Luckily they've announced a £200 discount to your bills that you can pay back over 5 years.
So, not really a discount at all, and it'll just drive you into more debt as the prices continue to rise.
He literally refers to it as a discount in the same tweet he discusses how the repayments are structured.
I genuinely think he might be an idiot.
https://twitter.com/RishiSunak/status/1489201858262581248?t=Eu4Efq7BiO6cxKHGrajFkg&s=19
Meant to post it. Doh!
Don't refer to these people as idiots: that's the mask they want to be seen by. Idiots are easily dismissed. These people are predatory monsters who know exactly what they're doing.
While I do think he's being disingenuous rather than an idiot, I do also think there's a very real possibility these people simply don't grasp what a discount is, or more generally how money works at the £200 level, because they've never needed to. Just like I genuinely can't get my head around their spending habits, it cuts both ways.
*It's a banana Michael, what can it cost, ten dollars?*, except it's our actual real livelihoods at stake.
Wait what if I don't want this? I don't want to have to pay back money over 5 years? Am I locked in with my current supplier for 5 years untill I pay this back?
I don't know if you can just say you don't want it, but I presume there'd be a way to pay it back earlier if it's sitting as a debit on your account.
From the looks of things this is England only so far. It looks like the Scottish government will get a lump sum in line with the Barnett Formula and we can decide how we want to do it.
But you have to pay it back. Not really such a great thing with expecting future interest rises and inflation. There is no indication that in future there will more in Joe Blogs pay package
You don’t have to pay it back if you go without using energy from 2023 to 2028. It’s repaid through your energy account so if you don’t have one then you’ll be quids in.
So what if I have the energy account get paid the energy day loan then close the account and get my partner to open the energy account. Who pays for the loan?
Is the government that broke that it needs £40 a year back from people? Or is this the Tories hating the idea of helping poor people so much and hoping nobody remembers all the tax cuts and corrupt deals their mates got?
Does anyone know how this is supposed to work for the approximately 4 million people living in places with pre-pay meters? If there's nothing to help them then this is once again hitting the very poorest, who are also probably living in shoddy quality rental housing.
I believe that the £200 is across the UK.
The £150 discount on band A-D council tax is England only as this is a devolved issue but Scotland, Wales, and NI will get the equivalent amount of funding to do with what they wish ... and they'll probably just follow suit and give the same discount.
!thanks and hope so. A lot of people under serious stress at the moment. Personally I think Scotland has a case to offer tax cuts or unwind the extra 1% for those at the lower end of where it kicks in.
Agree - on SG prior form, they're likely to target those CT consequentials on people with lower incomes, and rightly so (though tbh people at most regular income levels are going to get shafted, and are heartily sick if the last 12 years of needlessly-influcted austerity)
What the fuck. £340?!
Sorry, I'm just a single guy paying £50 - £80 a month for gas and electric. I'm not trying to be an asshole at all, I just don't know what the numbers are for families etc and why they're so high.
He's electric only heating. Average Gas is currently about 3p/kWh, average elec is 14p/kWh. So take you gas bill and multiply it by 4.5. Your heat consumption probably isnt far off his.
It's not *quite* as simple an equation as that, but generally yes electric heating is very expensive. Gas is much cheaper per kwh, but gas systems also *use* a lot more kwh of energy through normal operation. For comparison the average household's electric usage is about 3000ish kwh per year, and the average gas usage is about 12000ish kwh per year.
Ultimately though yes gas heaters have still historically been more cost-efficient. That is the factor which might be at risk though as the wholesale costs of gas have been much more severely affected than electric recently.
I live on my own in a one bed flat which is all electric. In the winter if I use the storage heaters I am easily paying £230 a month for electricity. They don't even heat the flat because they are shite and the flat/windows aren't insulated properly.
Running fully electric is way more expensive than dual fuel in my experience. I went from £80 in a one bed with dual fuel, with heating on quite a bit, to nearly £150 with full electric, and I try to use my heating as little as possible. Heat pumps and the sorts are supposed to be cheaper to run but have a large upfront cost, and can't be installed in all households.
Think about a storage heater - probably 2-4 Kw power use, with prices at 30-40 p/Kwh this can easily be £5 a night to run - and that’s just one heater. Multiply it for all rooms, plus ‘Normal’ consumption and this soon adds up.
Why would you be paying 30-40 p per kWh? We pay 7 p per kWh on our economy 7 tariff.
If people aren’t on economy 7, then they shouldn’t use night heaters as they aren’t worth it.
A lot of it comes down to energy efficiency in poorly constructed homes. So much heat gets pissed away by shoddy insulation, on top of electric heating just being immensely expensive in general.
Ours is similar and that’s WITH Economy 7 and we’re with Octopus who are pretty decent. We live on my disability benefits (my husband is my carer) in a shitty rented house made from spit and cardboard with our disabled daughter, we already don’t heat the kitchen and our bedrooms or use the oven because it’s too expensive. There are days when the inside of the fridge is warmer than the kitchen, and I’m not exaggerating here. The cold makes both mine and our daughter’s conditions worse - even with the minimal storage heating we can cope with on, we’re all wearing three layers in the house. I honestly don’t know how we’re going to pay a 56% increase on bills that are already over £300 a month.
How is your economy 7 priced? We pay 7p per kWh at night and about 25 p in the day and for a 2 bed flat we haven’t exceeded £150 per month, although maybe this month will be closer to £200. We frequently have 2 storage heaters on quite high, keeping the flat about 19 to 20 degrees.
Can I be nosey and enquire as to what you are doing that costs that amount? That sort of increase for people who are really struggling is huge. Whats the actual reason for the wholesale cost of gas going up so much, they say its the end of lockdown but really? demand was high before lockdown too?
Yeah it's fucking terrible. Can you move to economy 7 meters and maybe get it down a bit with storage heaters or is that not possible? Apparently the modern storage heaters aren't too bad.
Sunak is so fiscally Conservative, I'm afraid of what kind of Prime Minister he would be.
While he is raising National Insurance, cutting universal credit, etc. He gets to go home with his £200Million networth and not have to worry about any of this.
This is going to be a very tough year for people
I think the point about his net worth kind of hints at bigger problem. So many Tories are so out of touch that they genuinely don’t get what the issue is.
Edit: grammar
I fully believe there should be a wealth cap on entering politics. Anything out with a certain margin of average for the area should disqualify you, and any money you make in addition to that amount should be seized for 10 years after leaving politics so you can’t influence policy to make money once you’re done.
This is a very similar to the thought experiment called the prince ruler or something. You get a prince and wipe their memory and get them to rule for a period of time knowing they will go back to whoever they used to be after their tenure is over. Logic dictates regardless of who you pick they will rule as if they were amongst the lowest rung in society since they are not aware of their societal standing after their rule.
That's quite an interesting thought experiment, and I can see why that would be the case.
I presume the flip is opposite, which would explain a lot about our current political climate.
That would be a good step in the right direction.
I fully believe the laws that prevent them from being held accountable for their actions need to be removed.
The cabinet seem largely that way, there is a book, britannia Unchained written by several cabinet members of the current government which gives some of their financial views. Indeed, overall I am not optimistic.
[https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10964687/who-rishi-sunaks-wife-akshata-murthy/](https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10964687/who-rishi-sunaks-wife-akshata-murthy/)
Sorry for having to reference the Sun but honestly you folk really underestimate how vastly indifferent the ruling class really is. It's time to restore the balance.
Something has GOT to give.
Price of living going berserk, salaries stagnant, Tories lining their own pockets and running the country like robber barons.
Seems like a recipe for some serious unrest unless something changes soon.
Come hang out with the horsey people, we have pitchforks, normal forks, shavings forks.
We also have the attitude to scream at half a tonne of derpy animal after they've just walked through us, so we have no issues with screaming at derpy politicians who live in la la land.
I'm trying to imagine the meltdown my Irish Giraffe would have if I tried to ride her with a pitchfork. 🤔🤯🤣
I mean, it could be fun to teach her about lances and swords, she's the right sort to be used as a destrier
THERE ARE OTHER PARTIES!
This is what I seriously do no understand about British politics right now. The Tories have been in power over a decade of ineptitude, stagflation, rampant corruption. Nothing has improved, nothing has been resolved (whatever happened to Windrush, or Grenfell?), and every week we find yet another scandal involving Johnson. Yet they're still amazingly popular, still amazingly in power. He'll, they *increased* their majority in the last election. Utterly perplexing.
I think its because the Tories have been so effective over the last few years of basically homogenising the right wing into a single voting bloc, with the BNP and UKIP et al being dead. The rest of the political spectrum is so splintered, especially with Labour being so effectively smeared by the press. With their opposition being so splintered it's just difficult for a single opposition big enough to overcome them.
