Quote Originally Posted by SithHappens View Post
I thought we had a response already on energy prices ?

Anyway, not exactly ideal for an incoming PM to suddenly have the death of a monarch to contend with along with all the rules about periods of mourning that happened.

I think judge her on her actions in the coming weeks, perhaps her, or whomever comes to power next can review the rules on things like periods of mourning, oh yes and how long it takes to elect a new leader. Archaic (in my opinion) rules have led to a period of inactivity at a time we could Ill afford , it's not her fault but she or keir starmer, if he becomes leader one day, might try and review it so it doesn't happen again
Antiquated rules, indeed, Sith, not helped by the fact that the outgoing Leader of the Toraidh also happened to be the PM of the time. A party leader will always be elected by the membership. Pure logic. Raab should have taken over (not a position one would wish on the country) for the duration of the party election and then stepped down once the new party leader had been elected. Of course, that might mean that Raab would have been a lame duck PM as was Boris during the Toraidh election.

Should Starmer step down as leader of the Red Toraidh then Angela Rayner would take over until the election result was known. No added PM complications there.

Energy prices. We had our version of the State Opening of Parliament yesterday (always 3rd Tuesday in September) and, in King William Alexander's speech, he announced that from November 1st, taking average household usage as the base, the first 2500Kwh of electricity and 1400m3 of gas used would be charged at the price it was on Janaury 1st 2020, some 7 weeks prior to Putin invading Ukraine. In the short term, the difference would be paid by the government (taxpayer). Some time soon the EU will be announcing how much of the excessively obscene profits they will be taking off the gas and oil companies. The Dutch government will be reimbursed (fully?). From January 1st 2023 new price caps come into force. The gas and oil might get to keep some of their obscene and totally accidental excess profits but they will lose most of them.

What has Truss done? She will take £150Bn of the £170Bn excess profit to fund the crisis but the UK taxpayer will pay the gas and oil companies that back over the next 15 to 20 years. Not unsimilar to Sunak who, earlier this year, months after Starmer said a windfall tax should be applied, finally took some money off the G and O giants. However, in that "deal" he promised them tax breaks down the road which would see them regain more than they had just had taken off them.

In a fair world, when as many as 50% of the population is being plunged close to bankruptcy, I find that obscene. Profits they have NOT earned (the war in Ukraine is partly responsible, the free market has taken advantage and that is how these profits were generated) and should not IMO go into the pockets of the already obscenely wealthy.

They should now also be looking to take the utilities back into public control so the nation can profit from them.