[BrutusTheBear]

Looks like Sam Tarry has been sacked as Shadow Minister for Transport. 
That was quick!  See what happens next.   

[Wellsy]

Being a senior conservative is a recipe for being woefully out of touch.

Not just senior conservatives, plenty of the well off (and often conservative voters) are amazingly unaware of where they fit in compared to the wider population. 

For my masters dissertation I wrote a model to explore the causes of income and wealth inequality in the U.K. I’ve read dozens of papers on the topic looking at both historical trends and current rich-world economies. I’m afraid to say that ignorance of income and wealth distributions is fairly well represented across the political spectrum!

Don’t get me started on “I am wealthy if I earn £X..?” type discussions 

That bloke on Question Time who told Corbyn he felt like he earned a below average salary cos he was only on £85k a year 

[danm]

I don't agree that Labour should be showing solidarity with the unions and joining picket lines. The end goal should be the same (reducing inequality, fair pay and conditions for all workers) but the the unions job is to represent workers and if necessary organise strike action whereas the Labour party needs to formulate policies that make strike action unnecessary, and show they are fit to govern and gain the trust of the electorate. Joining picket lines just makes you a party of protest rather than of governance imho. Instead, Labour are doing the right thing - repeatedly hammering the Tories about making the cost of living crisis worse.

As for the chuntering about rowing back on nationalisation, do keep up at the back. Truss is likely to be the next PM, and looks like taking a wild ideological punt on lower taxes kick starting the economy. Anyone with any clue about this knows this will probably fail and will push inflation up even more. The average voter who is shitting themselves about how they will afford to eat after their fixed term mortgage deal runs out will not give a flying fuck about brexit, renationalisation of services or anything else by this stage, and Labour should not be committing at this stage to be borrowing money to buy back rail etc. They need to show they are putting everything possible into keeping Workington Man and all the other swing voters above water and anything else is on the back burner. Shit is going to get savage out there.

[TobyD]

I don't agree that Labour should be showing solidarity with the unions and joining picket lines. The end goal should be the same (reducing inequality, fair pay and conditions for all workers) but the the unions job is to represent workers and if necessary organise strike action whereas the Labour party needs to formulate policies that make strike action unnecessary, and show they are fit to govern and gain the trust of the electorate. Joining picket lines just makes you a party of protest rather than of governance imho. Instead, Labour are doing the right thing - repeatedly hammering the Tories about making the cost of living crisis worse.

As for the chuntering about rowing back on nationalisation, do keep up at the back. Truss is likely to be the next PM, and looks like taking a wild ideological punt on lower taxes kick starting the economy. Anyone with any clue about this knows this will probably fail and will push inflation up even more. The average voter who is shitting themselves about how they will afford to eat after their fixed term mortgage deal runs out will not give a flying fuck about brexit, renationalisation of services or anything else by this stage, and Labour should not be committing at this stage to be borrowing money to buy back rail etc. They need to show they are putting everything possible into keeping Workington Man and all the other swing voters above water and anything else is on the back burner. Shit is going to get savage out there.

Well said.  If you're hoping to be a government,  you don't stand on picket lines if you're on the front bench. 

[seankenny]

Labour is not interested in the average voter. It is interested in the marginal voter, the one who needs to be persuaded to vote for us. Appealing to what the average Labour voter wants is comfort blanket politics rather than gunning to win.

If you look up thread I posted a good thing about this from a US Democrat on just this topic.

Then once in power, Sir Keir Starmer will reinstate his 10 pledges, do all he said to the membership like standing shoulder to shoulder with workers, bring public services back into public ownership and he will create a new economy based on a zero carbon strategy.  Is that the Strategy? Get elected by bullshitting the msm, the swing voters and establishment into thinking they have what they want.  Then unleash some good 'ole environmental socialism on the masses with the huge majority gained.

For the princely sum of £5 per month I am a member of the Labour Party. This is because I want to fund a centre left political party that does its best to win elections. I am under no illusion that this does or should provide me with an outsize role in the political life of this country. Promises to “the membership” loom far larger in far left mythology than they really should. 

[sdm]

Well said.  If you're hoping to be a government,  you don't stand on picket lines if you're on the front bench.

That was Starmer's argument when they discussed it on The Rest is Politics.

It's a nonsensical argument. The roles of the opposition and government are very different.