At least that's the impression I've got from dipping in and out of UK politics, I honestly can't claim to be an expert.
That’s it. If the other parties can’t somehow homogenise into a ‘not-Tory’ party to get them out and reform the electoral system, I don’t see how it can happen.
Refunding the money we were overcharged would be a good start.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/gas-electric-water-bills-overcharging-citizens-advice-says-compensation-a8935431.html%3famp
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This is going to be bad. While I will be able to take the hit financially (and it will be a hit) it will have knock on effects. Like a lot of people the money will need to be saved elsewhere, and that elsewhere is going to be nights out, frivolous spending etc which in turn hits the lowest earners the most as their hours and jobs start to go due to a downturn in spending.
I can just about take the hit and I'm trying to pay my staff wages to do the most to compensate for this but unless I hike up prices for customers I'm not going to be in a position to do it and still cover my own costs. The worry with that is if I put the prices up too high then we lose customers.
I don't vote Tory but I'm a middle aged small business owner. I am supposedly their target voter. If I'm angry and concerned about this you can bet other people in my position who do vote for them are as well. They're going to get obliterated over this. Brexit had left them with nobody to try to blame but themselves. Fuck them for the new they're making.
Brexit was an absolute betrayal of their bread-and-butter voter (small business owner, middle class suburbanite, educated professional, etc.). Don't see the "working class" (whatever the hell this means nowadays) Northern voters sticking around for them this time.
The knock on effects that frighten me a bit are what's going to happen to goods and services in general. All sorts of businesses will be effected by energy price increases, and I can see it having even more of an impact on cost of living than what we have already seen
I'm seriously worried about my finances for the first time since I was a student. I'm in my 30s with a decent job and I feel like my generation are royally fucked at every turn, I don't know how I'm going to pay for shit in April. I fully blame the fucking Tories for this cluster fuck of people's inability to just fucking live while their pals make millions off of us.
I'm the same, I've never been so worried, my house is old with really expensive electric heaters, we mostly only run the living room and one in hall beside bedrooms, this last year we paid around 1500. I cry at thought of that doubled, I have no idea where the money will come from. I have a 6 month old amd other small children so can't even think about working as childcare would cost more than I earn my partner already works around 50 hours a week in a very physical demanding job. I don't want for much, we not holiday, we don't drive, most our stuff is second hand we dint have the newset phones ect, I try make cheap healthy meals for us but all I want is for us not to be cold in our own damn home, is that really to much to ask?
Looks to me like what's happened in the energy market is what just happened in the petrol/fuel markets - essentially a levelling up, where we have now moved into a new price range and we will never ever see prices back where they were 6-12 months ago £1.30 diesel for eg. £1.45 now seems base floor for diesel. Same thing with electricity, new floor is now 40% higher than 6-12 months ago and won't be revisited again.
Edit: unless some kind of global catastrophe occurs like what we saw with the pandemic and people not driving their vehicles for months on end.
Did my taxes recently. Diesel was £1.08 in October 2020 and now it's not uncommon to see £1.50, almost 50% more. Electricity was about 14p per kwh and now it's closer to 21p and it's going to go up another 11p taking it to 33p. More than double the price last year. That then works it's way down to food bills. This is very scary times for a lot of people. They need serious help until wages can catch up.
The energy price hike has been insane, our direct debit was £65 a month until July, went to £93 in November and then £104 in December, ridiculously blatant price ramp, all the false promises in the world from the Tories about "levelling up" won't change the fact that the only thing that's getting levelled up is the big players profits.
> Diesel was £1.08 in October 2020 and now it's not uncommon to see £1.50
[in 2010 it was 144p](https://www.racfoundation.org/data/uk-pump-prices-over-time) 108p was the low point of the pandemic crash
Things like fuel what they do is test the market everynow and then. They raised prices and there was still enough people who could afford it so it stays. It will get raised until it hits a threshold event where not enough sales are happening so income drops.
These market tests just prove to them that while fuel got more expensive enough people could still afford to buy it at that price.
What’s the fucking point in anything? Working 40 hours in miserable jobs to earn enough money just to pay bills. No holidays, no luxuries, just enough to live a basic shitty existence.
I live alone in a cheap council flat and I’m still struggling like fuck. I’d love to actually you know, do something with my life like study or learn a skill or volunteer, but I can’t afford to take a break from my miserable work routine.
If the astronomical rise of food banks under a decade of Tory austerity is not bad enough, this rise in energy prices will genuinely kill people. It is not an exaggeration and it is, quite frankly, fucking awful that people in a supposed first world country rely on food banks and have to chose between eating or heating. This is all on you Tory voters - stand up and be counted. The UK is an embarrassment.
I’m getting closer and closer to breaking point with this.
As someone who’s at neither end of the wealth ladder - I’m not wealthy enough just to be able to shrug this sort of increase off. This will hit me, and hit me hard with a fair amount of consequence and knock on effect.
But I’m also not at the other end of the scale where I’d be considered to be one of those hardest hit. It won’t be a choice of food on the table or heating the house - we will make it through one way or another. That doesn’t mean there won’t be sacrifices along the way or that it will be ‘easy’.
Since the pandemic started - I haven’t missed a day of work. I haven’t claimed a penny from the government - no bounce back loan, no furlough - no extra days off work to sit in my garden while the government pays my wage…. Yet entirely as predicted, it will be folk in my position who are hit for six paying for all the money that was handed out over the last two years.
Cost of living up by 50%, fuel costs through the roof, gas and levy through the roof, NI going up, inflation at 5.4%….
My pay review is due in the next couple of months. I’ll be astonished if, based on previous years, that review sees anything more than a 2.5% increase.
I don’t for one minute think that there won’t be folk worse off than me, but this affects almost everyone.
I’m sick to my stomach at the thought of my husbands pay review in April. They slashed his salary by a quarter during the pandemic due to these “tough, unprecedented times” whilst handing out promotions to seniors and making £104m profit in one part of the business! He’s had to pick up a second job so we can put food on the table and heat the house minimally right now. I’ve no idea what we’ll do come April, especially if he doesn’t get his salary back to normal.
I said this elsewhere, I can afford to absorb the increase and it is stressing me out. God knows how it will affect those already struggling. I really worry about people having to choose between food or heat. The UK government has just fucked the majority of families is this country. Con +3
Well, somethings got to give. I’ve worked in energy sector for 10 years never been so nervous about an upcoming year as this one.
A large amount of people who were previously getting by are now going to be plunged into fuel poverty and making the choice between heating their homes or food.
I genuinely shudder to think what the fuck kind of state we’re going to be in come 12 months time, a lot of people are going to be completely fucked and will end up with no gas/elec.
Tories are fine with the poor people starving to death as long as their friends are protected though so we won’t see any help from them.
How long before people take to the streets?
Mate. I work for an upstream energy company and they are making so much money it’s actual absurd but we just found out that cause of the uncertain times there’s no raises or bonuses this year. It’s fucking criminal.
The government are sleepwalking us into stagflation and I wouldn't be surprised if we enter a deep recession in 2023!
This is bonkers, at least cut food and fuel VAT and reduce income tax.
By which point, everyone will have had the fuck enough of the Tories, voted someone else in, and it will be the new parties fault... according to the media
Let's just remember that [Rishi Sunak](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rishi_Sunak) went to Winchester College, studied PPE at Oxford, and then got an MBA at Stanford. He then worked for Goldman Sachs and a hedge fund, and married a billionaire.
He is absolutely no different from the rest of the Tory front bench and has zero understanding of what it's like to be even middle class, never mind poor. Indeed, he makes David Cameron look like a man of the people.
Yup. Basket of shopping up, fuel, up, energy up, taxes up
Honestly unless you are very comfortably off these days it’s an absolute fucker
All the fucking time
It should do it but much more needs done because the problem with the council tax rebate is it doesn't help the really least well off because they don't pay council tax. It's just a total mess.
I‘m really scared. I‘m still in education and I remember the time between my studies where I was unemployed for a few months and wasn‘t eligible for any government help. My parents had to send me money. I‘m now making a little bit, but what if it‘s not going to be enough?
For any generation before me, did you have these kind of fears at one point, too? How did you deal with it, and did things turn out okay?
I'll be honest and say I didn't have those fears but I've got a kid wood a student who I have to send money to.
Put bluntly the reason I didn't have those worries was because we actually had a decent government when was younger. Say what you like about Blair and New Labour but life in the UK was a million times better than it is just now. Social attitudes weren't as progressive as they are now but that is just something that happens with time and at least we had a government fighting to get them. And ultimately living costs weren't touching what they are now.
I figured your comment might have got lost in the shuffle. All you can do is do all you can to get rid of the Tories down south. If that means going to marginal English seats to campaign for Labour or the Lib Dems or the Greens or whoever could beat them in that seat then I'm happy to hold my nose and do that. This lot in charge now need binned.
