To be completely appalled

[MansfieldLark]

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/british-gas-profits-centrica-energy-bills-b2382758.html

Its disgusting, so many people suffered over the winter for utility companies to make obscene profits.

Did Centrica not make a loss of about £1bn the year before?

Idk, let's try it?

Publicly owned utilities is hardly a revolutionary idea.

https://www.gre.ac.uk/articles/public-relations/nationalisation-would-save-uk-billions-greenwich-research-reveals

Worth considering.

It's exactly that if you don't fairly compensate the owners/shareholders of the companies which would cost tens of billions.

There'd be trade sanctions at an absolute minimum - remember we are talking about companies that are partly/wholly owned by other governments (EDF, Iberdrola, EON). The only large suppliers who the government could do this to without international sanctions are British Gas, SSE and Octopus.

Your naive industrial socialism is Rick of The Young One's level, and about as convincing in merit.

Why is it that nurses and teachers are greedy for wanting to earn enough money to live on, but obscene levels of profiteering is absolutely fine?
Didn't one of the energy companies offer to pay extra tax and the government said no?

Well if you're happy to tear the system up then you're really not thinking on a grand enough scale. @Begsthequestion

If I didn't give a shit about private property rights or scaring investors away from the UK then I'd bring all land under state ownership. Everything would be leased from the state.

They’ve been amply compensated by their obscene profits for decades.

Hmm tell that to the University of Greenwich https://www.gre.ac.uk/articles/public-relations/nationalisation-would-save-uk-billions-greenwich-research-reveals

It's all very well trying to defeat my argument with personal insults, but I'm not going to stoop to that level myself.

The figures you’re referring to relate to the first half of 2023. As I said several comments ago, the domestic market has changed and retail companies are making more profits now.

Yes, British Gas are making a profit. But them and all retailers were not making massive profits in 2021. 30 retailers went under in 2021. Companies with a production arm - like Centrica - made profits in 2021 as unlike retailers they directly benefited from the high wholesale prices as they literally get the oil and gas out of the ground and sell it on the wholesale market. To retailers. Who are limited in what costs they can pass on due to the price cap.

I’m not really clear on your point or what you’re getting at other than you seem to be saying privatisation is bad. Which is an opinion. But you’re conflating various timeframes (profits have massively changed between 2021 and 2023) and companies (production and supply).

Not to defend them but I understand that in the previous year they were having to sell gas units for less than they had paid for them.

From BBC website - British gas owner Centrica said it was important to understand that the changes were "simply a recovery of costs that we incurred in the past".
About half of British Gas's profit - £500m - was due to changes to the price cap made by the energy regulator. By comparison, the business reported a profit of £98m in the same period last year.

Which the CBI refutes - their professional not academic estimate of basic compensation is £200bn not £49bn.

So that's £200bn the UK taxpayers have to find, plus money to buy the power generation (nuclear plants, windfarms, power stations) back from foreign investors. Then whichever incompetent fool in the civil service heads up utilities will run them into the ground and we'll have rolling blackouts.

Sounds marvellous!

Sounds authoritarian. Not my bag personally.

I do think we need drastic land redistribution though. It was all divvied up centuries ago by violent monarchs and their hanger-ons, and it's still causing real world problems now.

Thing is, the descendants of those violent monarchs and their mates are still very much in control of the land in the UK. Embarrassingly fuedal imo.

Yes, the research by the University of Greenwich was commissioned in part because the CBI's figures were so inordinate.

Hardly surprising though. The CBI represents shareholders and shareholders alone.

this!

Appalling but in no way surprising.
Energy companies. Supermarkets. Half the Conservative Party. Banks. All getting super rich whilst the rest of us are to varying degrees screwed and losing sleep over how to pay the mortgage/bills/feed ourselves. And using 'war in Ukraine' or 'Covid' as an excuse.

I sometimes wonder what it will take for people in this country to wake up and see what's happening and actually do something. Where's the protest? For gods sake some people, a lot of them probably, will still vote conservative. It beggars belief.

@Begsthequestion

How would you redistribute land without the State taking ownership of it?

Says who? Have you honestly looked at the last 20 years of profits and losses because there's been some huge ones vs investment and pension fund contributions (remember, if these funds fold - the taxpayer covers them) for any of the companies?

I'd bet anything that the shit hot lawyers for any one of the energy companies, let alone as a joined up force would be able to argue coherently and successfully against your assertion. The UK government would be up the creek with no paddle (and rolling blackouts).

Nationalising is on the Labour parties agenda I think. Rail at least. It's a start.

Agree with all of this. We do nothing apart from complain on the Internet.

That said @pillsthrillsandbellyache I'm not out there with my placard either. I wonder if we are just so used to being treated like shite, that it just no longer registers.

Part of the problem here is that the govt wrote energy companies a blank cheque last winter. It was a ludicrous thing to do. It didn't help with inflation either.

A lot of people didn't need support with their energy bills, they could have coped (me included). Support should have been more targeted.

How much of a difference would £8.30 a month (because that's what this equates to per customer - see my post on the previous page) really make though?

Its not going to stop sleepless nights worrying. It will make a small difference - it might pay for a days heating in winter with prices as they are. Its not going to keep you warm all month and it's certainly not going to stop you going hungry for a month.

The causes of the cost of living crisis Britain is facing are much more complex and widespread than a company making profit.

Same @lastminutewednesday I sit and rage at this government but do sod all else. I watch the prices at supermarkets go up weekly! and that barely registers anymore. I just stop buying. We've accidently gone vegetarian due to meat and fish prices.

20 years ago I worked

It was absolute slave wages, awful conditions, next to no training and we used to have to ask to go the toilet.
Some staff would blatantly take the mick out of customers (think showing people screens of customer accounts where they were badly in debt etc). Customers were (understandably) constantly angry on the phone due to the constant fuck ups . There was like a back office department that was non customer facing who constantly made fuck ups but would not speak to customers and also were horrible to deal with internally . so we had to deal with the customer and got the blame.

Oh yeah and throw in constant sexual harassment thrown in as well and people (women) getting promoted for fucking their managers

20 years ago I worked for centrica should I say.

Also just to add I eventually got fed up with the constant abuse so told a customer to F off, sadly at that precise moment a manager was monitoring my call and I got marched off the premises 🤣🤣🤣