Joining a picket when in government would be showing support for the side negotiating against your own government. Joining a picket from the opposition is to show support for the side negotiating against a government who you are trying to replace in office.

[TobyD]

Well said.  If you're hoping to be a government,  you don't stand on picket lines if you're on the front bench.

That was Starmer's argument when they discussed it on The Rest is Politics.

It's a nonsensical argument. The roles of the opposition and government are very different.

Joining a picket when in government would be showing support for the side negotiating against your own government. Joining a picket from the opposition is to show support for the side negotiating against a government who you are trying to replace in office.

It's certainly not nonsensical, you don't agree for the reasons you explain, which is fine. However I'd argue that if you need to convince socially conservative voters that you're serious about government you definitely shouldn't.

[Wellsy]

Ultimately I think it benefits the members of the rail unions to see a Labour government, rather than Labour MPs on their picket lines. This might not be a zero sum game, but it might be, and Labour is right to say "we support the right to strike and for people to get fair pay and conditions and as a government we would have avoided these strikes" and then leave it at that

[Offwidth]

I don't agree that Labour should be showing solidarity with the unions and joining picket lines. The end goal should be the same (reducing inequality, fair pay and conditions for all workers) but the the unions job is to represent workers and if necessary organise strike action whereas the Labour party needs to formulate policies that make strike action unnecessary, and show they are fit to govern and gain the trust of the electorate. Joining picket lines just makes you a party of protest rather than of governance imho. Instead, Labour are doing the right thing - repeatedly hammering the Tories about making the cost of living crisis worse.

Well said Dan. Labour should be firmly standing up for workers rights, including the right to strike, but as far as I am aware it was only under Corbyn the leadership felt it was a good idea to get involved with supporting  strikers in active public sector disputes ( Kinnock was lambasted by the far left during the 84 miners strike and  this dates all the way back to the General Strike when Labour leadership were in opposition). A couple of weeks back Andy Burnham said he would expect Labour to pressure the government to be involved in negotiations (as they hold the purse strings) but not yet intevene more directly in the RMT dispute... but that joining picket lines was still OK for exceptional circumstances (like when he joined a transport workers picket: the striking staff were being subjected to a fire and rehire tactic).

As for the chuntering about rowing back on nationalisation, do keep up at the back. Truss is likely to be the next PM, and looks like taking a wild ideological punt on lower taxes kick starting the economy. Anyone with any clue about this knows this will probably fail and will push inflation up even more. The average voter who is shitting themselves about how they will afford to eat after their fixed term mortgage deal runs out will not give a flying fuck about brexit, renationalisation of services or anything else by this stage, and Labour should not be committing at this stage to be borrowing money to buy back rail etc. They need to show they are putting everything possible into keeping Workington Man and all the other swing voters above water and anything else is on the back burner. Shit is going to get savage out there.

Larry Elliot commented on the Truss and Sunak plans and isn't so sure about the level of the inflationary bit... the absence of help for the poor in Truss's plans was his biggest concern.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/28/tory-candidates-tax-plans-liz-truss-rishi-sunak

I'd personally love to see renationalisation of rail and utilities in some ideal world (as I think the current management has been terrible, aside from their ability to funnel money from customers to shareholders) but the hard reality is in these tough times, which seem to be about to get much tougher, it will only be affordable to make small steps in that direction.

There seems to me no way out of the coming mess without some extra borrowing (which will be very expensive to service if interest rates go up) and/or some kind of tax or regulatory change, stimulating growth.

Truss also seems to me to be the most dishonest of the two bad eggs... she was happy for the one prominent economist, Minford, to support her tax cutting plans until he said the higher interest rates will likely force an overdue readjustment... including much higher mortgage rates (the older reactionary tory members are less exposed to this as they tend to own their own homes).

https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/liz-trusss-tax-cuts-could-cause-7-interest-rates-warns-her-own-economics-guru-1757989

[Nigel]

Starmer's strategy is clearly one of "not scaring the horses". Perhaps that will play well with swing voters. Is there any evidence of that?

On the flipside, not scaring the horses means letting the Tory press dictate the agenda, and therefore shying away from making a positive case.

Example - average annual energy bill Jan 2022 = £1271. Forecast for same bill Jan 2023 = £3850. Increase = £2579 (!). Max gov help = £1200. Shortfall £1379 per household minimum *on energy alone* - so before food, fuel to get to work / school etc. So everyone needs to find a lot more money to pay their bills.

