[Politics] Johnson blames energy price rises on Putin

[Triggaaar]

Ukrainian spokesperson just said we should seize all Russian money stashed in UK banks and use this to subsidize the fuel charges.

She's correct.

We should have started with Chelsea. How on earth was a sanctioned person allowed to sell the club for billions?

 

[KZNSeagull]

https://twitter.com/cjsnowdon/status/1563910318505566208?s=20&t=u7PmZZOfQGvsH2wCDgcrkg

Cheery thread to what he thinks will happen, I imagine he’s spot on.

Very cheerful. What's his solution?

 

[Neville's Breakfast]

Very cheerful. What's his solution?

The one that would please most people is Putin being deposed and the world returning to business as usual through pillaging the planet for fossil fuels at low prices. The current furore shows that most people do not want to cut consumption. Putin will bide his time and hope that dire warnings of Westerners taking to the streets will do his work for him as pressure mounts to sell out Ukraine.

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

Very cheerful. What's his solution?

Christopher Snowdon

@cjsnowdon
Replying to
[MENTION=18175]Ron[/MENTION]nytodgers
There isn’t answer. Sensible people have been sounding the alarm for fifteen years and been ignored. We are now at the roosting chickens stage.

 

[KZNSeagull]

Christopher Snowdon

@cjsnowdon
Replying to
[MENTION=18175]Ron[/MENTION]nytodgers
There isn’t answer. Sensible people have been sounding the alarm for fifteen years and been ignored. We are now at the roosting chickens stage.

Great.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

There is very, very little profit in energy supply let alone "obscene" levels.

[MENTION=522]Kinky Gerbils[/MENTION] posted the graphic below yesterday. He was making another point, but it also illustrates that energy suppliers make very little out of what we are paying. They are just middle men - they buy energy on the market, add a small mark-up, and sell it on to us. If those numbers are in the right ball park, and they marry up with other things I've heard/read, it means that energy suppliers are making under 2% profit even at the current sky-high prices.

What I think you are doing, and a lot of people keep making the same mistake,, is confusing energy supply with energy production. It's the latter where huge money is being made because, in simple terms, the cost of production hasn't really changed whilst the price the resultant energy can be sold at has soared stratospherically.

View attachment 151266

Thanks, mon vieux. It's easy to mix things up under the present circumstances.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

This is one aspect which I'm slightly surprised isn't discussed more.

As many of these companies were failing one by one, I noticed that I'd not heard of most of them.

It comes with the benefit of hindsight, but it seems pretty obvious there was insufficient regulation in place as almost any Tom, Dick or Harry could start up an energy supply business, immediately undercutting the legacy suppliers and hoovering up new customers quickly.

They were assisted by the likes of Martin Lewis/MSE and various price comparison sites who had a significant vested interest in getting people to move suppliers as they earned a sizeable affiliate kickback each time they introduced a new customer to an energy supplier.

So we had the situation where there seemed to relatively low barriers to entry, and stimulated demand encouraging new entrants to come to market.

It's now all collapsed, leaving everyone to pay the price.

Wow.

Is this why we are uniquely in the sh1t in the UK, or is this Europe wide?

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

I definitely wasn’t’ t being facetious. My views just don’t tally with any one part of the political spectrum which is why I upset some people on here who have a more traditional good/bad approach to politics. Thankfully never your good self. I think you have identified the perpetual problem. We all like a part of any party’s platform. I have some very left wing views, including nationalization of key parts of the economy. I don’t always vote Labour because of bigger disagreement over other policies. Unfortunately energy policy has, as you say, been cobbled together over many years and Governments. Basically we shouldn’t be starting from here. But we are. Corbyn, no thanks despite my agreement with him on nationalization. Democracy is all about compromise and getting as much as could be hoped for. The alternative is a lot worse. I am ok with Starmer’s cautious approach.

Cheers. I'm struggling with all this. If you are OK with Starmer's approach (I have come to recognise your judgement as very considered) I'll put my red flag back in the drawer

(for the time being.....)

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

so was I ! Even a member/supporter of CND for a bit.

I went on the Big March (1981?). Barely mentioned in the press at the time. That's when I gave up the notion of Direct Action.....

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

We should have started with Chelsea. How on earth was a sanctioned person allowed to sell the club for billions?

Indeed. He promised to give the money to Ukraine (or something). Has he?

Johnson deliberately did nothing for a couple of weeks when sanctions should have been brought in. Allegedly so the people who had given him money could 'sort themselves out'.

Fancy that!

(Good to see you posting more often, again )

 

[Baldseagull]

Indeed. He promised to give the money to Ukraine (or something). Has he?

Johnson deliberately did nothing for a couple of weeks when sanctions should have been brought in. Allegedly so the people who had given him money could 'sort themselves out'.

Fancy that!

(Good to see you posting more often, again )

His statement said money would go to help those affected by the conflict in Ukraine, which is vague enough to include helping sanctioned Russians if he wanted to.