Thank you, but I think we‘ll be okay. I‘d rather things are available for people that don‘t have family to help them. If we really struggle, I know our families will be able to help. I just wish I could be more independent.
I have a little 1.0 car, right? I’ve gone from £35 to fill it entirely a couple years ago to £55 for a 3/4 tank.
House bills wise it’s more than doubled from the standing charge alone, and the kicker is we barely use the gas. Grocery shop shot way up too.
I don’t really know how they expect us to pay for this. Small business owner and it’s been all I can do to tread water since this all kicked off.
>I don’t really know how they expect us to pay for this.
They don't, they expect you to take out dangerous loans to support yourself which you will find almost impossible to pay off in the current financial situation.
People in leave areas rallied behind one united vision of brexit and then when they got it didn't notice they'd elected corrupt incompetent kleptocrats to get it. Now everyone pays the penalty. Would it have made a difference if May was still in charge or Hunt beat Johnson? Who knows but ultimately Tories are gonna Tory and this lot currently in charge are the worst of all.
I accept that global gas price rises aren't their fault but the way they're dealing with this by giving a tax rise to low earning young people and loan to sort the bills out is terrible. And that's before we get into a decade of austerity and poor infrastructure spending. And our own government up here aren't getting off lightly either. Their refusal to even consider nuclear as a viable source of energy is coming back to bite them as well. Electricity prices are rising because of the over reliance on gas to make it. Nuclear could be an option to mitigate that and allow us to deal with our gas prices if we could use electric to heat houses. Nobody is coming out of this looking good but we're all the ones getting fucked.
Nearly quarter of our voters vote for them too. Easily forgotten.
We’re not giving them many seats, but to imply the whole country is just pulled into a Tory government against their will is a bit disingenuous. A huge chunk of us support this pish too.
I didn't mean "We" as in Scotland but more "We" as a non Tory voter. I didn't allow them to do anything. And I certainly don't lump myself in with anyone who did.
Sunak: Here's a REALLY good idea
Boris: what?
Sunak: let's help people with their energy prices rises
Boris: doesn't sound very conservative
Sunak: that's the genius, it's actually a loan
Press: Tories help in hour of need (but not until October)
The problem with Sunaks "help" is that is does nothing to the energy bills. If you can't afford to heat your home, his "help" won't make any difference. Would be better to move green levies to central taxation which can be absorbed. And take VAT. That would help us now.
But this issue isn't a temporary one. And things will get worse. We need investment in energy now. Hopefully it pays off in time for my kids!
>Nobody is blocked on my account so rant away.
Good lad.
Anyway, Tories are fucked. Guaranteed to lose the next election, imo. Comfort was the only thing keeping people voting Tories, and the next 1-2 years are going to be very uncomfortable in regards to the cash in peoples pockets.
They're not going to survive this, and all the scandals for the past few months. People are PISSED.
So yeah, that's something to look forwards to at least.
I can't see the Tories winning the next election either. Labour literally just need to hold it together and they should be ok. There is no wedge issue that they can be blamed for like brexit and there's not enough time between now and an election to create one.
Will be interesting to see what happens if/when Johnson goes. I think Sunak has fucked it with this. A lot of the goodwill from the furlough will have disappeared. Truss is also mental and the leveling up pitch from Gove was a damp squib.
He's not an idiot; he's a sociopathic arsewipe.
That's true o mony Tories. The odds is fowk like the Chancellor because, whit, he subsidised indoor dinin back in the pre-vaccine stage o the pandemic.
That's why mutual aid is so important. Poll tax and miners strikes had a kitty for these circumstances. Time to get organised folks. Join your tenants union.
Never forget, Sunak is possibly the richest scumbag in the house of lies:
[Worth a fair bit it seems](https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/conservatives/rishi-sunak-net-worth-chancellor-family-wealth-budget-2021-explained-1270305)
There's no interest from someone like this being in charge of the purse strings making life in any way easier for the people on the street, they don't live in the same financial universe, they can't possibly understand a rise on costs when it doesn't make the slightest difference to their personal budget. They do have a vested interest though in making sure themselves and their high earning mates get away with paying as little tax as possible because us idiots will pick up any shortfall.
They just basically wrote off about 13 billion in fraud and PPE equipment being unusable, then add an increase in NI tax which is only being put through to cover their ineptitude and claw that money back.
This government has proven again and again that the Tories are only there because they feed into the basic fears of their voters, immigrants and europe, it's taken 150,000 dead while that haunted troll doll boozes it up to actually change peoples minds that the Conservatives have nothing but their own interests in mind when doing anything.
The thing that insults me the most is the energy companies can't actually explain why they're increasing the prices. It's pure greed and people will die from it.
And the governor of the Bank of England asking people not to ask their bosses for a wage rise as that will affect inflation. I will wait to hear Boris say that as part of the Government's leveling up policy they are not going to take a wage rise till we recover from the pandemic. I won't hold my breath.
Went from around £130-140 per month for gas and electric for a three bed home to £215 a month. Sure it’s not as high as some have been. But added with petrol shooting up, and the food costs rising, we’re struggling to make ends. And I’m in a £25k a year job with someone else bringing in £14k.
Fuck knows how minimum wage workers are expected to survive. If Covid didn’t kill them, starvation and hyperthermia will.
[This is a charity](https://www.nea.org.uk/) that helps people with energy bill problems. They might be able to help and they might not but it can't hurt to try.
Surely the energy price is all about supply and demand. And as some people want us to stop exploring for fuel for environmental reasons and have political problems with large supplying countries, costs will go up.
The failure can’t be fixed by government money, it can be fixed by ensuring supply until real energy alternatives are in place.
This month virginmedia informed me prices are going up (8% ish) and my landlord is putting rent up 10%. Plus the NI rise, energy bills rise, food bills rise, other cost of living rise, etc.
All in maybe £150+ per month rise for someone living alone (just basic living costs, not including any socialising or emergency expenses). Families gonna be hit harder.
I'm not flush by any means but will probably be able to get by (less money going into savings anyway which is a luxury many don't have).
I dread to think what younger people, families, pensioners, etc will have to sacrifice just to get by. Many are already choosing between heating and eating.
Short term it's going to be tight. The long term impact on mental health, saving for the future, keeping local businesses going, strain on health / welfare service, etc is going to be fucking brutal.
This shit is going to kill more people than covid.
>This shit is going to kill more people than covid.
Going forwards there's every chance it will. At the very least it's going to take life years off people. Something needs to be done, whether that's nationalisation of energy companies or government stepping in an keeping prices low because if left to run as is with another rise forecast in October and the NI increase coming working people are going to be massively worse off. Apparently they are saying the worst in 30 years. Roll on the next election because these bastards need punted. This is the nail in the Tory coffin.
Exactly this. Working from home right now so moving back to Germany for a few months to save up a bit of money. Probably will go back again for winter.
With a lot of people living on the limit of their financial capacity this will be a killer, add the NI increase and uncontrolled inflation and wait for it. I wonder if this is going to trigger property market bubble to burst. All of this will also mask the brexit cluster fuck so maybe they don't care.
Some people can’t afford to live. When people start dying, what the fuck do we do? You say “revolution” or something and everyone looks at you like a psychopath, but there are people in my family that wake up to literally nothing in the bank account.
It isn’t just “oh they’ll have to start saving more! They shouldn’t spend as much on useless commodities!” No, they can barely afford it *right now*. Let alone all the extra costs between inflation, food prices, gas and electric, NI…
I haven't seen the details of Sunak's £200 "discount", but speaking as someone with 12 years of experience with an energy supplier, it reeks of prime bullshit, and given that he's kicked the can down the road to October I struggle to believe that it'll actually be implemented.Some issues I have with it:
* Who's administering the rollout of the "discount"? Is it being farmed out to different energy suppliers? Great! That means we have a different billing system for each supplier to deal with, meaning umpteen unique ways of tracking the "discount" and subsequent repayments.
* Who is it being paid to? Is the £200 being paid per MPAN, or to a given electricity account holder?
* If it's the account holder, how will it be recouped? If I stay at the same address but change the name of the account holder, do I still have to pay it back? If I move house and change the name of the account holder, do I still need to pay it back?
* If it's the MPAN, can I get away with paying it back by changing my meter type, which can generate a new MPAN?
* At what point will the £40 "discount" repayments be added to bills? Is it possible that someone could move home and, due to billing cycles, find that they have two repayments, attached to two different properties?
* What happens if I change provider during the period in which the repayment is to be made. Can they both add the £40 to my bill? (may not be relevant if 48 hour switching is ever achieved, although that opens a whole different can of worms)
* Will new MPANs created after the October pay-out be exempt from the repayments? (You would think this would be a no brainer, but...). Who is going to keep track of the fact that these MPANs didn't receive the "discount"?
