Enough is enough, energy companies can't go on ripping us off - GP Taylor

My greatest concern is for all those people who will have to make the decision over eating or heating. Either way, their lives are going to be made a misery as fuel poverty knocks at the door of millions of households.

Let me be clear, this is going to happen. In our out of control capitalist economy where stock market traders gamble on the price of oil and gas, the consumer is just the pawn who suffers.

What little help this moribund government will give is like putting a sticking plaster on a shotgun wound, it is a total joke.

How dare any self-respecting politician go on holiday in the midst of a national crisis. Winston Churchill would never have gone for a couple of weeks in Bognor during the war. Only Liz and Rishi are left behind fighting it out as to which one of them will lead the party that is destined to lose at the next election. Across Yorkshire, people are scared stiff about what is coming their way. I got a letter from Centrica-British Gas telling me that my monthly payments would actually be more than my monthly earnings. I rang them and told them where they could stick their monthly payments and demanded a lower rate, which they didn’t seem too happy about.

In light of this I have signed up to the pressure group Don’t Pay UK. In October, I will be stopping my direct debit and don’t care if Centrica gives me a blacklisted credit rating. I really feel that I have to do something to protest about these artificially inflated fuel and food prices.

According to a new study by the University of York, 70.6 per cent of households in Yorkshire will be struggling with energy bills by January. Shockingly, 86.4 per cent of pensioners will be in fuel poverty at the same time. This is just not acceptable.

In a modern world, it is not morally right that so many people should have to be put through mounting fear and anxiety. Heating and eating is a human right and is not a commodity for companies to make obscene profits for shareholders. Sadly, all we are offered from Truss and Sunak are inflation raising tax cuts. No one dares to say that the only way that Britain can have fuel security is to nationalise all of the power, water and fuel companies and take the shameful profits away from their shareholders.

Utilities should be in the hands of the people and not in the pockets of billionaires. Green levies and the insane notion of net zero and Agenda 2030 should be suspended or scrapped. Alas, this will never happen because like most governments and world leaders, Britain follows the advice of the World Economic Forum who, if you read their manifesto, want us lowly people to have nothing and be happy by 2030.

If Boris, Keir and Liz think that a winter fuel crisis is part of ‘Build Back Better’ after the great reset of the Covid pandemic, then they have another thing coming. I predict that this crisis will be so deep that we will see unrest on the streets and civil disobedience in towns across the country. The Poll Tax riots will look like a Mother’s Union tea party in comparison.

Having walked down my street this morning, I was shocked how deep the fuel fury runs in the people I met. Honest, decent Yorkshire folk are seething with anger that this zombie government is doing nothing. They can see that the government did nothing to stop inflation and did nothing to stop fuel companies making billions in profits. If the French government can cap energy prices at 4 per cent then so can Britain. The Tory majority could push through any policy that would help the British people, but they turn their backs as we are all robbed by their masters. Big business is treating workers like medieval serfs.

Centrica said adjusted operating profit for the six months ending in June rose to £1.34bn from £262m a year earlier. Shell also reported second quarter profits of $11.5bn (£9bn). As profits rise, bills get higher. This is an insult to hard working people as energy bills rise 23 times more than wages.

For the first time in my life, I really think that politicians and big business are taking us all for a ride. I am horrified that no one in government or business really cares about us. Profits matter more than people. It is as if the plan is to break this country and leave it a broken wasteland of households too frightened to turn on their heating. Enough is enough.

GP Taylor is a writer and broadcaster who lives in Yorkshire.