10.9.22
So it’s official, then. On Wednesday, on her first full day in office — just before the death of the Queen froze all public-facing political activity for at least a week and a half — Liz Truss addressed the UK’s devastating energy bill crisis, which threatens to hurl two-thirds of the country into fuel poverty, and to bankrupt all small- to medium-sized businesses, as well as public sector organisations like the NHS, schools, universities and charities, by capping domestic energy bills at £2,500 a year until 2024, stemming the rise to £3,549 that was to take place on October 1, and which was forecast to rise to an almost unimaginable £5,400 a year in January.
This will still be a nightmare for poorer families — who, lest we forget, make up at least half the population — because last winter average bills were £1,277 a year, and even now people are struggling with the cap set at £1,971 a year, but what makes the announcement so poisonous, whilst appearing to be the act of a saviour, is that it will be funded not through a windfall tax on the estimated £176 billion in obscene and completely unearned profits of the oil and gas companies who have benefitted from the eleven-fold increase in gas prices since 2019, but by transferring the cost onto taxpayers.
Do you see how disgusting and disgraceful this policy is? Truss is refusing to tax the grotesque profits of the oil and gas companies, and is instead proposing to borrow at least £100 billion — and maybe more — to compensate them for their losses through the cap that is necessary to prevent the total collapse of the British economy, and then making us pay it back in increased bills over the next ten to 20 years, — in other words, increased bills every month into the 2030s or even the 2040s — simply to preserve the energy companies’ monstrous windfall profits.
The shameful unfairness of this ought to spark an instant revolution, but my fear is that the British public, punch-drunk after decades of being told that any criticism of corporate profiteering is morally wrong, will put up with it, grateful that unthinkable disaster has been avoided.
The ongoing nightmare for businesses and the public sector
Even if this reverse Robin Hood-style borrowing can somehow be sold to the British public, Wednesday’s news still leaves Britain’s small- and medium-sized businesses, who don’t even have the protection of any kind of existing cap on prices (not even Ofgem’s broken model of spiralling costs for domestic customers), as worried as they were two days ago, especially with the sudden suspension of any meaningful political activity for the foreseeable future because of the Queen’s death.
For businesses, Truss merely promised what the Guardian described as “a six-month scheme”, which “will offer what was termed ‘equivalent support’ to that for households, with a review in three months about how it could be better targeted.”
This will provide little or no reassurance to the numerous businesses who have been pointing out, with increasing desperation over recent weeks, that they are being quoted such colossal increases in their energy costs (often five-fold increases from a year ago) that they are all likely to be put out of business unless significant help is provided.
The government’s catastrophic enthusiasm for new oil and gas extraction
In addition, on Wednesday, Truss announced plans to ensure the UK’s energy supply in future not by immediately investing in renewable energy sources (offshore wind power, onshore wind power, solar and wave power), but by lifting the moratorium on the filthy business of fracking, and giving the green light to new oil and gas extraction, and to new nuclear power.
Anyone paying attention to Truss’s Cabinet appointments — and her inner circle of advisers in 10 Downing Street— wouldn’t have been surprised by this, as she appointed the climate change denier Jacob Rees-Mogg as energy minister (who has just announced that new fossil fuel extraction is the government’s official policy), and has been thoroughly marinaded in the crazed ideology of the small state, pro-Brexit, climate change-denying far right ‘libertarian’ think-tanks based in Tufton Street, just a stone’s throw from Parliament, but it doesn’t make it any less shocking when it’s spelled out as official government policy, even if it is slightly reassuring that her chancellor (and friend) Kwasi Kwarteng is on record as opposing the resumption of fracking.
These new fossil fuel proposals are environmentally suicidal, and almost certainly in breach of our legal obligation to reduce our carbon emissions to net zero by 2050, and, crucially, they also involve such a long time-scale that they cannot hope to address our needs for years — or decades, in the case of nuclear power — when we clearly need urgent solutions to wean ourselves off our gas dependency right now.
