The largest unfunded bung in history

[Derek Hardballs]

I see the EU is imposing a windfall tax on Power companies.  We're not and, instead, are taxing the general population.  Sunlit uplands!

Many in the country will lap up the Tory bullshit about helping people when all they are doing is kicking the problem down the road.

[Protheroe]

Explain to me how the markets are protecting the consumer again

Regulators are there to protect the consumer and ensure markets function. They've failed (again) just as they did with banks, just as they do across the financial services sector, care sector, health sector, rail network etc.

But, nevertheless you - in common with Jeremy -  want to borrow billions more to nationalise industries and in likelihood bring in the type of management that has so failed at the Regulators.

I'd just sort the Regulators out tbh.

I thought the markets would drive down the price through competition - that is the neo-liberal capitalism you preach. It's clearly failed and will continue to fail when it all gets a bit nasty in the big wide world. It's about time you admitted that and got on with trying to fix the problems and not blame other mechanisms or situations, it all gets a bit boring hearing the same old it's the EU, immigrants, NHS, Russia, global supply issues and now the regulators. Face it we're fucked because of 12 years of dismantling the state and when we need it, global pandemic, european war, etc, there is no safety net to fall back onto, so we have to borrow more and more to patch it up - rinse and repeat.

The market driven solution has failed, time to move back to providing a future for this country and stop it spiralling down by following the tried and tested failure route.

What an odd response Jeremy.

Your prescription is to borrow £billions to nationalise energy suppliers and solve...nothing. 

As an aside, until the global shocks of Covid and Ukraine the proportion of income spent on energy for an average household was generally about 6% in the years following privatisation. Competition was working fine and margins were / are wafer thin. The regulators allowed far too many firms to begin selling energy who should've been nowhere near the market - part of our bills is paying for their collapse. Again, not a failure of markets - but of regulation (not immigrants or the EU you'll be pleased to hear).

Indeed the failure on security of supply, investment in power generation and the lamentable state of our gas storage is nothing to do with markets and everything to do with government. There were plenty of companies wanting to invest in both fracking and onshore wind until this lot put a moratorium on both.

---

I see the EU is imposing a windfall tax on Power companies.  We're not and, instead, are taxing the general population.  Sunlit uplands!

To be clear, you mean "proposals to skim the profits of low-carbon electricity producers and implement a de facto windfall tax on the oil, gas and coal sectors" - so generation / extraction and not the energy suppliers B1 wants to nationalise for no reason.

[Ossian]

Regulators are there to protect the consumer and ensure markets function...

No they aren't; they nominally exist because to not have them would look too blatantly dodgy even for us. Regulatory power is kept to a minimum by governments lobbied by those businesses sufficiently wealthy and well connected to exert the kind of influence any regulatory body could only dream of. One side of the political divide is only too happy to accede; the other too afraid of its own shadow to do the right thing.

[Protheroe]

Actually, I think the problem is that the neither the government or the regulators actually know what they're doing. May's "Energy Price Cap" for instance was designed to ensure there was no "loyalty penalty" for those who couldn't be arsed to switch - and has been shown to be both pointless and counter-productive in the face of a supply shock.

The Regulators were also too lax in who they allowed as resellers in the market. You or I could have set up an energy supply firm using a template in a day or so and never hedged a single therm of gas. Their regulation of new start-ups seems to be as good as the FA's Fit & Proper Person test.

It's incompetence rather than design that led to failed regulation in the GFC and now in the collapse of the energy supplier market.

[Tom Joad]

Explain to me how the markets are protecting the consumer again

Regulators are there to protect the consumer and ensure markets function. They've failed (again) just as they did with banks, just as they do across the financial services sector, care sector, health sector, rail network etc.

But, nevertheless you - in common with Jeremy -  want to borrow billions more to nationalise industries and in likelihood bring in the type of management that has so failed at the Regulators.

I'd just sort the Regulators out tbh.