Public sector pay settlements were running 5x less than private sector (1.5% vs 7.2%) until last week or so, when they came in at around 4.5%. Current inflation rate = 8.2% and rising. That is still a huge pay cut, a fall in living standards, for at least 5.7 million people who the government pays the wages of.

Centrica (ex-British Gas) today posted a 500% increase in profits year-on-year and the resumption of dividends to its shareholders (Note that they also own the now defunct Rough gas storage facility, the mothballing of which is part of the reason for high prices). Shell 200% increase. Just from these two that is an extra £11 billion of profit. The windfall tax hasn't started yet and does not apply to this quarter.

Each percentage point increase in public sector pay costs the the government £2.4Bn.

The money to pay these bills is out there. The question is do we prioritise Shell running profits of £40BN a year (roughly what we spend on defence!) courtesy of Mr Putin, or do we somehow get people a pay rise so they can heat their home?

On top of all that a lot of people's living standards have fallen since 2010.

Labour policy appears to be to say they'd rather not get involved. I don't think its an unreasonable question for people to ask whether a Labour government would ask them to take a pay cut, is it?

I really hope that this is the vote winner its meant to be!

[seankenny]

The problem is that energy, a fundamental input into life, is now more expensive in real terms. So everyone is going to be poorer. That is just a basic fact that a lot of people think there is a hack to avoid, but there is not. Naturally we could use fiscal policy to support the lowest paid (and we absolutely should) and we could probably tax energy companies better. But the idea that we could avoid hard choices is a fantasy. In the short run we are all going to be a little worse off.

Under such circumstances I suspect the best initial thing for Labour to do is… not much. Because the only questions are who is going to be poorer and by how much? I’m not sure this is fertile ground for an opposition party two years out from an election.

[BrutusTheBear]

Is it really the cost of energy going up or are the fat cats mugging us off more than they ever have?  Certainly appears that those at the top of the private sector are having a field day whilst the rest of us are having  a 'cost of living crisis'.

eg.  Profits of Centrica (owner of British Gas)= £1,300,000,000 up 500% on last year.
Energy bills forecast to be up 200% on last year.

Doesn't really follow the narrative they're selling us or the one you're using SK?

Maybe energy does cost more but how does that explain the record profits and price increases??

[BrutusTheBear]

The best thing for Labour to do is nothing.    That seems to be the policy.

[Offwidth]

Starmer's strategy is clearly one of "not scaring the horses". Perhaps that will play well with swing voters. Is there any evidence of that?

I'd say Starmers strategy is little different to any previous Labour leader in opposition,  except Corbyn.

quote author=Nigel link=topic=30397.msg663500#msg663500 date=1659015399]

On the flipside, not scaring the horses means letting the Tory press dictate the agenda, and therefore shying away from making a positive case.

Example - average annual energy bill Jan 2022 = £1271. Forecast for same bill Jan 2023 = £3850. Increase = £2579 (!). Max gov help = £1200. Shortfall £1379 per household minimum *on energy alone* - so before food, fuel to get to work / school etc. So everyone needs to find a lot more money to pay their bills.

Public sector pay settlements were running 5x less than private sector (1.5% vs 7.2%) until last week or so, when they came in at around 4.5%. Current inflation rate = 8.2% and rising. That is still a huge pay cut, a fall in living standards, for at least 5.7 million people who the government pays the wages of.

Centrica (ex-British Gas) today posted a 500% increase in profits year-on-year and the resumption of dividends to its shareholders (Note that they also own the now defunct Rough gas storage facility, the mothballing of which is part of the reason for high prices). Shell 200% increase. Just from these two that is an extra £11 billion of profit. The windfall tax hasn't started yet and does not apply to this quarter.

Each percentage point increase in public sector pay costs the the government £2.4Bn.

The money to pay these bills is out there. The question is do we prioritise Shell running profits of £40BN a year (roughly what we spend on defence!) courtesy of Mr Putin, or do we somehow get people a pay rise so they can heat their home?

On top of all that a lot of people's living standards have fallen since 2010.

Labour policy appears to be to say they'd rather not get involved. I don't think its an unreasonable question for people to ask whether a Labour government would ask them to take a pay cut, is it?

