Starmer's Labour Takes Fossil Fuel Cash as Energy Bills SURGE!

Right, so have you been mis-sold a Labour government? Did you believe the promises and pledges of Keir Starmer? Well you aren’t alone, he did it to members of his own party by pretending to be something he wasn’t and now, having gotten himself elected mostly it has to be said on an anti-Tory sentiment, people are very quickly realising all that change he was promising them amounts to no change whatsoever and nothing, nothing is so raw and painful in our memories of just how badly our government betrayed us, than the Tories did over our energy bills. Well not only are Labour, despite promises made previously to stop bills rising, sat there watching them rise again and saying there is nothing they can do. Labour have actually set themselves up badly here, because not only were they voted in to be different, they have a colossal majority where they can enact change, but are not only choosing not to, donations from the oil and gas lobby to several Labour MPs might well have helped to ensure that. Starmer’s Labour are approaching this crisis in a manner even worse than the Tories managed it last time and for those who struggled last time, it looks set to be even worse this time around as a result.
Right, so that was a little montage of clips there ending with one of Keir Starmer from 2022, so the midst of the last energy bill crisis under the Tories telling us that politics is about choices and how Labour under his leadership would make different choices and be on the side of working people with their bills and yet here we are today, not only with Ed Miliband repeating the same lines the Tories said about our energy and why are bills are going up, not saying so in so many words, but basically blaming Putin, whilst also blaming the decisions of the last government, because that’s always popular and let’s face it, the Tories did it so much ,the minute Labour start saying the same things, they should be shot in flames before they develop too much of a habit for it, because what Keir Starmer said there whilst he was in opposition was true, for a change, for him ,politics is about choices and he, now he’s in power is making not only the same choices the Tories did, but is actually set to make the situation this time around even worse, and I’ll come back to that in a moment.
Starmer can hide behind his choices to build more windfarms, more solar, lift the bans on onshore windfarms, and his GB Energy, which is a scam in itself because provide any energy at all, it’s simply an investment vehicle to pay for the all the infrastructure, chasing private funds because Rachel Reeves won’t spend to invest in anything it seems, she’ll see this country PFI’d to within an inch of its life, but even when constructed, these new sources of energy these will feed into a system which is entirely run for profit and as the OFGEM chap said, the cap is in place to cover the costs to the energy companies and allow them to make a small profit.
Now you hear those words small profit you probably laugh in derision or swear at the notion of course, with all the blame being put up on the cost of the international gas that we buy by that same chap Jonathan Brearly, Ofgem’s CEO, much in the same way Miliband was not quite naming Putin but we know who he was indicating because the Tories were far less shy about naming Putin when they were letting our energy bills go up, but before I get onto Putin or the finger of blame being cast his way, Ofgem acting like, there’s nothing they can do, they have to let the price cap rise for that small profit to be allowed is a sick joke, but it’s also a sick joke built into Ofgem’s remit, and although Miliband has mentioned reforming the regulator, if it isn’t done in such a way that their remit is significantly expanded, then it will remain just as toothless and still talking about small profits, because actually, Brearly is right when he’s talking about small profits from Ofgem’s perspective, not that that comes as much comfort to us as bill payers and of course makes us laugh and/or swear all the more when he claims to be protecting customers as his main goal.
Now Brearly was also interviewed this morning on GMB by Adil Ray, for a change GMB had a decent host on who was actually going to ask sensible questions and wasn’t indulging in petty racism or interviewing their own wife. And he put to Brearly that people felt this was another con from Ofgem, that people felt the energy companies had made enough money out of us, and accusations that Ofgem were in the pocket of the energy companies, all good points, all reflective of how so many of us feel. And then Ray put figures to Brearly about this. Scottish Power’s profits in 2023 were £576m. EDF’s profits rose from £730m to more than £2bn in the first half of 2023. He quoted the wages of some of the top energy bosses, BP’s boss Bernard Looney had a pay rise from £4.46m in 2021 to £10m in 2022 as one such for instance. It’s no wonder people laugh when Ofgem talks of small profits, but you have to realise where these companies are making all their money and what Ofgem’s remit actually is. All these companies make money in our energy market, which, as I’ve spoken about before in more detail, and I’ve a whole playlist of Utility Rants you can find all this out on, rather than me going over it again in detail here, but the energy market is split up into three parts, generation of energy, self explanatory, the energy comes from somewhere doesn’t it? Power stations, wind farms, solar whatever. Then then there is distribution, which is wholesale supply from those companies that generate, to those that don’t, not many of them left given how many smaller energy companies went under when the Tories oversaw this mess. And then there is supply to us the consumers. All the money these companies make, virtually all of it, is at generation and distribution, supply warrants just a very small profit margin, and Ofgem’s remit is only over supply. The so-called energy regulator, has no remit over generation or distribution, so when the head of Ofgem says only small profits are made, its because under his remit, he can only look at those small profits, he has to ignore the big profits made elsewhere and because of that, he can’t even them in and enforce the energy companies to sell to us at a loss – in the grand scheme of things, their profits will all be made elsewhere, but if made to sell at a loss, they wouldn’t want to sell to us at all would they? No capitalist, and Starmer’s Labour are just a bunch of capitalists, they are not socialists, would legislate as such, no more than the Tories would. Starmer did say he’d freeze bills, he wouldn’t let them rise, well, we’re all now going to victims of Starmer’s lies and broken promises. His word is worthless, voters were warned, back to Ofgem though.
