I’ve not really been keeping up with the news too much of late, all I know is that Boris Johnson has still not resigned. Unbelievable.

I received the following Whatsapp over the weekend;

“There is something very wrong about this ‘loan’ from the energy sector:
‘RE: imposed £200 loans for energy bills. Thanks to Richard Else – I have just reworked and generalised a message he has written to his energy provider and to the Cabinet Office (and I’ve cc’d my MP, who is in the Treasury)… Feel free to copy, adapt and send to suit your purposes… ‘

“To whom it may concern,
With regards to the recent news that all customers of energy companies in England will be given a £200 loan from the Government to be repaid over following years.
I would like to state that I do not want this loan. I have not asked for this loan and I certainly do not want the government interfering in my finanical affairs. I do not wish my energy company to transfer the loan to my account, nor take repayments from my account in the future, and I shall be writing to them to this effect.
I have several reasons for this decision.

1. I have not given the Government permission to provide me with a loan. Legal requirements within the Consumer Credit Act require both the lender and the applicant to accept the written terms and conditions relating to specific transactions. I have not received contractual paperwork and would not sign an agreement, should I be provided with one. Without such an agreement, I believe the imposition of a compulsory loan would be unlawful.
2. Since the most vulnerable in society are much more likely to be using pre-payment meters for their energy supplies, this loan scheme is completely misguided. Such people do not receive or pay bills, so cannot be helped through this proposed plan. Please reconsider and change this.
3. Since I am a customer on a fixed rate tariff my unit costs for energy will not rise in April when the government removes its cap. Therefore I do not need a loan to help me.
4. Within my contractual agreement with my energy company, there is no reference to the provision of credit from third parties without the consent of the customer. If the government continues with this course of action, it could cause contractual problems for the energy companies.
   This imposition is of great concern.
   For the Government to create a situation where they can enforce financial debt upon citizens, then control their personal finances – through their energy account – to repay a debt they have neither wanted nor authorised, is a worrying authoritarian development in the relationship between the state and the citizens of this country.”

Okay, if any of this is true, it’s quite troubling, so I immediately forwarded it onto a friend and tagged at the end that it looks like I need to read about the proposal and his response was;

“You do, I think that covers it.
It’s also a loan that is forced to play the market.
And it’ll be managed by who?”

This is starting to sound a little sinister.

Some reading reveals that the discount is in actual fact a loan for £200 which will be applied to this years bill as a credit to the account, and then be repaid at £40/year from 2023 to 2027.

The process is that the UK government loans the money to the energy suppliers, and they distribute it from there.

The reason for this is that energy bills will be going up for users on standard rate variable tariffs from April 2022 to the tune of 54% if you are on an account or prepay meter.

You have absolutely no say as to whether you have the loan or not, it will be applied to your account regardless; the loan is being forced upon you. If you do not have an energy account, i.e. you are on a prepay meter, you will receive a voucher or cheque.

If you don’t currently have an energy bill of your own, such as you’re living with parents and you miss receiving the loan, if you then move out and into your own place, you will then have to make the repayments at the £40/year between 2023 and 2027 for the loan that you never had!

There are so many questions bouncing around in my head, I just cannot think of where to start.

I think the best point is to look at other European countries. The jump in energy prices is affecting the entire continent, so what are the governments doing there?

In France, the government is forcing EDF to limit the increase to 4% this year, this means the company will take a financial knock to the tune of around £7bn. I’d say that this was fairly effective at protecting the consumer.

In Spain, the government there is applying a windfall tax on the electricity and gas producers that doing rather well out of the escalation in prices to distribute to people in need. How this manifests itself and how the consumer will be benefit will need to be seen.

In Germany, their government has cut green surcharges on bills. This is a start.

And in the UK……the government indebts the population, regardless as to whether they want the money or not, and will recover the money from them, whether they have had it or not.

And the amount of money that we are talking about is a paltry £200. This will barely touch the jump in bills for this year alone.