As experts — rather than Parliamentary puppets of the fossil fuel industry— are pointing out, with an eloquence and persuasiveness that the dim-witted Truss and her Cabinet can only aspire to, the only practical solution to the energy crisis — beyond the necessary windfall tax — is immediate investment in the renewable energy sources that can be delivered in the short-term, as well as a country-wide investment in insulating our leaky and energy-inefficient homes. Ironically, this was underway under David Cameron until he denounced it as “green crap” and discontinued it, but on Wednesday, predictably, Liz Truss failed to mentioned it at all.
On energy, however, Truss and her government are completely out of touch with the British people. In a poll by Survation published on Wednesday, 81% of respondents supported new solar power, 76% supported offshore wind, 74% supported onshore wind and 72% supported tidal and wave energy. Just 34% supported fracking, with 49% supporting nuclear power, and 56% supporting new gas extraction from the North Sea.
Shamefully, the expansion of solar and wind power in the countryside is opposed by NIMBYists (and also opposed by Truss and her team, including the new environment secretary Ranil Jayawardena, who has talked about “protecting our countryside from solar farms”), but as Jonah Fisher, the BBC’s Environment Correspondent, explained, “The cold, hard capitalist truth is that new renewables are currently a much cheaper source of new power generation than any of the fossil fuel or nuclear alternatives. So shifting towards wind and solar makes not just environmental, but economic sense, while at the same time giving us more energy security.” He added, “Britain is a world leader in offshore wind and in the next few years the building of ever larger wind-farms — mainly in the North Sea — looks set to continue. Huge projects are already under way and will come on stream in the next couple of years.”
There are, of course, many more problems with the country’s energy supply that also need addressing — for example, the fundamental injustice that the energy cap, which sets prices, is pegged to the most expensive supplies — of gas — obscuring the fact that renewables are much cheaper.
For now, however, there needs to be concerted resistance to the Truss Tax, the most monstrous proposal in British history — to tax everyone, every day for up to 20 years, to preserve the unforgivably huge profits that the oil and gas companies have secured, and are still securing, through no effort or investment on their part.
Liz Truss has just proposed robbing us blind for decades to guarantee the bloated, unearned profits of companies that are at the forefront of making our planet uninhabitable long before we’ve even finished paying off the loan to support their current bonanza. Quite simply, we must not allow that to happen.
* * * * *
Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer (of an ongoing photo-journalism project, ‘The State of London’), film-maker and singer-songwriter (the lead singer and main songwriter for the London-based band The Four Fathers, whose music is available via Bandcamp). He is the co-founder of the Close Guantánamo campaign (and see the latest photo campaign here) and the successful We Stand With Shaker campaign of 2014-15, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. He is also the co-director (with Polly Nash) of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (available on DVD here, or you can watch it online here, via the production company Spectacle, for £2.50).
In 2017, Andy became very involved in housing issues. He is the narrator of the documentary film, ‘Concrete Soldiers UK’, about the destruction of council estates, and the inspiring resistance of residents, he wrote a song ‘Grenfell’, in the aftermath of the entirely preventable fire in June 2017 that killed over 70 people, and he also set up ‘No Social Cleansing in Lewisham’ as a focal point for resistance to estate destruction and the loss of community space in his home borough in south east London. For two months, from August to October 2018, he was part of the occupation of the Old Tidemill Wildlife Garden in Deptford, to prevent its destruction — and that of 16 structurally sound council flats next door — by Lewisham Council and Peabody. Although the garden was violently evicted by bailiffs on October 29, 2018, and the trees were cut down on February 27, 2019, the struggle for housing justice — and against environmental destruction — continues.
To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to Andy’s RSS feed — and he can also be found on Facebook (and here), Twitter, Flickr and YouTube. Also see the six-part definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, The Complete Guantánamo Files, the definitive Guantánamo habeas list, the full military commissions list, and the chronological list of all Andy’s articles.
Please also consider joining the Close Guantánamo campaign, and, if you appreciate Andy’s work, feel free to make a donation.