 

[GT49er]

Harry, he is correct. I’m sorry. What else do you think is driving gas, oil and power markets higher ? Putin has toyed with the markets for a couple of years, particularly with his cat and mouse games with the German Green Party over their continued refusal to allow the Nordstream 2 pipeline. We are now putting our money where our mouths are over support for Ukraine. That’s just a fact. Now there are very good arguments that someone else should pay eg the energy producers. I have a lot of sympathy for that argument but someone will pay for Putin’s actions to reduce both supply and security of supply. Putin pounced when he saw vulnerability. He saw us trying to reduce our reliance on fossil fuel via the energy transition. We were closing coal fired power stations, not renewing nuclear supply and therefore even more reliant on Russia. There was also surging demand post Covid and an infrastructure that was struggling to ramp up supply. This is generally accepted pretty much everywhere so to create a story out of what you say Johnson said is surprising.

I’m with you but I’ll also hunker down on this now. The Tories and Johnson in particular can rightly be blamed for a lot of bad things that have happened since Covid, the price of energy is not one of them imo

Well said both of you - a bit of balance needed on NSC. It's all very well being 'woke' - a badge of pride for the more socially liberated people on the planet - but, as unacceptable as the idea might be to some on NSC, Boris Johnson hasn't single-handedly caused the world energy crisis any more than he was responsible for the world-wide pandemic that was/is Covid 19.

Was/is he a not very good Prime Minister? History (rather than NSC) may (or may not) judge him as that. Is he the Devil Incarnate, or the instigator of all the plagues that beset the world? 60-40 or more on NSC probably he is, yes, but outside the bubble .............................? Probably less so.

 

[beorhthelm]

Wow.

Is this why we are uniquely in the sh1t in the UK, or is this Europe wide?

dont know why its not accepted its europe wide. rates are 10x for electricty futures, 6x for gas. they are nationalising, transfering risks to taxpayer and rationing already. while the left think nationalisation is a solution, it shows panic when companies are going bust. its easy for people and groups to call for something to be done now, their actual solutions are weeks or months old and only consider a fraction of the problems. we'll see soon enough what industry and treasury is cooking up, we need a solution that covers energy and inflation, with an eye on incoming recession. a lot of balls in the air, not something for Johnson or Truss to be making adhoc decisions on to satisfy latest headline or hashtag.

 

[The Clamp]

dont know why its not accepted its europe wide. rates are 10x for electricty futures, 6x for gas. they are nationalising, transfering risks to taxpayer and rationing already. while the left think nationalisation is a solution, it shows panic when companies are going bust. its easy for people and groups to call for something to be done now, their actual solutions are weeks or months old and only consider a fraction of the problems. we'll see soon enough what industry and treasury is cooking up, we need a solution that covers energy and inflation, with an eye on incoming recession. a lot of balls in the air, not something for Johnson or Truss to be making adhoc decisions on to satisfy latest headline or hashtag.

The situation we are in is not Europe wide. Despite what the Tory’s would have us believe.

This is enlightening;

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/08/19/energy/energy-prices-uk-europe-explainer/index.html

 

[Blue Valkyrie]

The Kremlin funding some of the anti-fracking propaganda a few years ago was certainly rubles well spent it seems.

It's no surprise that gas prices are one of Putin's weapons in the hybrid war he launched on us. The weapon needs to be blunted. It'll take time - nuclear, wind power, solar, fracking.. the whole menu, but we need to not be buying in any gas at all.

 

[knocky1]

Cheers. I'm struggling with all this. If you are OK with Starmer's approach (I have come to recognise your judgement as very considered) I'll put my red flag back in the drawer

(for the time being.....)

A very considered reply.

 

[KZNSeagull]

The situation we are in is not Europe wide. Despite what the Tory’s would have us believe.

This is enlightening;

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/08/19/energy/energy-prices-uk-europe-explainer/index.html

It what way is it not Europe wide?

From that article: "Europe's gas is still eye-wateringly expensive. It was trading at €242 ($244) per megawatt hour on Friday, an all-time high, according to Auxilione. That's much higher than the spot price for UK gas, which is trading at an equivalent of €160 ($161) per megawatt hour"

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

A very considered reply.

As far as knee jerk reactions are concerned, it was very considered

Over to you, for the real solution

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Well said both of you - a bit of balance needed on NSC. It's all very well being 'woke' - a badge of pride for the more socially liberated people on the planet - but, as unacceptable as the idea might be to some on NSC, Boris Johnson hasn't single-handedly caused the world energy crisis any more than he was responsible for the world-wide pandemic that was/is Covid 19.

Was/is he a not very good Prime Minister? History (rather than NSC) may (or may not) judge him as that. Is he the Devil Incarnate, or the instigator of all the plagues that beset the world? 60-40 or more on NSC probably he is, yes, but outside the bubble .............................? Probably less so.

Nobody. NOBODY has said that.

However he has done nothing of value to mitigate against its effects in the UK.

Nobody critical of Johnson on NSC has ever advocated 'woke'. This is a Breitbart/GB news word

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

The situation we are in is not Europe wide. Despite what the Tory’s would have us believe.

This is enlightening;

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/08/19/energy/energy-prices-uk-europe-explainer/index.html

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...re-to-scrap-gas-levy-after-anger-over-profits

France are adding to national debt/printing more money

None of these is a solution