MSE News: British Gas profits up, months after hiking prices

dude89

Somniac wrote: »

Ludicrous to have a Foreign private company with ownership of any essential utility.
Gas, Electric, water, should all be re nationalised.

And do you have any proof that bills will be cheaper? What incentive would there be for the government to keep prices down? (And don't say they wouldn't be re-elected because if this was a concern to them now they would come out and take off the green extras on your bill or remove the vat)

Every time there is a price rise or profit announcement everyone comes out of the wood work saying it should be renationalised. I'm not old enough to remember it when it was the gas board and the electric board, but I have yet to see any evidence it would work out cheaper. In fact all I have heard is how inefficient it used to be

Wywth

Somniac wrote: »

Ludicrous to have a Foreign private company with ownership of any essential utility.
Gas, Electric, water, should all be re nationalised.

It's worked wonders for RBS that is about 80% state owned hasn't it?

Royal Bank of Scotland has posted a pre-tax loss of £2.2bn in the fourth quarter, taking full year 2012 losses to £5.2bn

http://www.investmentweek.co.uk/investment-week/news/2251152/rbs-posts-gbp52bn-loss-for-2012-but-moves-closer-to-selling-govt-stake

Chancellor George Osborne must face up to taxpayer losses in Royal Bank of Scotland and accelerate plans to return the bank to the private sector, Bank of England Governor Sir Mervyn King has said.

http://money.aol.co.uk/2013/03/06/boe-boss-in-warning-over-rbs-loss/

Meanwhile, contrast this with the performance of HSBC which wasn't bought out by the UK government :

[HSBC] reported a pre-tax profit of $20.6bn (£13.7bn),

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/9908611/Regulators-give-capital-green-light-to-HSBC.html

:cool:

ChiefGrasscutter

...and of we do all remember that the cr*p alumimium cabling installing in the telephone infrastruture that now causes so much problems on consumers broadband......was installed when BT was in public ownership and was called the GPO. It was installed 'cos it was cheaper than copper.

...then there is the fact that most villages in the UK do not have gas. Why? 'cos it's not economically viable to conect them up and it never has been. This is regardless of whether the gas transporter is private as "Transco plc " or when it was part of British Gas and all in public ownership. State ownership does not mean universality of access.

For decades the utilites in public ownership did not invest in the infrastructure whether that be the telephone network, the london sewage system, the electric supplies and the gas pipelines.
No new powerstations were built to replace those before the current batch came to the end of their life.

It is only now under private ownership that B.Gas/Transo are replacing old cast iron pipes. It is only now that Thames water is wanting to build more resevoirs and doing major improvements to the victorian sewage systems.

So now we are all reaping the consequences of endlessly relying on old infrastructure which is finally giving up and failing.

Do I care, NO: I worked in the sector and my employers looked to export orders as it was quite clear the UK government was not interested. Now I can sit back in semi-retirement and watch the fun as the prices rocket to compensate for paying for all the work that should have been done over the last few decades but wasn't - and now HAS to be done.

MillicentBystander

Wywth wrote: »

It's worked wonders for RBS that is about 80% state owned hasn't it?

http://www.investmentweek.co.uk/investment-week/news/2251152/rbs-posts-gbp52bn-loss-for-2012-but-moves-closer-to-selling-govt-stake

http://money.aol.co.uk/2013/03/06/boe-boss-in-warning-over-rbs-loss/

Meanwhile, contrast this with the performance of HSBC which wasn't bought out by the UK government :

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/9908611/Regulators-give-capital-green-light-to-HSBC.html

:cool:

So as not to look disingenuous here you would need to explain the reasons why RBS was taken into public ownership at the time and HSBC wasn't....;)