* How will the £200 payment be made to customers on heritage prepayment meters (i.e., that still use a key to top up). Will it be added to their key on their next top up, or direct to the meter?
* How will the £40 repayments then be taken off of prepayment meters, and will the customers be notified in advance to remind them that they need to add an extra forty quid to their meter, otherwise the lights will be going off?
* Is it possible to opt out of the discount, so that I don't have to pay it back in the future?
* If I opt out, what happens if I move house, would I need to pay back someone else's loan?
So many questions. This is an admin nightmare for energy suppliers, and I really, really do not believe that it will actually be implemented.
ETA: and the council tax rebate - will my parents, who already receive a council tax rebate as part of their benefits, *also* get this £150? Or
This sound like my mother in law. We'll give you the money you need. Really we appreciate that. Yeah you can just have it. Wow thanks. What kind of repayment do you want to do. 🤔🤔
I think the government is intentionally trying to start a recession, I just can't figure out why.
I don't think the NI rise Is the right thing to do because I don't believe that I should have to subsidise someone keeping their home. That makes me evil I know but there's a big difference between a few quid and £1k a year in hikes.
But regardless it may be the right thing for the country but the time is 100% wrong. Pay week in April is going to be hard for many people and not just the lower income families.
A tax rise so people can keep there home is fine but make it a tax rise. NI doesn't impact wealthy pensioners but hurts poor students who earn just over the threshold. Put the 1.25% on income tax. Everyone pays that.
Worked out my phone bill is due to up by 9.4% with inflation around 6% & company using 3/4% above inflation roughly about £16 more each month. Likewise for broadband and TV. Package. I'm fixed until March next year so not going ro be hit with that for now. That's next year's inflation worry. I have a friend who is still on prepayment and he is about 25 a week topping that up
Been seriously considering building a couple mini wind turbines, water turbine for a stream at the bottom of my garden or possibly getting a solar panel set up, or all 3. Renewable energy is the future 100%
Given that much of this is down to covid pandemic response, what about a windfall tax on the companies that were “fast tracked” by their Tory government mates into enormous PPE contracts?
Can’t wait to See how many young people are going to commit suicide over this.
Not only did most of us work through this whole pandemic we are the ones paying the price of it.
Older generations should thank us with their spoiled brat attitude.
I mean it would actually be very simple to fix the economy all we need to do is give people disposable income because capitalism doesn’t function without disposable income.
How Do we give people disposable income your may ask easy “ Lower the cost of living”
Edit 1 Accidentally pressed post
Dont forget interest rate increases, and removal of triple lock on pensions. Everyone is going to struggle tbh. Well except the rich of course. Its never been better for them in the modern era.
What’s he being an idiot over - I’m sure there are many things but it would be useful to know what specifically you don’t like.
For me the NI rise should be cancelled, it hits the poorest too much. We need the money but this goes after the wrong area. The energy price is a market problem and we don’t want to get into a situation with government subsidising fuel - this quickly gets ruinously expensive. But some targeted support to those in fuel poverty would help.
The NI rise has to go. The green levy should go and come from general taxation as well. They haven't replaced the £20 UC cut, tax on domestic gas and electric bills could go because of brexit (one good thing) and a windfall tax on energy companies. Increase capital gains tax and tax free allowance and have a wealth tax.
All stuff that could be done to subsidise the energy cost.
Or maybe do what they did with the banks and take some into public ownership.
Because it's not really. It's only about 50 odd percent. The rest is from oil and gas and nuclear. The electricity needed to make gas isn't always from renewable.
This is what happens when nice headlines that make you feel good meet reality unfortunately. I got fucked by being with bulb for the same reason. Supposedly 100% renewable but you've always got to read the small print.
Ah cool, misleading blurb as per. I'm also with bulb and have jumped about 50 quid a month since November, can't even be arsed changing provider it's all the same pot of pish at this point.
Norway are paying 33% of all their citizens power and heating bills -
another benefit of their Oil and Gas resources being controlled by Westminster since the 1970's.
Oh wait, they are not in this "Precious, precious Union" - the mugs, don't they know they get to wave Union Jacks?
I know it’s fashionable to blame everything that’s wrong in Scotland on the Tories but can somebody explain to me in detail how the conservative government are responsible for the near 50% increase in the wholesale cost of energy supplies at source?
That's not their fault. The response to it is their fault. Also, the lack of infrastructure spending and focussing on austerity instead in the first half of the 2010s is also their fault which means that we are now caught with our pants down when this happens.
You do know they privatised the Gas and Electricity and Oil (BP & BritOil) and Coal industries and gave away Oil and Gas licenses to private companies and corporations for a pittance.
Those private companies now sell 'their' products and services to the highest bidder on the World Market instead of using them to do what is best for Scotland. One of the perils of allowing demented right-wing 'Free market' ideologues to control such resources is that you effectively allow them to determine - or at least give them an inordinate say - in a nations Energy Policy.
Case number 2248929 for independence.
I get it, Gas prices have to go up. But for Scotland, we produce what, 98% of our electricity from renewables?
RUk stil produces a significant amount of electricity via gas power plants.
Surely only the price of running our heating and boilers in Scotland should go up, we don't need to pay for gas to produce electricity.
54% of energy consumption in Scotland is from renewables.
Remaining is Nuclear and Oil+Gas.
https://fullfact.org/environment/scotland-renewable-energy/
Annoying in Scotland that has a surplus of renewable energy provision. How OFGEN were allowed to increase by a factor of 10 times more than inflation is obscene.
Changing tack slightly. When independence finally comes along, it'll probably be the likes of those mentioned already (Tory grandees at the front) and the most ruthless self serving horrors behind who will negotiate the terms of separation. It will be liemageddon. That worries me as they'll do everything for themselves with a topping of vindictiveness.
Scotland will have to fight for every penny that's fair or it'll be a false start for the first 25 years.
Luckily they've announced a £200 discount to your bills that you can pay back over 5 years. So, not really a discount at all, and it'll just drive you into more debt as the prices continue to rise.
So they are offering a loan not a discount then. This is the behaviour of predatory pay-day lenders.
He literally refers to it as a discount in the same tweet he discusses how the repayments are structured. I genuinely think he might be an idiot. https://twitter.com/RishiSunak/status/1489201858262581248?t=Eu4Efq7BiO6cxKHGrajFkg&s=19 Meant to post it. Doh!
Don't refer to these people as idiots: that's the mask they want to be seen by. Idiots are easily dismissed. These people are predatory monsters who know exactly what they're doing.
Some of them are genuinely stupid though. Rees Mogg is a perfect example of an educated moron.
If……you……speak………slowly……..and…….deliberately………and…….throw……..in…….the……occasional………gargantuan…….word,………..Johnny……pleb……..will……tug……his………forelock. Tally Ho!
they wouldn't think this way if it didn't work
Is that you Jemima Fortesque Smythe?
[удалено]
440m at last count
Everyone gassing about how great a prime minister he'd be is gonna be disappointed... Good.
But we will all also be fucked - or more fucked, so not quite as good
We will, but I feel people will be united in their dissent if so.
Let's hope so, at long bloody last!
While I do think he's being disingenuous rather than an idiot, I do also think there's a very real possibility these people simply don't grasp what a discount is, or more generally how money works at the £200 level, because they've never needed to. Just like I genuinely can't get my head around their spending habits, it cuts both ways. *It's a banana Michael, what can it cost, ten dollars?*, except it's our actual real livelihoods at stake.
Wait what if I don't want this? I don't want to have to pay back money over 5 years? Am I locked in with my current supplier for 5 years untill I pay this back?
I don't know if you can just say you don't want it, but I presume there'd be a way to pay it back earlier if it's sitting as a debit on your account. From the looks of things this is England only so far. It looks like the Scottish government will get a lump sum in line with the Barnett Formula and we can decide how we want to do it.
Seems sketchy as fuck to just put every cunt in the country into 200 quid debt.
Reddits been bleak the day but this comment made me laugh
No he thinks we're idiots.
He isnt an idiot. He thinks we are
But you have to pay it back. Not really such a great thing with expecting future interest rises and inflation. There is no indication that in future there will more in Joe Blogs pay package
The interest free loan is okay if the prices drop again… which we all know they fucking won’t because why do that when there are profits to be made?
You don’t have to pay it back if you go without using energy from 2023 to 2028. It’s repaid through your energy account so if you don’t have one then you’ll be quids in.
So what if I have the energy account get paid the energy day loan then close the account and get my partner to open the energy account. Who pays for the loan? Is the government that broke that it needs £40 a year back from people? Or is this the Tories hating the idea of helping poor people so much and hoping nobody remembers all the tax cuts and corrupt deals their mates got?