I really hope that this is the vote winner its meant to be!
[/quote]

I'd agree with most of the sentiment behind that but the money needs to go where it is most needed (not uniformly so that it mostly benefits the middle classes who are not struggling). I've said many times we are living in a kleptocracy (how else can we explain  a decade of widening gaps in wealth between the top and bottom, leading to serious increases in poverty) and so our capitalism needs urgent proper reform in a social democratic sense, lest social unrest drives more drastic and dangerous change.

I'd add that at pretty much at every possible opportunity I see the Labour leadership as pushing the cost of living crisis as their top political priority.

[seankenny]

Is it really the cost of energy going up or are the fat cats mugging us off more than they ever have?  Certainly appears that those at the top of the private sector are having a field day whilst the rest of us are having  a 'cost of living crisis'.

eg.  Profits of Centrica (owner of British Gas)= £1,300,000,000 up 500% on last year.
Energy bills forecast to be up 200% on last year.

Doesn't really follow the narrative they're selling us or the one you're using SK?

Maybe energy does cost more but how does that explain the record profits and price increases??

So energy is one driver of inflation, but it is not the only one. From the Bank of England:

"Higher prices for goods is one of the main reasons for this. As economies around the world opened up after Covid restrictions eased, people started to buy more goods. But the people selling these have had problems getting enough of them to sell to customers. That led to higher prices – particularly for goods imported from abroad.

"Higher energy prices have also played a big role. Large increases in oil and gas prices have pushed up petrol prices and energy bills.

"Services inflation is picking up a little. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has led to more increases in the prices of energy and food."


https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy-report/2022/may-2022

Check out chapter 2.3 of the last Monetary Policy Report to get a bit more detail. As an aside, isn't claiming everything is "narrative" kind of post-modern arseholery? I mean, there is stuff that happens, and we can try to describe it accurately and quantify it. Saying it's all a story is just a nonsense, even if there are several ways of presenting that story (world is complex shocker). I should also note that this is typical far left twaddle too - one can support increased taxes on utility firms but if you're not joining in with full throated denunciations of the running dogs of capitalism, one is a simpering apologist for the boss class. 

As for the discrepancy in price rises vs profits, surely an element could simply be from firms with very high fixed costs which mean that the relationship between increased revenue and increased profit is not one-to-one? In addition, you are looking at one year rather than several which is presumably the best way to approach this.

I'm keen to read some decent articles on the relationship between energy prices and utility company profits actually works.

[mrjonathanr]

I think the argument for greater tax on energy profits is strong, but don’t believe their retail arm (us) are where most profit is made, British Gas having made a lower profit this year, whereas the Centrica portfolio elsewhere made vastly increased profits according to Sky.

Shell attributed the enormous numbers to higher prices, refining profits and gas trading, though this was partly offset by lower liquefied natural gas trading.

[seankenny]

I'd agree with most of the sentiment behind that but the money needs to go where it is most needed (not uniformly so that it mostly benefits the middle classes who are not struggling). I've said many times we are living in a kleptocracy (how else can we explain  a decade of widening gaps in wealth between the top and bottom, leading to serious increases in poverty) and so our capitalism needs urgent proper reform in a social democratic sense, lest social unrest drives more drastic and dangerous change.

I'd add that at pretty much at every possible opportunity I see the Labour leadership as pushing the cost of living crisis as their top political priority.

What drives inequality is a very complicated issue and I'd be loathe to put it all down to one reason or another. It's a complex interplay between incomes, asset returns, churn in households' position in the income distribution, taxation and changes in the labour market. Some of these are more resistant to policy than others, particularly returns to skill and education in the labour market.

Also remember that wealth and income inequality are two linked but also quite different things. For example many Scandinavian countries that are quite egalitarian on income are very divided when it comes to wealth, simply because they have excellent state pensions and so relatively little private pension saving, which a key driver of wealth accumulation in countries like the UK.

As for "a decade of widening gaps in weath between the top and bottom", this is not quite true. From the FT, Jan 2022:

"Economists have warned of wealth inequality rising in Great Britain owing to the pandemic after 14 years of relative stability, which has bucked the trend of many other countries where divides have been steadily widening.

"The wealthiest 10 per cent of households owned 43 per cent of all the wealth in Britain between April 2018 to March 2020, data from the Office for National Statistics showed on Friday. In contrast, the bottom half of the population held only 9 per cent.

