MPs get bills paid, we struggle to heat our homes: Nationalise energy now!
We’re being ripped-off. The profiteering big six energy companies are taking us all for a ride, hiking their prices, jacking up profits, leaving the majority of us in abject misery. And now it’s been exposed that 340 MPs have claimed public money to pay for the costs of heating their second homes.
Over £200,000 has been handed to these politicians, many of whom are voting through savage cuts to the benefits and wages of the rest of us.
These are the same Tory MPs who tell those of us who struggle to pay to heat our homes that we should “wear a jumper.”
As another hike of around 10% in fuel prices hits us the Tories are credited with giving energy advice to ‘wear a jumper’. The elderly have also been given the recommendation to heat only one room in their house.
A new TUC analysis has shown that there has been an increase of 152% in fuel bills over the past ten years, four times the increase in the rate of inflation.
The solution to the greed and insensitivity of these big businesses is to remove the industry from them and place it into the hands of workers and ordinary energy consumers.
We need energy to eat, to live. It should work for us so that the people benefit, not a select few who are removing profit with absolutely no regard for the hardship they are causing to customers.
SSE announced a hike in prices of 7.7%. They were quickly followed by British Gas announcing an 8.4% rise in gas bills and 10.4% rise in electricity bills bringing an overall rise of 9.2% for duel fuel. Npower came next with a 10.4% increase. All of the big six energy companies will be increasing their prices.
They blame the Governments green taxes as one of the reasons for these increases but none of these big six companies will be seeing a dip in the profits they make or the bonuses they give to the bosses with British Gas boss Chris Weston being an example in his refusal to give up his £2 million bonus.
Profits at the big six energy companies have shot up 74 per cent since 2009. They increased from £2.15billion in 2009 to £3.74billion in 2012.
Alongside low wages, wage freezes and benefit cuts, this huge increase on energy bills will be plunging even more families in Scotland into fuel poverty as they struggle to try to make ends meet.
We are hearing more and more often that we are to expect a very harsh winter this year. With people needing to choose between heat and food we can expect it to be harsh in more than just the predicted low temperatures.
Labour have said they want to freeze prices for 18 months, but you can’t control what you don’t own. The SNP are promising to cut bills by up to £70 a year after independence. But that’s like bailing out the oceon with a tea spoon
Running the energy industry under the current capitalist system has been a monumental failure for the people. What we need is nationalisation of the energy industry. This would allow the slashing of prices and massive investment in safer, environmentally friendly alternatives.
The bosses that have crippled their customers need to be removed and replaced with democratically elected board made up of workers in the industry and comsumers, who can ensure energy production for the needs of the people rather than for profit. This is what Socialist Party Scotland and TUSC, the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition is campaigning for.
In 2013, in Britain, the 7th richest country in the world, it is completely unacceptable that people are going cold and hungry. People choosing between heat and food is Dickensian and has to be stopped.
Democratic nationalisation is the way to bring this to an end and a new mass workers party, fighting for socialism and representing the true needs of people is required to take us forward to see that we live in a fair and just society.
