To think these energy price predictions are just scaremongering now

[Butterflyfluff]

The annual energy price predictions are literally going up by about £500 a day.

There’s absolutely no way most people can sustain £4/5/600 per month energy bills for any length of time.

I'm starting to think it’s all a ploy to just get people to reduce consumption - scare the shit out of people so they use less.

Careful. That's thinking talk, that is. It's not welcome here. People want to run around shrieking and talking about Great Resets and the apocalypse, they don't want facts.

Martin Lewis is shouting because he's really bloody angry out incompetent government are infighting over who gets to be in charge of their club rather than doing their jobs and running the country. They've allowed this to happen because it doesn't affect rich people like them and some of them will be making money from it. This is what years of conservative leadership gets us. I will never understand why people vote for them.
I've always found his advice useful and he's been fairly accurate so far. Just because you don't like the message doesn't mean he's wrong.

@MarshaBradyo I'll look into Times radio, thanks.
I think the media have alot to answer for, especially in recent years when the stance has become so sensationalist. Social Media and the 24 hour news cycle have lead to this IMO.

There was an interesting thread earlier in the week where a GP bemoaned the number of worried well attending hospitals/surgeries. I think she had a good point and IMO it's the media that are largely responsible for whipping an entire population into a panicked frenzy over covid.
Damage like that cannot easily be undone.

@WhileMyGuitarGentlyWeeps Grrrrrr! The cap is not a cap on your total bill. It’s a cap on the standing and the unit costs, if you use more than the average user (upon which the cap is based) then your bill could exceed the cap.

I know. How the hell can people hate someone who is literally screaming in frustration because he can see that households will have to choose between heating and eating. But not hate a government who do not give a shit. Weird.

And it's not scaremongering. I work in a very deprived area in a cold part of the UK. I am genuinely worried about how the families I work with will be able to manage when they are already at the absolute limit of their finances. People need to open their eyes.

@Pootle40 Of course people are hating on ML, shoot the message and all that.

People called his above 3 grand a year October price cap prediction scaremongering. Six months after that prediction the government still hasn’t published a plan.

Just to clarify I don’t ‘hate’ ML

Hate is a bit of an if the times SM idea - that you can’t discuss someone without being told you hate then

But I can see how the media impacts people and it’s not always better for them

Or ‘hating on’.. yikes

Nuclear is not and never will be sustainable or any of that other rubbish that they trot out with, @Grumpybutfunny . Even if you are too young to remember chernobyl, the media reminds us endlessly how much danger the world is in with Russian threats to Ukraine's nuclear power stations.

I think the predictions are accurate, however the media makes money from frightening the life out of people, so we are being deluged by terrifying headlines which are often full of 'could happen' and 'might happen' or a quote from some random professor predicting the end of the world. The more we read, share and talk about these articles, the more their readership/advertising revenue grows.

So yes while the Ofgem news is rather terrifying, I prefer to not let the media have the final say on how I feel today. I'm not giving them that right. Absolutely nothing is gained by panicking, so all I can do is pay what I can, keep in communication with our energy supplier and trust that something will soon be done. After all, it's not in the energy companyies' interests to have loads of people in debt or defaulting on payments, so at some point, something has to change!

Of immediate concern are people who are on prepayment meters. There needs to be an urgent action plan for them, particularly as it starts to get chillier!

The media does inflate stuff, and not for the benefit of the country. I don't think this is one of those situations. I want the government to face maximum pressure so they come up with some sort of a plan.

@Flatmountains I have a science based degree and will stick to the science of how clean nuclear can be. The newer design are already looking using at what would be now termed used fuel. How we protect nuclear power is down to the army and the states that use it, as a moderate country we are in a great position to have nuclear power. I don't buy it as anymore dangerous even the Ukraine nuclear plant is a worry because of what it could be used for, but in the same sentence Russia has nuclear weapons.

