length, with the OWNERS, what to do?

Are the architects of this mess still alive?
Do we have sufficient stocks of tar and feathers, or are these all foreign owned too?

my understanding is that multinationals are making good profits from a necessity. Which is what you expect them to do. The markets are about making money not being fair or a social service.

How does Hutton explain the British Gas leaflet with a chart than ends 12th july as 'proof' prices have to rise? Does he not watch the gas price chart? If he comes on ask him what the gas price was the day before.


Looking at the gas price charts they are making a killing. Looking at the lack of uk storage for summer gas they are making a killing storing overseas then selling it back to us when the price goes up in the winter.

The govt is desperate to keep the uk population tied into a one way national grid. Which is why there are so may restrictions and blocks on anyone who tries to get out of it like taxes and planning.


they dismiss a two way grid that in germany creates 1/4 million jobs and generates 23 billion euros by saying there is no evidence it works as an agent for change. You can show a hundred pictures to those who keep their eyes closed.

they only thing the govt are keeping warm this winter are their seats.

The market reasoning being given is that the companies need those big profits for infrastructure invetment - for us.

But where is the compulsion for that investment to occur?

Isn't this what happened with the railways, when the shareholders got big profts-> there was not the investment in infrastructure-> people died-> govt had to take on the debt and do the job with our money.

This might be a crude question (but then consumer rip offs are pretty crude) - how much of the profit goes to investment in future company activity like infrastructure, how much goes to financial investment in unrelated corporate financial ventures, and how much goes to shareholders. If its not mainly in the first pot - then we are being conned by Minister

Is Ofgem's belief that "Customer confidence is vital for a well-functioning market." correct when it comes to essentials like gas, electricity and water?
It's not like an ipod where we can choose not to buy it (not without a reasonable level of upfront expenditure anyway).
Company's in these markets won't lose customers, even if they are unhappy, provided all the suppliers stay within a reasonable price of each other.

These companies will pass any windfall tax onto their customers, so it is a dumb idea for that reason.

I find your quote from Mr Hutton interesting. "Making a profit is better than making a loss and if we want these companies to invest significant resources investors are not going to do that if they don't think there's a reasonable return to be made on their investment". Whilst I agree with the first part, although I'd say how you do either is important. The second part is surely happening the wrong way round. Our utility companies are making large profits but most are yet to invest in infrastructure.

Then may the blame lay on Hutton's shoulders when old age pensioners start dying of hypothermia this winter.

Hutton has already acted as judge and jury on the matter....and so he will also become the executioner.... but of the poor and the frail.

I would suggest that Hutton is simply taking a long term view on the situation. In other words when he losses his job/seat at the next general election then no doubt he will be re-employed by one of these cartel companies as a non-executive director or some other grandiose title. Just as 'five houses' Blair was by his banking friends.

Why was it then that Shell pulled out of the Thames estuary mega wind farm 'infrastructure' project earlier this year? (reported by the ´óÏó´«Ã½ on 1-May-08) Answer: Greed i.e. they believed that the return on investment was simply not good enough for them in the UK. They decided that they would rather invest the money in wind farms in the US.

Wasn't it Edward Heath that coined the phrase... 'the unpleasant and unacceptable face of capitalism'.

The name Hutton seems to be synonymous with 'stitch-ups' and 'white-washes' as far as this government is concerned.

Reading the previous contributions I get the impression that a phrase like "re-nationalisation without compensation" would not go amiss!

Seriously: the idea that there could every be a 'free market' in energy provision was fanciful. This is where we are - a 'social necessity' (of the heat to save us from hypothermia) is dependent on the whim of multinationals. If this is OK for the parties let them say so.

Do both Labour and Tories like our energy supply not being in the hands of 'Sid' any more, but faceless transnational corporations controlled by toothless regulators?

Also David Miliband is playing a very risky game of offending Europe's major energy supplier (Russia) - they could easily turn off the gas! This is the position we are in. Mrs Thatcher's 'dash for gas' is reaping us its 'rewards'! (Note: much of our electricity is generated from Gas.)

(You thought the Poll Tax was the worst thing she did!!! - OK I temporally forgot PFI etc., etc..)

Someone in government needs to take the energy company directors into a corner and tell them in no uncertain terms that either they invest heavily in UK nuclear power or face a hefty windfall tax. Likewise the oil companies and extending production from the north sea.

If private companies are properly regulated there is no need for nationalisation.

John Hutton's epitaph...'are there no workhouses'

John from Hendon - the dash for gas had two benefits from Mrs Thatcher's point of view, and one huge PR advantage for subsequent governments including the current one. Firstly, it enabled her to stitch up the NUM because we were able to ditch coal, and so they were a busted flush. Secondly, and massively more importantly, it is what has allowed governments then and since to purvey the fiction that our CO2 output is dropping and we are 'on course to meet our Kyoto obligations'. We are indeed on course to meet Kyoto, but this is because Kyoto is a joke. Specifically, it demands a reduction in CO2 output using 1990 as the baseline year. And guess which year the dash for gas took effect? Yes, you've guessed it - 1990. So we had an automatic and enormous reduction in our CO2, at exactly the 'right' time (from the point of view of massaging our CO2 reduction efforts). The trouble is, almost all of the reduction we can now lay claim to stems from that - apart from that, if anything, it has gone up. So our 'Kyoto compliance' is a figleaf for which we (actually Tony Blair and Gordon Brown) have to thank Mrs Thatcher for, because it has almost completely absolved us from reducing our CO2 in other ways. We can sit around smugly and slag off the Americans, but actually we have done absolutely naff all to help reduce our CO2 output since then - we have just spouted spin about it and paid 'green' taxes in the faint hope that this will magically address climate change (whereas all it actually does is allow us to pollute without feeling guilty about it). I think the recession we are now entering might do a bit more to reduce our CO2 though - although it won't bring the government any revenue (so they will ensure they get it elsewhere - I hear they are already considering resurrecting their ill-advised plan to introduce road pricing).