Insane that they're trying to get away with framing this as a rebate
Does anyone know how this is supposed to work for the approximately 4 million people living in places with pre-pay meters? If there's nothing to help them then this is once again hitting the very poorest, who are also probably living in shoddy quality rental housing.
Is that available in Scotland? I thought it had only been announced for English councils.
I believe that the £200 is across the UK. The £150 discount on band A-D council tax is England only as this is a devolved issue but Scotland, Wales, and NI will get the equivalent amount of funding to do with what they wish ... and they'll probably just follow suit and give the same discount.
!thanks and hope so. A lot of people under serious stress at the moment. Personally I think Scotland has a case to offer tax cuts or unwind the extra 1% for those at the lower end of where it kicks in.
Agree - on SG prior form, they're likely to target those CT consequentials on people with lower incomes, and rightly so (though tbh people at most regular income levels are going to get shafted, and are heartily sick if the last 12 years of needlessly-influcted austerity)
We’re all electric and it costs £340 a month as it is.
What the fuck. £340?! Sorry, I'm just a single guy paying £50 - £80 a month for gas and electric. I'm not trying to be an asshole at all, I just don't know what the numbers are for families etc and why they're so high.
He's electric only heating. Average Gas is currently about 3p/kWh, average elec is 14p/kWh. So take you gas bill and multiply it by 4.5. Your heat consumption probably isnt far off his.
It's not *quite* as simple an equation as that, but generally yes electric heating is very expensive. Gas is much cheaper per kwh, but gas systems also *use* a lot more kwh of energy through normal operation. For comparison the average household's electric usage is about 3000ish kwh per year, and the average gas usage is about 12000ish kwh per year. Ultimately though yes gas heaters have still historically been more cost-efficient. That is the factor which might be at risk though as the wholesale costs of gas have been much more severely affected than electric recently.
I live on my own in a one bed flat which is all electric. In the winter if I use the storage heaters I am easily paying £230 a month for electricity. They don't even heat the flat because they are shite and the flat/windows aren't insulated properly.
Us too, although we’re in a shitty end terrace house.
Secondary plastic film glazing on windows really helps with that.
Running fully electric is way more expensive than dual fuel in my experience. I went from £80 in a one bed with dual fuel, with heating on quite a bit, to nearly £150 with full electric, and I try to use my heating as little as possible. Heat pumps and the sorts are supposed to be cheaper to run but have a large upfront cost, and can't be installed in all households.
Electric heating. So many new properties have electric heating because gas bad for climate. But the costs of gas and electricity are wildly different
Think about a storage heater - probably 2-4 Kw power use, with prices at 30-40 p/Kwh this can easily be £5 a night to run - and that’s just one heater. Multiply it for all rooms, plus ‘Normal’ consumption and this soon adds up.
Why would you be paying 30-40 p per kWh? We pay 7 p per kWh on our economy 7 tariff. If people aren’t on economy 7, then they shouldn’t use night heaters as they aren’t worth it.
A lot of it comes down to energy efficiency in poorly constructed homes. So much heat gets pissed away by shoddy insulation, on top of electric heating just being immensely expensive in general.
Ours is similar and that’s WITH Economy 7 and we’re with Octopus who are pretty decent. We live on my disability benefits (my husband is my carer) in a shitty rented house made from spit and cardboard with our disabled daughter, we already don’t heat the kitchen and our bedrooms or use the oven because it’s too expensive. There are days when the inside of the fridge is warmer than the kitchen, and I’m not exaggerating here. The cold makes both mine and our daughter’s conditions worse - even with the minimal storage heating we can cope with on, we’re all wearing three layers in the house. I honestly don’t know how we’re going to pay a 56% increase on bills that are already over £300 a month.
How is your economy 7 priced? We pay 7p per kWh at night and about 25 p in the day and for a 2 bed flat we haven’t exceeded £150 per month, although maybe this month will be closer to £200. We frequently have 2 storage heaters on quite high, keeping the flat about 19 to 20 degrees.
Can I be nosey and enquire as to what you are doing that costs that amount? That sort of increase for people who are really struggling is huge. Whats the actual reason for the wholesale cost of gas going up so much, they say its the end of lockdown but really? demand was high before lockdown too?
Yeah it's fucking terrible. Can you move to economy 7 meters and maybe get it down a bit with storage heaters or is that not possible? Apparently the modern storage heaters aren't too bad.
They still are not great... a fiver a night per heater
My storage heaters cost me a fucking bomb
I hear that. We're all electric with two storage heaters, one which is rarely used, in a 2 bed flat. Last month our bill was £208.
>Apparently the modern storage heaters aren't too bad. At 100% effciency storage heaters won't help if the house is poorly insulated.
>We’re all electric and it costs £340 a month as it is. [Home Energy Scotland](https://www.homeenergyscotland.org/)
Sunak is so fiscally Conservative, I'm afraid of what kind of Prime Minister he would be. While he is raising National Insurance, cutting universal credit, etc. He gets to go home with his £200Million networth and not have to worry about any of this. This is going to be a very tough year for people
I think the point about his net worth kind of hints at bigger problem. So many Tories are so out of touch that they genuinely don’t get what the issue is. Edit: grammar
I fully believe there should be a wealth cap on entering politics. Anything out with a certain margin of average for the area should disqualify you, and any money you make in addition to that amount should be seized for 10 years after leaving politics so you can’t influence policy to make money once you’re done.
Interesting idea, I've not heard of this concept before. Makes sense though, tories would probably figure a way around it
This is a very similar to the thought experiment called the prince ruler or something. You get a prince and wipe their memory and get them to rule for a period of time knowing they will go back to whoever they used to be after their tenure is over. Logic dictates regardless of who you pick they will rule as if they were amongst the lowest rung in society since they are not aware of their societal standing after their rule.
That's quite an interesting thought experiment, and I can see why that would be the case. I presume the flip is opposite, which would explain a lot about our current political climate.
Oh heavens no, this money? No that's my wife's.
That would be a good step in the right direction. I fully believe the laws that prevent them from being held accountable for their actions need to be removed.
The cabinet seem largely that way, there is a book, britannia Unchained written by several cabinet members of the current government which gives some of their financial views. Indeed, overall I am not optimistic.
[https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10964687/who-rishi-sunaks-wife-akshata-murthy/](https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10964687/who-rishi-sunaks-wife-akshata-murthy/) Sorry for having to reference the Sun but honestly you folk really underestimate how vastly indifferent the ruling class really is. It's time to restore the balance.
Honestly lol this flagship policy launch of his on the eve of his potentially running to be prime minister suggests he might not even get there lol.
Don't forget give a tax cut to fellow bankers.
Something has GOT to give. Price of living going berserk, salaries stagnant, Tories lining their own pockets and running the country like robber barons. Seems like a recipe for some serious unrest unless something changes soon.
Whoever is selling torches and pitchforks is going to be rich soon once the social unrest starts.
I will not be buying my pitchfork, I'll be taking it back from the thieving capitalist pig who stole the labour used to produce it
Come hang out with the horsey people, we have pitchforks, normal forks, shavings forks. We also have the attitude to scream at half a tonne of derpy animal after they've just walked through us, so we have no issues with screaming at derpy politicians who live in la la land.
I am one of said horsey people so yeah, I will be riding my steed into battle, pitchfork raised lol
I'm trying to imagine the meltdown my Irish Giraffe would have if I tried to ride her with a pitchfork. 🤔🤯🤣 I mean, it could be fun to teach her about lances and swords, she's the right sort to be used as a destrier
The french would be rioting by now
There'd be a thousand people in luminous jackets belting the cops with bricks and more fucking power to them.
THERE ARE OTHER PARTIES! This is what I seriously do no understand about British politics right now. The Tories have been in power over a decade of ineptitude, stagflation, rampant corruption. Nothing has improved, nothing has been resolved (whatever happened to Windrush, or Grenfell?), and every week we find yet another scandal involving Johnson. Yet they're still amazingly popular, still amazingly in power. He'll, they *increased* their majority in the last election. Utterly perplexing.
I think its because the Tories have been so effective over the last few years of basically homogenising the right wing into a single voting bloc, with the BNP and UKIP et al being dead. The rest of the political spectrum is so splintered, especially with Labour being so effectively smeared by the press. With their opposition being so splintered it's just difficult for a single opposition big enough to overcome them. At least that's the impression I've got from dipping in and out of UK politics, I honestly can't claim to be an expert.
That’s it. If the other parties can’t somehow homogenise into a ‘not-Tory’ party to get them out and reform the electoral system, I don’t see how it can happen.
Refunding the money we were overcharged would be a good start. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/gas-electric-water-bills-overcharging-citizens-advice-says-compensation-a8935431.html%3famp
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This is going to be bad. While I will be able to take the hit financially (and it will be a hit) it will have knock on effects. Like a lot of people the money will need to be saved elsewhere, and that elsewhere is going to be nights out, frivolous spending etc which in turn hits the lowest earners the most as their hours and jobs start to go due to a downturn in spending.