"However, over the past 14 years wealth inequality measured by the Gini coefficient has remained by and large stable, according to the ONS.

"This is in contrast with many countries where wealth inequality increased between 2000 and 2019, including in the US, Italy, Russia and China, according to estimates by Credit Suisse. Over that period, wealth inequality also remained largely stable or fell in France and Germany."

I am still very much in favour of a more social democratic system and UK capitalism is clearly in urgent need of reform!

[Offwidth]

I'd rather look at the percentage in poverty than the percentage in the bottom half of income...and compare that with the rich getting richer. Also private untility and rail companies increasing profit in the face of poorer services. Its not just the energy companies on the utility side: water services are increasing profit but doing so badly on environmental  protection that threats of jail are being considered as an incentive.

https://www.ft.com/content/09854cab-2be8-4d60-8259-40539d1985d6

The poor have been getting poorer for a decade according  to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

https://www.jrf.org.uk/report/going-without-deepening-poverty-uk

It's saying something  when the likes of Martyn Lewis are begging the government  to act now to urgently relieve pressure on the poorest.



https://www.theguardian.com/money/2022/may/25/im-begging-the-government-to-listen-martin-lewis-on-getting-political-mental-health-and-the-cost-of-living-crisis

[seankenny]

The FT story and associated ONS release reference stability in the UK’s wealth Gini coefficient which is a measurement of inequality which includes the entire wealth distribution. The lead paragraph in the FT story just highlights the bottom half as a rhetorical device.

But the major mistake you’re making here is to confuse wealth and income. They are two different things! Naturally when you wrote wealth I assumed you meant wealth, because that is the most respectful approach, but the RF research you link to talks about income. So perhaps you are talking about that instead? At its most basic, income is a flow variable and wealth is a stock variable, they are most definitely not the same thing.

Very deep and persistent poverty in the U.K. is a massive problem and I am a big fan of the Resolution Foundation’s work. The third child cap has been a vile policy to deliberately put families into poverty. I definitely think there is a crisis approaching very quickly, but nevertheless I find the “poor getting poorer” phrase overused and not always reflecting reality.

[Offwidth]

I thought I meant wealth as most people see it (as a dictionary defines it, rather than strictly speaking as an economist), income and assets above essential expenditure.

JRT are saying in their report  (with a graph) that numbers in deep poverty have trended up throughout the decade before the pandemic, to a point about 20% up overall. They are not saying that it's held steady then increased during the pandemic (however numbers in overall poverty have indeed behaved more in that way)

Gini coefficients have their weaknesses, especially in comparing the UK to countries where the essential costs of living are much lower.

[seankenny]

Wealth is the value of your assets, it is perfectly possible to have a high income and negative wealth (you just took out a 70k loan to do an MBA and you’re now earning big in the City) and likewise it’s possible to have low income and high wealth (pensioner with no mortgage). If you spend all your high income on the kids’ education then your wealth will take a hit. Wealth is also clearly dependent on when you bought the assets. The fact that most people confuse the two (as I mentioned up above; you’ve made exactly the mistake I alluded to) is really because they haven’t thought about it very much. It is most definitely not rocket science. Income distributions have nothing to do with expenditure, in general, as that can vary a lot over households (tho of course we can drill down into these figures). I think it’s good to make these distinctions between different things, regardless of what’s in the dictionary.

It is of course perfectly possible that wealth inequality has remained fairly constant at the same time as deep poverty numbers increase. That’s because the households in the bottom of couple of deciles hold virtually no wealth (this is something that tends to hold true across economies and across time), so changes in their income don’t much affect how wealth is held.

My post about Gini coefficients is that the analysis will have absolutely included the bottom 10%. Since they measure in-country distributions (essentially the difference from a perfectly equal distribution) I am not sure of your point about inter-country comparisons, as I wasn’t making one…

[petejh]

For 8 of the last 10 years Centrica has been a genuinely hideous company for any shareholder who was invested in via misfortune (company pension) or stupidity (via direct stockpicking). The company only really turned fortunes around in 2020 with a new CEO. It stopped paying a dividend 3 years ago and is only reinstating a small dividend now. For shareholders watching Centrica's fortunes tank for year after year since 2013 it must have been like watching money being vaporised in the void of a failing business.

