Bulb to be Nationalised?

london21

Just annoying that prices have increased drastically and now Bulb have gone into administration. 

Bendo

And that's the cap working perfectly. Force a company to sell below their cost and they won't last long.

Absolutely bonkers concept.

Ultrasonic

london21 said:

Just annoying that prices have increased drastically and now Bulb have gone into administration. 

In what way? My understanding is that Bullb's prices were basically the same as the price cap already so you shouldn't actualy see any chage in your costs?

tghe-retford

Bendo said:

And that's the cap working perfectly. Force a company to sell below their cost and they won't last long.

Absolutely bonkers concept.

The alternative is an eye-watering, stonking hike in prices. The consequences are being seen in Northern Ireland and businesses. I heard on the radio that businesses not finished by lockdown will be by excessive energy prices. I'd dread to think what will happen in households where the Universal Credit uplift has gone, bills up, food prices up, fuel prices up, social care levy introduced, likely in future that wages will be frozen or go down for many to cut costs for private businesses and state services in order to stop then going under, even with inflation soaring - wage hikes will be limited where prices can easily be hiked such as bus fares or food prices.

The Government has repeatedly made decisions to push and pursue a green agenda which looks and sounds good but isn't viable. And we are now all paying for that virtue signalling. And the Government could pay at the ballot box when the chickens come home to roost and the real cost of going green hits everyone. Tackling  climate change is all well and good but if it's unaffordable and unviable, it won't end well for anyone.

MWT

tghe-retford said:

Tackling  climate change is all well and good but if it's unaffordable and unviable, it won't end well for anyone.

The same might be said of not tacking climate change because the costs of the changes are painful...

Shedman

tghe-retford said:

Bendo said:

And that's the cap working perfectly. Force a company to sell below their cost and they won't last long.

Absolutely bonkers concept.

The alternative is an eye-watering, stonking hike in prices. The consequences are being seen in Northern Ireland and businesses. I heard on the radio that businesses not finished by lockdown will be by excessive energy prices. I'd dread to think what will happen in households where the Universal Credit uplift has gone, bills up, food prices up, fuel prices up, social care levy introduced, likely in future that wages will be frozen or go down for many to cut costs for private businesses and state services in order to stop then going under, even with inflation soaring - wage hikes will be limited where prices can easily be hiked such as bus fares or food prices.

The Government has repeatedly made decisions to push and pursue a green agenda which looks and sounds good but isn't viable. And we are now all paying for that virtue signalling. And the Government could pay at the ballot box when the chickens come home to roost and the real cost of going green hits everyone. Tackling  climate change is all well and good but if it's unaffordable and unviable, it won't end well for anyone.

And who are people going going to vote for in protest at the ballot box?  Labour and Lib Dems would pursue an even more aggressive green agenda.  Perhaps Nigel will set up an Anti-Green party now he has time on his hands (not that UKIP did much in actually winning any seats).

EssexHebridean

This is the issue - it's easy to bash the Government over their green agenda, they're an easy target, but ANY Government currently would be peddling the same lines - or even harder ones. 

ad1927

wittynamegoeshere said:

From what I remember the cap was introduced in a bit of a panic by May's Tories during a general election where they looked a bit shaky.  They tried to out-labour the labour party by nicking one of their policies...

https://www.itv.com/news/2017-05-09/conservatives-energy-price-cap-pledge-what-does-it-mean-for-consumers

Until this year I thought it would never affect me, as I frequently shopped around so would always be paying a much lower price.  How times have changed, I'm definitely very grateful for this bit of socialism.

I doubt that the tories ever thought it would be in such widespread use and that it would bankrupt vast chunks of the industry, but I doubt that any politician wants to be the one that removes it.  I think it still stands to expire in 2023, but they've brought in some weird rule about it auto-renewing every year beyond that or something complicated.  Basically it's likely to be permanent.