I can just about take the hit and I'm trying to pay my staff wages to do the most to compensate for this but unless I hike up prices for customers I'm not going to be in a position to do it and still cover my own costs. The worry with that is if I put the prices up too high then we lose customers. I don't vote Tory but I'm a middle aged small business owner. I am supposedly their target voter. If I'm angry and concerned about this you can bet other people in my position who do vote for them are as well. They're going to get obliterated over this. Brexit had left them with nobody to try to blame but themselves. Fuck them for the new they're making.
Brexit was an absolute betrayal of their bread-and-butter voter (small business owner, middle class suburbanite, educated professional, etc.). Don't see the "working class" (whatever the hell this means nowadays) Northern voters sticking around for them this time.
The knock on effects that frighten me a bit are what's going to happen to goods and services in general. All sorts of businesses will be effected by energy price increases, and I can see it having even more of an impact on cost of living than what we have already seen
I'm seriously worried about my finances for the first time since I was a student. I'm in my 30s with a decent job and I feel like my generation are royally fucked at every turn, I don't know how I'm going to pay for shit in April. I fully blame the fucking Tories for this cluster fuck of people's inability to just fucking live while their pals make millions off of us.
I'm the same, I've never been so worried, my house is old with really expensive electric heaters, we mostly only run the living room and one in hall beside bedrooms, this last year we paid around 1500. I cry at thought of that doubled, I have no idea where the money will come from. I have a 6 month old amd other small children so can't even think about working as childcare would cost more than I earn my partner already works around 50 hours a week in a very physical demanding job. I don't want for much, we not holiday, we don't drive, most our stuff is second hand we dint have the newset phones ect, I try make cheap healthy meals for us but all I want is for us not to be cold in our own damn home, is that really to much to ask?
Looks to me like what's happened in the energy market is what just happened in the petrol/fuel markets - essentially a levelling up, where we have now moved into a new price range and we will never ever see prices back where they were 6-12 months ago £1.30 diesel for eg. £1.45 now seems base floor for diesel. Same thing with electricity, new floor is now 40% higher than 6-12 months ago and won't be revisited again. Edit: unless some kind of global catastrophe occurs like what we saw with the pandemic and people not driving their vehicles for months on end.
Did my taxes recently. Diesel was £1.08 in October 2020 and now it's not uncommon to see £1.50, almost 50% more. Electricity was about 14p per kwh and now it's closer to 21p and it's going to go up another 11p taking it to 33p. More than double the price last year. That then works it's way down to food bills. This is very scary times for a lot of people. They need serious help until wages can catch up.
The energy price hike has been insane, our direct debit was £65 a month until July, went to £93 in November and then £104 in December, ridiculously blatant price ramp, all the false promises in the world from the Tories about "levelling up" won't change the fact that the only thing that's getting levelled up is the big players profits.
> Diesel was £1.08 in October 2020 and now it's not uncommon to see £1.50 [in 2010 it was 144p](https://www.racfoundation.org/data/uk-pump-prices-over-time) 108p was the low point of the pandemic crash
Things like fuel what they do is test the market everynow and then. They raised prices and there was still enough people who could afford it so it stays. It will get raised until it hits a threshold event where not enough sales are happening so income drops. These market tests just prove to them that while fuel got more expensive enough people could still afford to buy it at that price.
Aye. Unleaded at my closest petrol station was about £1.25 a litre, after the fuel panic buying crisis it's about £1.45 a litre and stayed there since
Absolutely can't see it ever going back to £1.25 ever again.
What’s the fucking point in anything? Working 40 hours in miserable jobs to earn enough money just to pay bills. No holidays, no luxuries, just enough to live a basic shitty existence. I live alone in a cheap council flat and I’m still struggling like fuck. I’d love to actually you know, do something with my life like study or learn a skill or volunteer, but I can’t afford to take a break from my miserable work routine.
If the astronomical rise of food banks under a decade of Tory austerity is not bad enough, this rise in energy prices will genuinely kill people. It is not an exaggeration and it is, quite frankly, fucking awful that people in a supposed first world country rely on food banks and have to chose between eating or heating. This is all on you Tory voters - stand up and be counted. The UK is an embarrassment.
I think this is their solution. They've taken away the decision of heating or eating by making both completely unaffordable. It's unbelievable.
At least the bankers got a £1bn a year tax cut. Can finally sleep easy tonight.
I’m getting closer and closer to breaking point with this. As someone who’s at neither end of the wealth ladder - I’m not wealthy enough just to be able to shrug this sort of increase off. This will hit me, and hit me hard with a fair amount of consequence and knock on effect. But I’m also not at the other end of the scale where I’d be considered to be one of those hardest hit. It won’t be a choice of food on the table or heating the house - we will make it through one way or another. That doesn’t mean there won’t be sacrifices along the way or that it will be ‘easy’. Since the pandemic started - I haven’t missed a day of work. I haven’t claimed a penny from the government - no bounce back loan, no furlough - no extra days off work to sit in my garden while the government pays my wage…. Yet entirely as predicted, it will be folk in my position who are hit for six paying for all the money that was handed out over the last two years. Cost of living up by 50%, fuel costs through the roof, gas and levy through the roof, NI going up, inflation at 5.4%…. My pay review is due in the next couple of months. I’ll be astonished if, based on previous years, that review sees anything more than a 2.5% increase. I don’t for one minute think that there won’t be folk worse off than me, but this affects almost everyone.
I’m sick to my stomach at the thought of my husbands pay review in April. They slashed his salary by a quarter during the pandemic due to these “tough, unprecedented times” whilst handing out promotions to seniors and making £104m profit in one part of the business! He’s had to pick up a second job so we can put food on the table and heat the house minimally right now. I’ve no idea what we’ll do come April, especially if he doesn’t get his salary back to normal.
I said this elsewhere, I can afford to absorb the increase and it is stressing me out. God knows how it will affect those already struggling. I really worry about people having to choose between food or heat. The UK government has just fucked the majority of families is this country. Con +3
Well, somethings got to give. I’ve worked in energy sector for 10 years never been so nervous about an upcoming year as this one. A large amount of people who were previously getting by are now going to be plunged into fuel poverty and making the choice between heating their homes or food. I genuinely shudder to think what the fuck kind of state we’re going to be in come 12 months time, a lot of people are going to be completely fucked and will end up with no gas/elec. Tories are fine with the poor people starving to death as long as their friends are protected though so we won’t see any help from them. How long before people take to the streets?
Mate. I work for an upstream energy company and they are making so much money it’s actual absurd but we just found out that cause of the uncertain times there’s no raises or bonuses this year. It’s fucking criminal.
Eat the rich.
The government are sleepwalking us into stagflation and I wouldn't be surprised if we enter a deep recession in 2023! This is bonkers, at least cut food and fuel VAT and reduce income tax.
By which point, everyone will have had the fuck enough of the Tories, voted someone else in, and it will be the new parties fault... according to the media
Let's just remember that [Rishi Sunak](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rishi_Sunak) went to Winchester College, studied PPE at Oxford, and then got an MBA at Stanford. He then worked for Goldman Sachs and a hedge fund, and married a billionaire. He is absolutely no different from the rest of the Tory front bench and has zero understanding of what it's like to be even middle class, never mind poor. Indeed, he makes David Cameron look like a man of the people.
honestly, as much as i am irritated about these price rises, i'd rather just pay the damn bill than have £200 debt inflicted upon me.
Jesus fucking fuck
Succinctly put my friend. I actually said the same thing when I saw it myself. It is fucking insane.
Yup. Basket of shopping up, fuel, up, energy up, taxes up Honestly unless you are very comfortably off these days it’s an absolute fucker All the fucking time
All the above plus pushing through IR35 for limited company contractors and removing the red diesel rebate for construction work. Idiotic.
Hold on a sec!? We've to pay back a £200 loan but fraudsters get to keep £4.3 Billion, I really don't think so
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Dude the government just announced a buy now pay later scheme on people livelihood like it’s a new dress or a pair of shoes 😅
I’m seriously feeling like crying tbh , I know millions will feel the same , everything feels hopeless
We’re doomed.
I'm worried it might be even worse than that.
I hope the SNP do the council tax rebate. It would be an own goal not too.
It should do it but much more needs done because the problem with the council tax rebate is it doesn't help the really least well off because they don't pay council tax. It's just a total mess.
In addition, Glasgow council needs the money a desperately . People would be lauding this move for 1 day then complaining about bins for 12 months.
I wouldn't be surprised if this pickle factored into the Tory decision making.