And now in the one year they turn a hefty profit due to force majeure completely outside their own doing and, Nigel-forbid, want to send a small part of some of that profit back to long-suffering shareholders, they're supposed to be penalised and slated for it? The ironies are many. Here are some:

Irony 1: Centrica's share price is down 78% over the last 10 years. As stated it's a truly dire business to invest in.

Irony 2: Centrica perform as a supplier of last resort and were obliged to take on those customers of failed utility companies you'll all have heard about - you may be one - who went bankrupt this year and last due to high wholesale prices. Centrica hardly makes any money from these new customers (and from retail in general), that it's obliged to look after following other's failures. As the price these customers pay Centrica for gas under their contracts barely keeps up with wholesale price:

https://www.ft.com/content/403426e9-c3b2-4108-bab4-ff8692e789b9
Operating profits at the British Gas Energy segment of the business fell 43 per cent to £98mn, driven largely by the need to buy gas and electricity for new customers for whom it had not been able to hedge in advance.

Irony 3:  If you look back over the years, bosses of failing Centrica have consistently warned that the small new utility players taking business away weren't operating a sustainable business model because margins on retail sales were tiny and any shock would bankrupt the market. Turns out they were entirely correct. As 30+ of the small utility players went to the wall once prices rose this year and last. Centrica was there to provide gas to the customers of those failed companies, at almost nil benefit to Centrica.

Irony 4: Centrica attempted to divest its UK oil and gas business over the last 5 years but failed to sell most of them as the business isn't an attractive investment - Centrica only owns UK gas production through no-one else wanting to buy it! Likewise its 20% stake in the UK's nuclear assets which nobody wanted and which will in years to come likely become very valuable as the west realises the real-world meaning of the word 'utility'! Funny how things can change so quickly, following reality hitting and the complete fuck-up of policy in sourcing cheap gas from a psychopathic fascist, while greenwashers applauded Germany for it 'quitting coal'... https://insideclimatenews.org/news/15102020/germany-coal-transition/
(apart from ironically another psychopathic fascist (Trump) who was impolite enough to actually publicly point out the obvious weakness in the German plan). Now Germany is scrabbling for coal wherever it can get it from.

Irony 5: Centrica is attempting to re-open the Rough gas storage facility using profits made this year - they've stated that the company isn't seeking any government investment to aid it.

Irony 6: The Centrica CEO actually turned down his £1m bonus this year. I mean £1m...my heart doesn't bleed for his charity! But how many bosses, or workers in any branch of life let alone utility companies - do you hear about actually turning down their bonuses..? Bet there are more than a few charity bosses, NGO's, principals of academic institutions etc. who don't walk the walk.

You don't hear the Nigels, Brutus's and other socialist talking-heads of this world acknowledging those sides of business. It would be laughable if it wasn't so ignorant. I suppose it's funny to see supposedly intelligent socially liberal people hitched-up to the same fury-bandwagon as the daily mail: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11057077/Fury-British-Gas-owner-Centrica-profits-increase-FIVE-FOLD-1-34-BILLION.html

I'm glad I wasn't unfortunate enough to be a long-term Centrica shareholder. (I'm doing far better than a Centrica shareholder could ever dream of, with massive capital gains this year investing in coal from New South Wales which is absolutely rocketing following the fallout from Germany et al's short-sighted energy-policy. Dividend to be announced in August... )

[teestub]

It’s mad that a company can be making 1/2 a billion close to a billion profit for a few years, but they are still shit years be because their revenue is around 30 billion. I need to take a few zeroes off before the numbers make any sense. 

[BrutusTheBear]

Our taxes are hoovered up into the profits and dividends of the private companies delivering our public services.  This money then makes it's way offshore via legal tax avoidance schemes.  There ain't no trickle down and none of it returns in investment to make things better.  One great big scam in plain sight that has gone on for decades.  It's corruption plain and simple. The Labour Party under it's current leadership will do nothing about this. 
I think Energy supply should be publicly owned and I think you've made a solid detailed argument for that to be the case Pete.

You don't hear the Nigels, Brutus's and other socialist talking-heads of this world

 

[Wellsy]

I personally do agree that energy utilities should be publicly owned, absolutely, but I do also think initial supply costs at the moment are a huge issue that public ownership would still have to deal with