Investigative journalist, author, campaigner, commentator and public speaker. Recognized as an authority on Guantánamo and the “war on terror.” Co-founder, Close Guantánamo and We Stand With Shaker, singer/songwriter (The Four Fathers).
Email Andy Worthington
Please support Andy Worthington, independent journalist:
18 Responses
Andy Worthington says...
When I posted this on Facebook, I wrote:
Here’s my latest article, my analysis of Liz Truss’s scandalous proposal to cap the rising energy bills that threaten to destroy the British economy by borrowing at least £100 billion to compensate energy producers for their reduced profits, and then making UK taxpayers pay it back over the next ten to 20 years, instead of levying a windfall tax on those same companies’ unearned £176 billion in profits.
Truss also lifted the moratorium on fracking, and pledged to allow new fossil fuel extraction in the North Sea, completely ignoring renewable energy sources, even though they are cheaper, environmentally sound, and can be brought online swiftly.
Although the announcement on Wednesday was immediately overshadowed by the death of Queen Elizabeth II, it is imperative that resistance to this outrageous plan is kept alive until Parliament resumes its business after the Queen’s funeral.
...on September 10th, 2022 at 6:04 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Damien Morrison wrote:
Truss will say, do and be anything and anyone’s for power and money … theres nothing she won’t do to further herself. if you think Johnson was bad … god help us
...on September 10th, 2022 at 10:51 pm
Andy Worthington says...
The good news is that she has no charisma and has alienated much of the Parliamentary Tory Party already with her narrow choice of ministers and advisers, Damien, but it really is alarming that she’s put the execrable Rees-Mogg in charge of energy, and that she’s such a puppet of the Tufton Street far right ‘libertarian’ think-tanks.
...on September 10th, 2022 at 10:51 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Damien Morrison wrote:
an imbecile in charge of imbeciles manipulated by monsters
...on September 10th, 2022 at 10:52 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Absolutely, Damien. The influence wielded by the anti-democratic Tufton Street ‘think-tanks’ is disgraceful.
...on September 10th, 2022 at 10:52 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Jane Ecer wrote:
Great article Andy.
...on September 10th, 2022 at 10:52 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Thanks, Jane. It’s so weird now that we’re suddenly frozen in this absurdly long period of mourning (which is already starting to unravel, to be honest), while the new king is undertaking all kinds of medieval nonsense as he assumes his new role, and yet this countrywide economic hardship is still as pressing as ever, given that Truss’s announcements didn’t really add up to more than a press release.
Like all politicians obsessed with privatisation, they’re all so shallow and lazy; all they really think their job should involve is facilitating the private sector to run everything without any kind of scrutiny or accountability, and then get rewarded by them when their political careers are over.
...on September 10th, 2022 at 10:53 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Ed Calipel wrote:
Intellectually challenged doesn’t quite describe Truss; similar to Johnson, it’s more a thinly-veiled service to backers.
Destroying the natural world by plundering to achieve a short-term nest-feathering.
Every day my credulity is stretched further than I thought possible.
An absolute imbecile representing Britain – sadly not the first.
...on September 10th, 2022 at 10:54 pm
Andy Worthington says...
The country is a slow-motion car crash, really, Ed – one disaster leading to another, from Cameron’s stupid EU referendum promise, to the Brexit vote itself, to May becoming PM when there was no one else left standing, like at the end of a Revenger’s Tragedy, and then her collapse as she tried to actually come up with a deal that worked, even thought that was an impossible task.
And since then, of course, it’s been downhill at speed, via ‘Get Brexit Done’ Johnson and his corrosive lack of principles over two and a half excruciating years, and his eventual fall, paving the way for an election by the old, white, male, southern and well-off members of the Tory Party, in which Truss, feebly trying to channel Thatcher for all these old white men, showed herself prepared to say and do whatever was required to secure the chalice, seemingly oblivious to how poisoned it is. The fact that she’s with the Tufton Street far right ‘libertarians’ and the execrable Rees-Mogg is the icing on the sh*tcake really, isn’t it?