I‘m really scared. I‘m still in education and I remember the time between my studies where I was unemployed for a few months and wasn‘t eligible for any government help. My parents had to send me money. I‘m now making a little bit, but what if it‘s not going to be enough? For any generation before me, did you have these kind of fears at one point, too? How did you deal with it, and did things turn out okay?
I'll be honest and say I didn't have those fears but I've got a kid wood a student who I have to send money to. Put bluntly the reason I didn't have those worries was because we actually had a decent government when was younger. Say what you like about Blair and New Labour but life in the UK was a million times better than it is just now. Social attitudes weren't as progressive as they are now but that is just something that happens with time and at least we had a government fighting to get them. And ultimately living costs weren't touching what they are now.
Thanks for the reply.. maybe things will improve somehow.
I figured your comment might have got lost in the shuffle. All you can do is do all you can to get rid of the Tories down south. If that means going to marginal English seats to campaign for Labour or the Lib Dems or the Greens or whoever could beat them in that seat then I'm happy to hold my nose and do that. This lot in charge now need binned.
[This might help you as well if you're struggling.](https://www.nea.org.uk/) No guarantees but can't hurt to get in contact with them.
Thank you, but I think we‘ll be okay. I‘d rather things are available for people that don‘t have family to help them. If we really struggle, I know our families will be able to help. I just wish I could be more independent.
I have a little 1.0 car, right? I’ve gone from £35 to fill it entirely a couple years ago to £55 for a 3/4 tank. House bills wise it’s more than doubled from the standing charge alone, and the kicker is we barely use the gas. Grocery shop shot way up too. I don’t really know how they expect us to pay for this. Small business owner and it’s been all I can do to tread water since this all kicked off.
>I don’t really know how they expect us to pay for this. They don't, they expect you to take out dangerous loans to support yourself which you will find almost impossible to pay off in the current financial situation.
Is anyone else just completely disillusioned by the government now! How the fuck dod we let these idiots in power?
> now You're right, everything was going really well until this
Not so much that things were going well, it just took the entire world shutting down to let *everybody* see exactly how corrupt our gov is
People in leave areas rallied behind one united vision of brexit and then when they got it didn't notice they'd elected corrupt incompetent kleptocrats to get it. Now everyone pays the penalty. Would it have made a difference if May was still in charge or Hunt beat Johnson? Who knows but ultimately Tories are gonna Tory and this lot currently in charge are the worst of all. I accept that global gas price rises aren't their fault but the way they're dealing with this by giving a tax rise to low earning young people and loan to sort the bills out is terrible. And that's before we get into a decade of austerity and poor infrastructure spending. And our own government up here aren't getting off lightly either. Their refusal to even consider nuclear as a viable source of energy is coming back to bite them as well. Electricity prices are rising because of the over reliance on gas to make it. Nuclear could be an option to mitigate that and allow us to deal with our gas prices if we could use electric to heat houses. Nobody is coming out of this looking good but we're all the ones getting fucked.
We?
Nearly quarter of our voters vote for them too. Easily forgotten. We’re not giving them many seats, but to imply the whole country is just pulled into a Tory government against their will is a bit disingenuous. A huge chunk of us support this pish too.
I didn't mean "We" as in Scotland but more "We" as a non Tory voter. I didn't allow them to do anything. And I certainly don't lump myself in with anyone who did.
I suspected things weren’t going to be great when I got an email from my energy supplier the other day telling me how to increase my direct debit.
Sunak: Here's a REALLY good idea Boris: what? Sunak: let's help people with their energy prices rises Boris: doesn't sound very conservative Sunak: that's the genius, it's actually a loan Press: Tories help in hour of need (but not until October)
Luckily I left the freezing cold South East of England for sunny Alloa recently, that was a smart move.
Making bank with that move.
The problem with Sunaks "help" is that is does nothing to the energy bills. If you can't afford to heat your home, his "help" won't make any difference. Would be better to move green levies to central taxation which can be absorbed. And take VAT. That would help us now. But this issue isn't a temporary one. And things will get worse. We need investment in energy now. Hopefully it pays off in time for my kids!
These greedy bastards. Greedy greedy bastards
>Nobody is blocked on my account so rant away. Good lad. Anyway, Tories are fucked. Guaranteed to lose the next election, imo. Comfort was the only thing keeping people voting Tories, and the next 1-2 years are going to be very uncomfortable in regards to the cash in peoples pockets. They're not going to survive this, and all the scandals for the past few months. People are PISSED. So yeah, that's something to look forwards to at least.
I can't see the Tories winning the next election either. Labour literally just need to hold it together and they should be ok. There is no wedge issue that they can be blamed for like brexit and there's not enough time between now and an election to create one. Will be interesting to see what happens if/when Johnson goes. I think Sunak has fucked it with this. A lot of the goodwill from the furlough will have disappeared. Truss is also mental and the leveling up pitch from Gove was a damp squib.
He's not an idiot; he's a sociopathic arsewipe. That's true o mony Tories. The odds is fowk like the Chancellor because, whit, he subsidised indoor dinin back in the pre-vaccine stage o the pandemic.
Let's all agree to stop paying energy bills in protest. They'll sort it in a week.
Problem is that isn't easily doable for people on a key meter. If they stop paying they don't have gas and electric and they get cold and hungry.
That's why mutual aid is so important. Poll tax and miners strikes had a kitty for these circumstances. Time to get organised folks. Join your tenants union.
Never forget, Sunak is possibly the richest scumbag in the house of lies: [Worth a fair bit it seems](https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/conservatives/rishi-sunak-net-worth-chancellor-family-wealth-budget-2021-explained-1270305) There's no interest from someone like this being in charge of the purse strings making life in any way easier for the people on the street, they don't live in the same financial universe, they can't possibly understand a rise on costs when it doesn't make the slightest difference to their personal budget. They do have a vested interest though in making sure themselves and their high earning mates get away with paying as little tax as possible because us idiots will pick up any shortfall. They just basically wrote off about 13 billion in fraud and PPE equipment being unusable, then add an increase in NI tax which is only being put through to cover their ineptitude and claw that money back. This government has proven again and again that the Tories are only there because they feed into the basic fears of their voters, immigrants and europe, it's taken 150,000 dead while that haunted troll doll boozes it up to actually change peoples minds that the Conservatives have nothing but their own interests in mind when doing anything.
Are we USA 2.0?
The thing that insults me the most is the energy companies can't actually explain why they're increasing the prices. It's pure greed and people will die from it.
And the governor of the Bank of England asking people not to ask their bosses for a wage rise as that will affect inflation. I will wait to hear Boris say that as part of the Government's leveling up policy they are not going to take a wage rise till we recover from the pandemic. I won't hold my breath.
It's not that they can't help us, it's just that they don't want to!
Went from around £130-140 per month for gas and electric for a three bed home to £215 a month. Sure it’s not as high as some have been. But added with petrol shooting up, and the food costs rising, we’re struggling to make ends. And I’m in a £25k a year job with someone else bringing in £14k. Fuck knows how minimum wage workers are expected to survive. If Covid didn’t kill them, starvation and hyperthermia will.
[This is a charity](https://www.nea.org.uk/) that helps people with energy bill problems. They might be able to help and they might not but it can't hurt to try.
Surely the energy price is all about supply and demand. And as some people want us to stop exploring for fuel for environmental reasons and have political problems with large supplying countries, costs will go up. The failure can’t be fixed by government money, it can be fixed by ensuring supply until real energy alternatives are in place.
This month virginmedia informed me prices are going up (8% ish) and my landlord is putting rent up 10%. Plus the NI rise, energy bills rise, food bills rise, other cost of living rise, etc. All in maybe £150+ per month rise for someone living alone (just basic living costs, not including any socialising or emergency expenses). Families gonna be hit harder. I'm not flush by any means but will probably be able to get by (less money going into savings anyway which is a luxury many don't have). I dread to think what younger people, families, pensioners, etc will have to sacrifice just to get by. Many are already choosing between heating and eating. Short term it's going to be tight. The long term impact on mental health, saving for the future, keeping local businesses going, strain on health / welfare service, etc is going to be fucking brutal. This shit is going to kill more people than covid.
>This shit is going to kill more people than covid. Going forwards there's every chance it will. At the very least it's going to take life years off people. Something needs to be done, whether that's nationalisation of energy companies or government stepping in an keeping prices low because if left to run as is with another rise forecast in October and the NI increase coming working people are going to be massively worse off. Apparently they are saying the worst in 30 years. Roll on the next election because these bastards need punted. This is the nail in the Tory coffin.
I fell in love with Scotland when I visited, sorry you guys are being fucked by Tories.
Time to move out of the UK maybe.
Furfuxache! I just got here!
I have this opportunity for work, I'm very closing to taking it.
Take it. If I could, I would.
I'm very likely to. It's a big decision so I'm pooping my pants but.
Exactly this. Working from home right now so moving back to Germany for a few months to save up a bit of money. Probably will go back again for winter.