When you look at the about us section on their website, you will see, first line that they claim to be the UK’s independent energy regulator. That is although technically true, in reality a bit of a nonsense because Ofgem is actually a non-ministerial government department. In other words it’s part of government, it’s run by the civil service not overseen by a particular minister, but oversight is provided by the Cabinet Office. How this technicality is pulled off, is that although they are government departments, they have no power to change legislation handed to them. In other words what the government of the day says to them, they have to implement. Remember that one when the government blames Ofgem for anything pretty much or when Ofgem says their hands are tied as to who is actually tying them. But it’s not just government that impacts that because the independence of such bodies is also governed by court rulings, obviously they can’t be above the law, and also by those that fund the department so that it can function and Ofgem is funded, yes in part by the Treasury, but also by licence fees paid by the industries they were set up to regulate. So if you take all the profit from the supply arm of the energy industry, who will fund Ofgem? That’s a factor in all of this as well.
So Ofgem’s hands are tied by government and the energy companies who in part fund them. But this is Putin’s fault too isn’t it? Gas prices that Brearly chap blamed for price rises. Well here’s a handy chart of where the UK got it’s gas from last year according to solar energy campaigners SunSave, they’ve hardly got skin in the game to lie about such things and we all know we need to get away from reliance on fossil fuels, not least of which now because we can’t seem to be able to afford it! You’ll note Russia isn’t on there, because we don’t get gas from Russia, at least not directly, we have had a tiny bit from the likes of Spain, the Netherlands and Belgium at the bottom which may have been Russian gas firsthand. Functionally much of our gas comes from the North Sea from the same energy generators who might also be scalping us at the supply end of the market too.
We know from the Ukraine War however, that this has interrupted gas supplies, but to those nations on the continent. Therefore you’ll be delighted to hear France as an example won’t be hiking its citizens energy prices, despite being much more reliant on Russian gas. Why? They own their energy infrastructure, they renationalised. Now we have EDF here in this country, a French company hiking bills, that in part will offset French bills by charging us more. We can say likewise of Germany, nationalised energy industry, no price rise, they own E.ON, same story applies there. Starmer once stood to renationalise the energy market here, but again, that turned out to be another lie didn’t it?
In fact not only has Starmer lied about that, not only has he broken his promise to the country to not let our bills rise again by letting our bills go up by 10% and then claim there’s nothing he could do, just like the Tories did before, but all the signs are there he is going to bungle this situation at our expense to an even worse extent and once more it’s Rachel Reeves arbitrary fiscal rules that will see this happen, those blasted rules of hers, meaningless as they are, are tying Labour’s hands in a manner they cannot respond to this crisis in a manner that puts people first. The worst off were of course given cost of living crisis payments of £600 to help offset the cost of their bills previously, there is no sign of that happening under Labour, nor can it because of the fiscal rules, they won’t let Reeves spend out on this, so will she break the rules or hammer people harder. Of course pensioners are set to be hit with an energy double whammy now since 10m of them have just lost their winter fuel payments thanks to Reeves’ penny-pinching and her refusal to tax the rich and when you think of rich donors are any of them linked to the energy industry? Well of course they have, according to Global Witness, the new Labour intake of MPs have taken some £45,000 in donations from the gas and oil industry lobbyists, including one MP, Jack Abbott having taken a £2,000 donation from EDF itself. Keir Starmer had the nerve to bemoan enormous profits being made by the oil and gas lobby back in 2022, but when some of that gets donated to his MPs? Different story now isn’t it? No talk of a windfall tax here and now is there? It’s time profit margins and the Tories fault and let’s blame Putin for good measure instead.
As you might correctly surmise, it is the Green Party that have come out against this, Carla Denyer having said:
‘To hear that MPs from Labour or any other party are taking donations from firms connected to the fossil fuel industry is deeply concerning. We are facing a climate emergency and there can be no room for malign influences on policy making whilst our planet boils…
Unfortunately, the current rules aren't fit for purpose. We need a firewall between MPs and the oil and gas lobby…
These MPs should return the donations they’ve been given, and Labour should bring in legislation that prevents donations, sponsorship and the buying-up of former ministers by oil and gas lobbyists…
We would also like to see a ban on the practice of MPs doing consultancy work for fossil fuel interests and the introduction of stricter rules on MPs taking jobs in the industry after leaving parliament.’
Same old corrupt politics, same old Tories, be they wearing blue rosettes or red ones. For as long as only these two parties ever take power, neither will offer the change this country needs and if anything, this bunch of red Tories could be even worse than the ones we just got rid of.
This isn’t the only issue in recent days that has brought into question Rachel Reeves’ fitness to be Chancellor when she insists there is no money available to spend on anything, her economic God complex has been shattered elsewhere too as this video recommendation will tell you all about and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.