...on September 10th, 2022 at 10:54 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Ed Calipel wrote:
Andy, everyone (admittedly, I don’t often see people) I’ve seen recently, from peasant farmers here, visitors from Romania, Belgium, Holland, Germany, the US has expressed their sense of bewilderment at what’s happened and continues to happen in Britain.
Viewed from here it’s quite extraordinary, it beggars belief.
Compared to what happened regarding Poll Tax it escapes me why there are only a handful of protestors with any voice.
Yet this is a cancer at the very heart of Britain.
...on September 10th, 2022 at 10:55 pm
Andy Worthington says...
I hope everyone knows that it’s all down to Brexit, Ed – and the first-past-the-post system. There are three Britains co-existing, sadly – the sentient, the apathetic and the Brexiteers, and the latter have all the power, even though the Tories get less than 30% of the electorate to vote for them, and the Brexit vote involved a similar percentage.
The most alarming thing now is that Truss has brought in many of the unelected people behind Brexit, whose ultimate aims seem, to them at least, to finally be within reach – the removal of all rights from the British people regarding wages, working hours, pensions, maternity, you name it, as well as all environmental protections. The list goes on. Only the ECHR is left to protect us.
I sincerely hope that their hubris is such that, made giddy by their arrogant and cruel self-regard, they overreach to such an extent that they end up destroying the Tory Party for a generation. It’s the least they deserve.
...on September 10th, 2022 at 10:56 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Kirsty McNeil wrote:
Absolute corruption on a corporate scale …
...on September 10th, 2022 at 10:56 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Absolutely, Kirsty. I find it astonishing that they think they can get away with it – but then again, look at everything that’s happened over the last six years, since the Brexit vote.
...on September 10th, 2022 at 10:56 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Anna Giddings wrote:
I understand she’s touring with Charles next week. Why I wonder?
Thank you Andy for the tag
...on September 10th, 2022 at 10:57 pm
Andy Worthington says...
You’re welcome, Anna. Quite disturbing news that, as Reuters described it, Truss “will join the king as he leads the national mourning across the United Kingdom, attending services of reflection in Scotland on Monday afternoon, in Northern Ireland on Tuesday, and Wales on Friday.” https://globalnews.ca/news/9119937/u-k-pm-truss-king-charles-iii-britain-national-mourning/
The Daily Express, I note, claimed that she placed a “tender hand” on his arm when they met on Friday.
...on September 10th, 2022 at 10:58 pm
stewart fowell says...
Remember how they all mocked Corbyn, well it’s certainly come around to bite them, but they don’t feel the bite, it is the public once again who will suffer, and they will suffer, they still don’t realise that there will be another rise in October, they believe that Truss has saved them, well wait till they turn the heating on and that first bill comes in, even working families who were comfortable are going to be hit hard, really hard, they do not comprehend that they are going to be paying more than twice the amount they paid last year but even then, they will not get off their arses and do anything, they will lose their homes and still not realise that it is pure greed/robbery that has caused it. Corbyn saw this coming and could have stopped it but the sheep will not listen.
...on September 12th, 2022 at 3:27 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Good to hear from you, Stewart, and thanks for your sharp assessment of the situation. I note that it’s exactly seven years ago today that Jeremy Corbyn so spectacularly won the Labour leadership election. Much more convincing than Truss’s victory, obviously.
...on September 12th, 2022 at 8:35 pm
Is Money Now Our God? Cheaper And Easier To Nationalise Energy Companies Than For Truss To Bail Them Out – Ousted President Imran Khan Has Overwhelming Public Support Fighting The CIA For The Soul Of Pakistan – Scott Ritter On The Ukrainian Co says...
[…] Andy Worthington, article, on Truss’s Government energy policy failures so far. The Greatest Economic Crime in UK History? Liz Truss Caps Energy Prices By Taxing Us For Up to 20 Years Instead of Taxing Energy Companies’ Obscene Windfall Profits – So it’s official, then. On Wednesday, on her first full day in office just before the death of … […]
...on September 18th, 2022 at 1:24 am