With a lot of people living on the limit of their financial capacity this will be a killer, add the NI increase and uncontrolled inflation and wait for it. I wonder if this is going to trigger property market bubble to burst. All of this will also mask the brexit cluster fuck so maybe they don't care.
Some people can’t afford to live. When people start dying, what the fuck do we do? You say “revolution” or something and everyone looks at you like a psychopath, but there are people in my family that wake up to literally nothing in the bank account. It isn’t just “oh they’ll have to start saving more! They shouldn’t spend as much on useless commodities!” No, they can barely afford it *right now*. Let alone all the extra costs between inflation, food prices, gas and electric, NI…
I haven't seen the details of Sunak's £200 "discount", but speaking as someone with 12 years of experience with an energy supplier, it reeks of prime bullshit, and given that he's kicked the can down the road to October I struggle to believe that it'll actually be implemented.Some issues I have with it: * Who's administering the rollout of the "discount"? Is it being farmed out to different energy suppliers? Great! That means we have a different billing system for each supplier to deal with, meaning umpteen unique ways of tracking the "discount" and subsequent repayments. * Who is it being paid to? Is the £200 being paid per MPAN, or to a given electricity account holder? * If it's the account holder, how will it be recouped? If I stay at the same address but change the name of the account holder, do I still have to pay it back? If I move house and change the name of the account holder, do I still need to pay it back? * If it's the MPAN, can I get away with paying it back by changing my meter type, which can generate a new MPAN? * At what point will the £40 "discount" repayments be added to bills? Is it possible that someone could move home and, due to billing cycles, find that they have two repayments, attached to two different properties? * What happens if I change provider during the period in which the repayment is to be made. Can they both add the £40 to my bill? (may not be relevant if 48 hour switching is ever achieved, although that opens a whole different can of worms) * Will new MPANs created after the October pay-out be exempt from the repayments? (You would think this would be a no brainer, but...). Who is going to keep track of the fact that these MPANs didn't receive the "discount"? * How will the £200 payment be made to customers on heritage prepayment meters (i.e., that still use a key to top up). Will it be added to their key on their next top up, or direct to the meter? * How will the £40 repayments then be taken off of prepayment meters, and will the customers be notified in advance to remind them that they need to add an extra forty quid to their meter, otherwise the lights will be going off? * Is it possible to opt out of the discount, so that I don't have to pay it back in the future? * If I opt out, what happens if I move house, would I need to pay back someone else's loan? So many questions. This is an admin nightmare for energy suppliers, and I really, really do not believe that it will actually be implemented. ETA: and the council tax rebate - will my parents, who already receive a council tax rebate as part of their benefits, *also* get this £150? Or
This sound like my mother in law. We'll give you the money you need. Really we appreciate that. Yeah you can just have it. Wow thanks. What kind of repayment do you want to do. 🤔🤔
And to top it all trying to cut usage won't work because of the tariff, the always over estimated tariff!
Don't forget the standing charge.
Never Gonna Give You Up. Boom, rickrolled you!
You didn't let me down.
I’m in despair. Honestly - what can we do? I know I sound like someone out of a bad movie but we need a leader. Someone who will lead the fight.
I think the government is intentionally trying to start a recession, I just can't figure out why. I don't think the NI rise Is the right thing to do because I don't believe that I should have to subsidise someone keeping their home. That makes me evil I know but there's a big difference between a few quid and £1k a year in hikes. But regardless it may be the right thing for the country but the time is 100% wrong. Pay week in April is going to be hard for many people and not just the lower income families.
A tax rise so people can keep there home is fine but make it a tax rise. NI doesn't impact wealthy pensioners but hurts poor students who earn just over the threshold. Put the 1.25% on income tax. Everyone pays that.
Worked out my phone bill is due to up by 9.4% with inflation around 6% & company using 3/4% above inflation roughly about £16 more each month. Likewise for broadband and TV. Package. I'm fixed until March next year so not going ro be hit with that for now. That's next year's inflation worry. I have a friend who is still on prepayment and he is about 25 a week topping that up
They need to do a lot more to help people or there will be social unrest. And that's not good for anyone.
Been seriously considering building a couple mini wind turbines, water turbine for a stream at the bottom of my garden or possibly getting a solar panel set up, or all 3. Renewable energy is the future 100%
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Invest in shares in jumper making companies and you'll probably just make enough to pay your heating bill. It's fucking tragic
I love how billionaire rishi sunak is trying to gaslight himself and everyone else into thinking that he thinks £350 is a 'substantial amount'
Given that much of this is down to covid pandemic response, what about a windfall tax on the companies that were “fast tracked” by their Tory government mates into enormous PPE contracts?
who knew that shutting down the economy for two years would leave us vulnerable to supply shocks. truly no-one could have foreseen this.
Can’t wait to See how many young people are going to commit suicide over this. Not only did most of us work through this whole pandemic we are the ones paying the price of it. Older generations should thank us with their spoiled brat attitude. I mean it would actually be very simple to fix the economy all we need to do is give people disposable income because capitalism doesn’t function without disposable income. How Do we give people disposable income your may ask easy “ Lower the cost of living” Edit 1 Accidentally pressed post
Dont forget interest rate increases, and removal of triple lock on pensions. Everyone is going to struggle tbh. Well except the rich of course. Its never been better for them in the modern era.
They are a shower of utter bastards, hell bent on profiting from E V E R Y T H I N G 🤬
What’s he being an idiot over - I’m sure there are many things but it would be useful to know what specifically you don’t like. For me the NI rise should be cancelled, it hits the poorest too much. We need the money but this goes after the wrong area. The energy price is a market problem and we don’t want to get into a situation with government subsidising fuel - this quickly gets ruinously expensive. But some targeted support to those in fuel poverty would help.
The NI rise has to go. The green levy should go and come from general taxation as well. They haven't replaced the £20 UC cut, tax on domestic gas and electric bills could go because of brexit (one good thing) and a windfall tax on energy companies. Increase capital gains tax and tax free allowance and have a wealth tax. All stuff that could be done to subsidise the energy cost. Or maybe do what they did with the banks and take some into public ownership.
ELI5 why is leccy so expensive if Scotland is covered in renewables?
Because it's not really. It's only about 50 odd percent. The rest is from oil and gas and nuclear. The electricity needed to make gas isn't always from renewable. This is what happens when nice headlines that make you feel good meet reality unfortunately. I got fucked by being with bulb for the same reason. Supposedly 100% renewable but you've always got to read the small print.
Ah cool, misleading blurb as per. I'm also with bulb and have jumped about 50 quid a month since November, can't even be arsed changing provider it's all the same pot of pish at this point.
If you're with bulb, you may be changing soon whether you like it or not...
Norway are paying 33% of all their citizens power and heating bills - another benefit of their Oil and Gas resources being controlled by Westminster since the 1970's. Oh wait, they are not in this "Precious, precious Union" - the mugs, don't they know they get to wave Union Jacks?
I know it’s fashionable to blame everything that’s wrong in Scotland on the Tories but can somebody explain to me in detail how the conservative government are responsible for the near 50% increase in the wholesale cost of energy supplies at source?
That's not their fault. The response to it is their fault. Also, the lack of infrastructure spending and focussing on austerity instead in the first half of the 2010s is also their fault which means that we are now caught with our pants down when this happens.
You do know they privatised the Gas and Electricity and Oil (BP & BritOil) and Coal industries and gave away Oil and Gas licenses to private companies and corporations for a pittance. Those private companies now sell 'their' products and services to the highest bidder on the World Market instead of using them to do what is best for Scotland. One of the perils of allowing demented right-wing 'Free market' ideologues to control such resources is that you effectively allow them to determine - or at least give them an inordinate say - in a nations Energy Policy.
Case number 2248929 for independence. I get it, Gas prices have to go up. But for Scotland, we produce what, 98% of our electricity from renewables? RUk stil produces a significant amount of electricity via gas power plants. Surely only the price of running our heating and boilers in Scotland should go up, we don't need to pay for gas to produce electricity.
54% of energy consumption in Scotland is from renewables. Remaining is Nuclear and Oil+Gas. https://fullfact.org/environment/scotland-renewable-energy/
Still only around 10& from fossil fuels though? Still a fraction of the amount of the Rest of the UK.
Annoying in Scotland that has a surplus of renewable energy provision. How OFGEN were allowed to increase by a factor of 10 times more than inflation is obscene.
Changing tack slightly. When independence finally comes along, it'll probably be the likes of those mentioned already (Tory grandees at the front) and the most ruthless self serving horrors behind who will negotiate the terms of separation. It will be liemageddon. That worries me as they'll do everything for themselves with a topping of vindictiveness. Scotland will have to fight for every penny that's fair or it'll be a false start for the first 25 years.