Bill Carmichael: Green light for the big freeze

Vodafone, Google, Amazon, Starbucks and even Yorkshire Water have all been pilloried in the stocks, and this week it was the turn of energy company bosses after household bills were increased by a swingeing 10 per cent.

Evil capitalist pigs! How dare they create jobs and try to return a profit for their shareholders!

But hold on a minute; one of the main reasons why energy bills have increased is because politicians – yes, precisely those characters at the head of the pitchfork-wielding mob – wanted them to rise.

Increasing prices are a result of deliberate government policy. Ed Miliband admitted as much back in 2009 when he was Energy Secretary. He made it absolutely clear on more than one occasion that the green taxes he was imposing would result in increased prices for consumers.

And he has been proved right. Green measures now account for around £112, or about 10 per cent, of the average bill. By 2020, the figure will be about £194.

To be fair David Cameron, at least during his hug-a-husky phase, was mad keen on using green taxes to push up prices too. Or he was until this week when he performed a panic-stricken U-turn.

In short the policy is working exactly the way politicians intended it to work. The reasoning goes something like this; if you push up energy prices people will use less of it and we’ll save the planet from global warming. Unfortunately, an unavoidable side effect is that we push millions more into fuel poverty and many people will freeze to death.

According to the Office of National Statistics, 24,000 mainly elderly people died of cold last winter. This year the death toll is sure to be even higher.

Let’s say it again – this is deliberate. Politicians know full well the impact of increasing fuel bills will have on the most vulnerable in our society. They just think all those avoidable deaths are a price worth paying to burnish their green credentials.

What is worse is that it won’t work. There is absolutely no scientific evidence that imposing green taxes in the UK will have any significant impact on average global temperatures in the future.

Our government is allowing tens of thousands of people to die each year in return for a benefit that is so infinitesimally small that it cannot be measured.

It would be nice to think Cameron 
will be as good as his word (there’s 
always a first time!) and will review green taxes. But the eco-loons have such a grip on the establishment that I don’t hold out much hope.

In the meantime just remember – more elderly Britons will die of cold this coming winter than have ever died in the entire world from global warming since the theory was invented.

I spy hypocrisy

There’s a scene in Casablanca where Captain Renault says he’s “shocked, shocked” to find gambling is going on in Rick’s club, just as a croupier hands him a handful of cash as his winnings from the gaming tables.

It is much like the reaction to reports that the Americans were spying on European politicians, including listening in on German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s phone calls.

The Germans have summoned the US ambassador and the issue is on the agenda for a forthcoming EU summit.

Shocking! Spies who are spying on other countries! But isn’t that what they are supposed to do?

And does anyone seriously believe that the Europeans are not spying on the US, and no doubt on each other too?