I thought the markets would drive down the price through competition - that is the neo-liberal capitalism you preach. It's clearly failed and will continue to fail when it all gets a bit nasty in the big wide world. It's about time you admitted that and got on with trying to fix the problems and not blame other mechanisms or situations, it all gets a bit boring hearing the same old it's the EU, immigrants, NHS, Russia, global supply issues and now the regulators. Face it we're fucked because of 12 years of dismantling the state and when we need it, global pandemic, european war, etc, there is no safety net to fall back onto, so we have to borrow more and more to patch it up - rinse and repeat.

The market driven solution has failed, time to move back to providing a future for this country and stop it spiralling down by following the tried and tested failure route.

True, except more like 40 years. This latest gift from the Magic Money Tree Party, is where your grandchildren get to pay for your gas bill.

[baggy1]

I see the EU is imposing a windfall tax on Power companies.  We're not and, instead, are taxing the general population.  Sunlit uplands!

To be clear, you mean "proposals to skim the profits of low-carbon electricity producers and implement a de facto windfall tax on the oil, gas and coal sectors" - so generation / extraction and not the energy suppliers B1 wants to nationalise for no reason.

In fairness nationalising the energy market is going to be too expensive to consider, definitely in the short to medium term, but there are plenty of areas that need to be considered. Trains is the obvious one and the funding of private hospitals through the NHS pot is another, we really need to be looking at a country that has the protection of the state where it is needed and the benefits of private enterprise alongside it.

Capitalism, in the form that we have it, and low taxation model has failed. The last 3 years have shown that.

[Protheroe]

In fairness nationalising the energy market is going to be too expensive to consider, definitely in the short to medium term, but there are plenty of areas that need to be considered. Trains is the obvious one and the funding of private hospitals through the NHS pot is another, we really need to be looking at a country that has the protection of the state where it is needed and the benefits of private enterprise alongside it.

Capitalism, in the form that we have it, and low taxation model has failed. The last 3 years have shown that.

Needless to say, I don't agree. 

The problem with the trains is a particular bugbear of mine having worked for British Rail as a kid. Regular train travel generally was a minority sport before Covid let alone now. Regular long distance train travel is a minority sport undertaken by the wealthy. Bringing train operating companies back into the state is generally seen as a way of reducing fares, but fares are already massively subsidised by the vast majority of non-regular rail using taxpayers. If you're calling to reduce fares, you're simply asking for another transfer from the less well off to the better off - just as you do by opposing the use of assets to pay for care.

I do find these two trickle-up positions very odd coming from a member of the Labour Party.

[Borin' Baggie]

Long distance intercity rail travel isn't subsidised, the largest rail contingent that are subsidised are commuters (a.k.a working people) and the easier it is to get to work and more people using public transport improves productivity through access to infrastructure and a wider employment pool.

Also, the fewer people on the roads the better logistical planning is for commerce, industry and emergency services.

[igorbalis]

I see the EU is imposing a windfall tax on Power companies.  We're not and, instead, are taxing the general population.  Sunlit uplands!

To be clear, you mean "proposals to skim the profits of low-carbon electricity producers and implement a de facto windfall tax on the oil, gas and coal sectors" - so generation / extraction and not the energy suppliers B1 wants to nationalise for no reason.

In fairness nationalising the energy market is going to be too expensive to consider, definitely in the short to medium term, but there are plenty of areas that need to be considered. Trains is the obvious one and the funding of private hospitals through the NHS pot is another, we really need to be looking at a country that has the protection of the state where it is needed and the benefits of private enterprise alongside it.

Capitalism, in the form that we have it, and low taxation model has failed. The last 3 years have shown that.

Last three years? how about the 30's? Terrible times, that ultimatelty led to the rise of Hitler and the second World War. Surely taxing the vast profits energy companies are making would have been the better and more fairer option in the long run.

[Protheroe]

Long distance intercity rail travel isn't subsidised, the largest rail contingent that are subsidised are commuters (a.k.a working people) and the easier it is to get to work and more people using public transport improves productivity through access to infrastructure and a wider employment pool.

Also, the fewer people on the roads the better logistical planning is for commerce, industry and emergency services.

That’s not true though is it? The TOCs may pay a net royalty to the Treasury, but the infrastructure bung for the lines that inter city trains run on is enormous. Neither does it change the fact that regular rail users tend to be from upper income groups.