Soaring profits at British Gas owner Centrica and oil giant Shell are an insult to families and businesses struggling to pay their rocketing bills.
Coming a day after warnings that household bills could hit £3,850 by January, triple the cost at the start of this year, news of these bumper profits has generated white-hot outrage.
Shell’s profit of almost £10billion for the three months to June, giving £6.5bn to shareholders, is funded by fleecing customers.
British Gas’s £1.3bn during the first half of 2022 – a profit five times higher than a year earlier – is paid for the same way.
Energy firms are exploiting the misery of customers by cashing in on price rises sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Tougher regulation and a return to public ownership would be immensely popular with suffering families and businesses.
Windfall taxes aren’t enough. The shrugs from the Tory Government tell us they are on the side of profiteering corporations and against the people finding it hard to pay bills.
Hollow vows
Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak would pledge anything and everything to get into No10.
They are making promises they know would have to be broken should they win.
Truss isn’t going to spend £26billion on rail lines in Northern England anytime soon, on top of £30billion in tax cuts.
And Sunak’s pledge to suspend VAT on fuel bills for a year isn’t credible when he denounced his opponent’s ideas about reducing taxation as a “fairytale”.
This contest to lead Britain – excluding 99.8% of its population – is a squalid competition between two purveyors of snake oil.
Britain deserves a General Election, not another Conservative stitch-up.
Brum’s No1
Birmingham is already the winner as host of the 2022 Commonwealth Games.
England’s second city always puts on a good show. Sports fans are going to find it bostin’.