My friends on pay as you go and she's topping up around £20 per week. Normal, 3 bed semi with 2 kids, tumble dryer etc.

I pay off meter readings......My bills are around the same. My winter bill is usually around £340 for the quarter. If it doubled it wouldn't be great. But I'd be able to pay it. My consumption this year is down 1/4 from last year, I made an active decision to cut back months ago. We've always been careful anyway but little things like not having the tv on when nobody's watching, taking long showers twice a day and cooking more one pan type meals on the hob instead of having 3 rings and the oven going have really added up.

I think there is an element of scaremongering.......but also think people need to quit with the hysteria and take responsibility for their energy consumption. There are many ways to cut bills down. When I see articles by people claiming their shivering around one candle to warm themselves and cook on putting it bluntly I don't believe them. People who have high bills already have high bills because their consumption is high.

And if energy companies are increasing direct debits to stupidly high levels then cancel them. Put money into a separate account and pay off meter readings as I do. It's not difficult.

In all of this my real sympathy lies with people who have disabilities that mean they have no choice but to run equipment or they need the heating on. Those are the one's who will really suffer and not enough has been done for them. The rest of us can make changes. Most just don't want to.

Like I said, go read up on lobbying. It’s not new, nor a secret. It’s how government works. You might learn something.

I think possibly if Nuclear was a new thing now, and we had all the hindsight that we have, an impossible hypothetical, then we might choose as a world not to go down the Nuclear Route. But that ship has long since sailed. We have nuclear, we even have nuclear in a large scale war zone, so any new nuclear power stations being built isn't going to put us in any worse a situation than we are currently in. We have learnt that building them on fault lines and in Tsnunami zones is BAD, and we know we need to be construct them in ways to limit the chances of a Chernobyl like melt downs, we also now know how to build a damn fine Sarcophagus.

So I agree, since Nuclear is here to stay, then we may as well utilise it to maintain the kinds of high tech lifestyles we are accustom to, in the cleanest possible way we can.

Why do you think would it be useful for people to know more about why this is happening?

I am genuinely REALLY sorry everyone. I actually honestly thought 'price cap' meant this is the highest you would pay. Why the FUCK is it called this? Price cap suggests that is the top end anyone will pay! On the news and on 'the last leg' last night they confirmed it's an AVERAGE, and could be much more for some.

Genuinely sorry! Should have checked first, but really GENUINELY believed price cap meant 'most you will pay.' As @EkinWho said, it IS a misleading name for it.

Forgive me.

I guess what you mean is all the talk making out all of us will have £7 k billd
Mine is currently about 1 k a year so even if it goed up a hundred percent thats £2 k ( still way too much ) but I am hearing people who usually pay £50 a month now thinking their bills will be £500 and that is what is confusing me ?

@BloodyHellKen
People would still have to look and listen.
They do not like doing that.
If they did, they would already have done, and be doing.
Most people want light and fluffy in life.

You can take a horse to water and all that..

Note the reply to your most recent post as a for instance.

The film "Don't look up" is so relevant now.

This was obvious months ago. Months. And nothing has happened.

You're exactly the type of person the Govt is relying on. It will be worse than predicted, as will food price rises. Waitrose, ok kill me, have gone up in excess of 10% in the last year.

How can this be “scaremongering” when it's already happened? The fact that many people can't sustain a £4/5/600 per month energy bill for any length of time doesn't mean the prices will decrease. it just means people won't be able to use any gas or electricity. They will still have to sit in cold houses all winter.

If their bill has risen by that much it is because they have been on a fixed tariff which has ended. Now they will have to go on a variable rate tariff or take on a much more expensive fix. The one I have been offered is over £500 a month.

The 80% increase is not a prediction. The price cap increase has happened and the energy companies are going to raise it by that amount or they will go out of business as many have already done. If you don't pay your bills they will put in a prepayment meter so you have to pay in advance and the payments will be set at a rate that will pay off any debt.