Thursday 26 June 2014

Ofgem's Biggest Yet

Public ownership.
 
Why not? Can someone please tell me?
Posted by at

15 comments:

  1. Anonymous26 June 2014 at 21:33

    Because a monopoly owner would mean no customer had the choice to go anywhere cheaper.

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  2. David Lindsay27 June 2014 at 09:47

    We've tried all that. It hasn't worked.

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  3. Anonymous27 June 2014 at 11:59

    How does removing all customer choice make it any better?

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  4. David Lindsay27 June 2014 at 17:19

    How has the introduction of that fantasy (which is all that it can ever be in this case) made it any better?

    It has not. It has made it a very great deal worse.

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  5. Anonymous27 June 2014 at 18:10

    I agree the present system is horrendous. Nobody disputes it (see today's Mail editorial).

    But governments simply cannot control global energy prices-when so much of our energy is imported from elsewhere. So taking away choice would now make things even worse, since we no longer provide for our own energy needs.

    There's no party proposing the one solution that might make public ownership work-leaving the EU so that we can reopen the coal fired power stations it's forced us to close and abolish the green targets that make it impossible to exploit our own resources.

    Everything else is just bluster (particularly price freezes; which just mean guaranteed pre-election price rises).

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  6. David Lindsay27 June 2014 at 18:15

    I have heard Ed Miliband tell a hundred thousand people that he was going to reopen the pits.

    There are thriving, expanding coal industries in much of the EU. We import the coal, as we also do from rather less savoury places.

    Yes, Thatcher's Single European Act was connected to the pit closure programme. But she would have done each of them anyway, and both of them were a long time ago now.

    The same product, via the same wires or pipes: how can it possibly cost different amounts from different companies?

    It can't. Of course it can't.

    If people realised that, though, then they might ask why the utilities were delivered by cartels of pretend-competitors, instead of being where they belonged, in public ownership.

    And that would never do.

    Oh, no. That would never do at all.

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    1. Anonymous27 June 2014 at 18:31

      On energy prices as on so many other issues (mass immigration anyone?) the EU is the elephant in the room.

      We can't reopen our coal fired power stations ( not to mention closing those wind farms and abolishing the green taxes that raise our energy bills) while also complying with EU emissions targets.

      Asking why Germany is opening coal fired power stations in defiance of EU emissions targets while were closing them in compliance with the same EU emissions targets is stupid. It's like asking why France simply deports it's Islamic terrorists in defiance of the European Court of Human Rights while we don't.

      Because we abide by the law-that, above all else, is what being British means.

      That, as Orwell said in "Lion and the Unicorn" is what separates us from the Continentals.

      If we don't like the EU's laws, our only choice is to leave.

      Any party that pretends otherwise (or says it can " renegotiate" the EU's laws) is lying through its teeth.

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    2. Anonymous27 June 2014 at 18:35

      " the same product"

      What is the same product? It comes from different energy sources in different countries (eg Russia) with different prices.

      It's bought from various other countries before it's even sold to us.

      The same product? Not at all.

      Not unless your referring to the very little of our energy needs that we now provide for.

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  7. David Lindsay27 June 2014 at 18:38

    No, the Germans are entirely within the rules, and I hate to tell you this, but you have not just rescued Orwell (who is hugely overrated, especially in relation to that book) from obscurity.

    It is the same electricity. It is the same water. And so on.

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  8. Anonymous27 June 2014 at 19:36

    But that electricity is generated from different sources-some more expensive than others-and different countries-who control the price at which they sell it.

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    1. David Lindsay28 June 2014 at 01:13

      It is still the same electricity once it is coming down the wires to your house. This is all a blatant con.

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  9. Anonymous28 June 2014 at 01:10

    Is that the one with silly remark about the goosestep in it it?

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    1. David Lindsay28 June 2014 at 01:14

      There is a reason why Orwell is taught so much in schools. He is basically a children's writer.

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  10. Anonymous29 June 2014 at 18:22

    "the silly remark about the goosestep"?

    You mean the line; ""the social atmosphere of a country is the parade-step of its army. A military parade is really a kind of ritual dance, something like a ballet, expressing a certain philosophy of life.""

    Anyone who has ever seen the Soviet May Day Parade (and indeed the goose step), or wondered why the British have never maintained a large "standing army", will know exactly what he means.

    The dignity of the British Army on parade, like the fact that as also expresses our hatred of that kind of totalitarianism.

    As Orwell notes; "" It is a land where the bus conductors are good-tempered and the policemen carry no revolvers.

    English literature, like other literatures, is full of battle-poems, but it is worth noticing that the ones that have won for themselves a kind of popularity are always a tale of disasters and retreats.

    There is no popular poem about Trafalgar or Waterloo, for instance. Sir John Moore's army at Corunna, fighting a desperate rearguard action before escaping overseas (just like Dunkirk!) has more appeal than a brilliant victory. The most stirring battle-poem in English is about a brigade of cavalry which charged in the wrong direction.""

    The silly Anon 28th June 01;10 and David Lindsay need to read George Orwell.

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    1. David Lindsay29 June 2014 at 21:18

      No, I assume that he meant the line about how the people would laugh if the goose-step were marched in Britain.

      But the lines that you quote are the same sentimental twaddle. Everyone should read Orwell when they are your age. And then grow up.

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