I don't think it is likely to be permanent.  Taxpayers will soon complain when their taxes are being used to subsidise the private sector.  The Government will, during winter months, tell everyone who is feeling cold and broke that they are on their side.  Come the summer months of 2023, they will remove it.  People will not worry too much, in general, because 

1)  It's summer.  Winter is years away
2)  No-one bothers to look at the wholesale price of gas which is now, by the way, £2.21 per therm or, 7.6p per kWh (based on 29 kWh per therm).  In January 2020, the wholesale price was 34p per therm.  Or, 1.2p per kWh.  

My fixed price (ends on 31 January) is giving me about 15p per kWh of electricity and 3.2p per kWh of gas.  My step daughter is in the process of moving out, and she is being quoted, roughly, double those figures.  Every £100 I use in gas and electricity costs my supplier about £100 on top.  It will get worse too.  Gas prices are up 6.38% today.  The National Grid demand shows that 53% of the electricity we are using right now is from gas powered stations.  3.7% coming from coal by the way.  These prices are not going to go back down, China may well move from coal to gas, so too India.  Gas is the new oil.  

Time for people to bite the various bullets - fewer washing cycles, less use of the tumble dryer.  For some people, solar panels may start looking like a viable option in the next 18 months.

Ectophile

tghe-retford said:

Bendo said:

And that's the cap working perfectly. Force a company to sell below their cost and they won't last long.

Absolutely bonkers concept.

The alternative is an eye-watering, stonking hike in prices. The consequences are being seen in Northern Ireland and businesses. I heard on the radio that businesses not finished by lockdown will be by excessive energy prices. I'd dread to think what will happen in households where the Universal Credit uplift has gone, bills up, food prices up, fuel prices up, social care levy introduced, likely in future that wages will be frozen or go down for many to cut costs for private businesses and state services in order to stop then going under, even with inflation soaring - wage hikes will be limited where prices can easily be hiked such as bus fares or food prices.

The Government has repeatedly made decisions to push and pursue a green agenda which looks and sounds good but isn't viable. And we are now all paying for that virtue signalling. And the Government could pay at the ballot box when the chickens come home to roost and the real cost of going green hits everyone. Tackling  climate change is all well and good but if it's unaffordable and unviable, it won't end well for anyone.

The problem here is a massive hike in the world price of a fossil fuel. If we all gave up our gas boilers, and switched to heat pumps powered by wind or nuclear, then we wouldn't care less what the price of gas was any more.

But we aren't going to be there for at least 20 years. Until then, North Sea gas is running out, and we're buying more and more gas on the world market.

WillPS

Ectophile said:

tghe-retford said:

Bendo said:

And that's the cap working perfectly. Force a company to sell below their cost and they won't last long.

Absolutely bonkers concept.

The alternative is an eye-watering, stonking hike in prices. The consequences are being seen in Northern Ireland and businesses. I heard on the radio that businesses not finished by lockdown will be by excessive energy prices. I'd dread to think what will happen in households where the Universal Credit uplift has gone, bills up, food prices up, fuel prices up, social care levy introduced, likely in future that wages will be frozen or go down for many to cut costs for private businesses and state services in order to stop then going under, even with inflation soaring - wage hikes will be limited where prices can easily be hiked such as bus fares or food prices.

The Government has repeatedly made decisions to push and pursue a green agenda which looks and sounds good but isn't viable. And we are now all paying for that virtue signalling. And the Government could pay at the ballot box when the chickens come home to roost and the real cost of going green hits everyone. Tackling  climate change is all well and good but if it's unaffordable and unviable, it won't end well for anyone.

The problem here is a massive hike in the world price of a fossil fuel. If we all gave up our gas boilers, and switched to heat pumps powered by wind or nuclear, then we wouldn't care less what the price of gas was any more.

But we aren't going to be there for at least 20 years. Until then, North Sea gas is running out, and we're buying more and more gas on the world market.

There's the small matter of the wind not always blowing (which is one of the instigating factors of this crisis) and gas turbines being used for a massive amount of domestic electricity...

Nuclear is probably the answer but that capacity takes a long time, decades in fact, to come on line.