The fatal choice between food or heating in Modern Britain
HASSAN GHANI, TRNN CORRESPONDENT: Winters in the UK can be bitterly cold. In an economy where the cost of living is going up while average incomes are staying the same, a growing number of people are having to choose between food and heating. One recent survey found that up to 1 in 4 families in Britain was turning down the heating during the winter to be able to pay other bills. The cost of gas and electricity for consumers has more than doubled since 2004, and the energy industry is warning that heating bills are going to get even bigger in coming years.
The basic problem, say energy companies, is that there simply isn’t enough capacity anymore, because they’re having having to close down some of their older coal and oil power stations in order to meet green energy targets. They’re now building a series of natural gas power stations in order to bridge the gap. The bottom line is that energy companies are going to raise their prices even further, and they’re blaming it on the rising cost of wholesale gas and investment in renewable energy.
But more and more consumers are growing wise to the fact that the energy companies themselves are making vast and growing profits, despite their claims of simply passing on price rises. British Gas, for example, saw an 11percent increase in profits last year. It’s managing director, who’s tom moving on, will leave with a $15million departure package. And there’s very little transparency in the way the big energy companies buy their fuel, which is purchased in advance. An investigation is now underway into allegations of price-fixing by the power companies.
Ultimately, the rise in household bills is having a devastating effect on the most vulnerable members of society
The BBC maintained a strong a record of misleading reporting throughout the presidency of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who died on Tuesday, following a two year battle with cancer…
In discussing US-Venezuelan relations, Kelly does not mention probably the most seminal event of the last fourteen years: the US-backed coup in 2002. As an interesting aside, straight after the death of Hugo Chavez, in the BBC ‘look back’ at his life, the coup was also omitted by James Robbins, who instead described events as ‘a general strike’ when ‘Chavez was briefly pushed from office’.
Yeah right. For all its faults, the BBC is still the greatest broadcasting platform in the world and a force for good. Why else do you think Rupert Murdoch hates it so much and the Tories are trying to nobble it?
Don’t get me wrong, I still love the BBC, but there is no doubt that it has been curbed and controlled, especially since Alistair Campbell and Blair led the Government jihad against it when it briefly stepped out of line and went off-message about the Iraq invasion.
Why the seventies? It just seems remote and exotic now, and all Eastern European-style black and white.
Yes, indeed, a top decade. Nice to see Bowie back on form, eh?
I recall there was a joke in the USSR about the two papers, Izvestia (Spark) and Pravda (Truth) along the lines that there was no spark in Pravda and no truth in Izvestia.
Yes, I do include Savile. But one man’s crimes, and the incompetence or enabling behaviour of one department of an enormous, worldwide organisation does not diminish the overall good the BBC has done. They helped put that Austrian corporal to rights, for starters.
But its not just one mans crimes, or one department is it, JS was a UK mega star, he was the BBC entertainment arm, and much more to the BBC at the time, and its been covered up for decades. JS was also one of the largest fund raisers, and high profile charity types in UK history.
Appreciate the whole organisation is not likely to be dirty, and that they have done some fantastic work, I used to watch alot of the documentaries, but the organisation, has been eaten out!
So how about Dr David Kelly, different departmental attack, cover up etc…
Two isolated incidents, however bad, do not mean the organisation is rotten or that the good they have done and continue to do is worthless. They remain the closest thing to good, honest global media we have. Not perfect, but without peer.
Since the 1980s, however, incomes have diverged dramatically, with those at the top end soaring and those at the bottom end losing ground – the ‘Great Regression.’ This has been accompanied by financial turbulence and crashes.
What led to these changes? In the 1980s, neo-liberal doctrines were introduced in a number of countries. As the unfettered pursuit of profit took hold, along with the myth of the ‘cost-benefit calculating individual’, ideas of justice, integrity, generosity and freedom began to seem quaint.
Inspired by neo-liberal thinking, successive governments in New Zealand introduced policies concentrating influence and wealth in the hands of a few, disempowering the many.
Our society and economy is in trouble because we began to worship greed (the neo-liberal paradigm) and started to reward the rich for being rich. This government is making it worse as it continues these destructive policies.
How Money is Destroyed And once you’ve finished watching that you’ll understand why this government is borrowing at an increasing rate while telling people to pay their debt and save.
The Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, has called for an ethical response to solve the problem of social debt, saying that, not only do terrorism, repression and murder violate human rights, but also extreme poverty and the “unjust economic structures that give rise to great inequalities.”
Social debt is “immoral, unjust and illegitimate,” the cardinal said, emphasizing that this is especially true when it occurs “in a nation that has the objective conditions for avoiding or correcting such harm.” “Unfortunately,” he noted, it seems that those same countries “opt for exacerbating inequalities even more.”
And once you’ve finished watching that you’ll understand why this government is borrowing at an increasing rate while telling people to pay their debt and save.