So, the energy producers and suppliers in the UK will continue to be allowed to make huge profits from something that is essentially costing them the same as it did before the increase in prices, and to add insult to injury, most are foreign owned and the suspicion is that they are using the profits from their UK operations to subsidise their home ones.

I meant to cover this at the time, in October 2021, the government published a research paper with a number of considerations and recommendations, which it quickly deleted.

The paper was produced by The Behavioural Insights Unit, which is also known as the Nudge Unit according to the paper itself. This is the same unit that was responsible for the design of the sugar levy.

It mentioned shifting dietary habits away from meat and towards plant-based foods, taxing producers or retailers of high-carbon foods such as sheep and cattle meat to incentivise take up of plant-based and local food diets.

Another area it touches on is implementing stronger carbon taxes for flying and shifting social norms to make international flights a sign of immoral indulgence or embarrassment.

Have a read, the paper is available here thanks to Alex Chapman at the New Economics Foundation.

If the link ceases to work, please let me know; I’ve downloaded a backup copy.

Well, Sir Tony (not Sir Anthony) has been made a Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter. Sounds rather fancy, doesn’t it? Most noble, order etc. Apparently it’s the highest honour that can be bestowed upon him, and it was announced yesterday.

I wonder if, now that he is a bona-fide Knight, if he is going to go on a crusade, say, somewhere like the Middle East, or is that a bit passe, a bit noughties?

The garter bit will probably stick in Rupert Murdoch’s throat; the garter in question is possibly his ex-wife’s Wendy Deng’s. I need to be careful here, I’ve watched all available seasons of Succession, so I know full well what Mr Murdoch is capable of, and I’ve watched the karate chopping Deng in action too.

Well, on the back of this announcement, the shit well and truly hit the fan; the interweb thingy lit up like a Christmas tree again and the socials were particularly fascinating. The interesting thing is that in an era of soundbites, social media, very short attention spans and memories that have evolved over the 14 years since he left the office of Prime Minister, some of his policies and actions appear to have left an indellible stain upon not just the UK electorate psyche, but the global one. And this stuff being catapulted off the fan is not pleasant at all, no Sir (Tony). I’d happily get sprayed with it if it could save the several hundred thousand lives that were wasted in the pursuit of your policies.

This morning I wake to read another Knight, this one called Lindsay Hoyle, who is also the Speaker of the House of Commons, is vigorously defending the honour.

There are some wonderful quotes in there, he said he felt the honour, the oldest and most senior British order of chivalry, was “a fitting tribute”, “and I think it is respectful and it is the right thing to do, whether it is Sir David Cameron. They should all be offered that knighthood when they finish as prime minister.”, and “If you have been prime minister of this country, I do believe the country should recognise the service given. Absolutely. You finish in the office and when you’ve finished it is the respect that we give to those prime ministers,”, the final one; “It is not about politics. It is about the position they have held in this country and it’s the respect that we show to those and it is a fitting tribute,”

I’m in complete awe of these quotes and am sat slowly shaking my head as I type. If you get it, you get it. If you don’t, I cannot even be bothered to explain.

As the last few years have shown, the establishment is becoming more and more disconnected from the general public that they serve, they are becoming more and more ridiculous. How can these people take themselves seriously? They are obviously maintaining their vested interests, and the dishing out of awards for a long gone empire is embarrassing. Does Italy dish stuff out for the Roman empire wearing fancy dress togas? Does it heck. As I said, embarrassing.

Currently there is a Change campaign to have Blair’s knighthood rescinded with 120,000 signatures on it, and it is growing fast. It can be found here.

Over a million people reportedly took to the streets of London to protest against the Iraq war back in 2003, the figure was actually two million, but lets not split hairs. The BBC article from the time is here and makes interesting reading.

Lets see how many signatures this Change campaign gets up to and whether it gets ignored in the same way as the Iraq war protests. Please share the link.