Ofgem has failed and market forces are not working - Yorkshire Post Letters

The inflationary spiral is causing real hardship and concern. Even the IMF have called on the Government to act.

Recent reports indicate that inflation is higher for some groups. This is because our different circumstances, including age, are expressed in different needs.

One of the core reasons for current inflation is the across-the-board increases in the price of energy to residents and businesses. We all feel the pain of a 60 per cent increase in the cost of gas and electricity. We feel it a second and third time when it produces increases in the costs of food and other shopping. It is this which is the inflationary spiral. There are secondary and cumulative increases in costs and prices.

It is in our interests to treat the primary cause of the inflation. A windfall tax would take some of the obscene profits from energy companies and, if paid to those hit hardest, it would soften the effects of some of the inflation. It would not address the core cause of the current inflation.

To slow down and stop the spiral the price of energy to all consumers, domestic users and business, particularly farmers and food producers, must be reduced and held down.

It makes no sense to allow energy producers to increase prices and to be rewarded with obscene profits.

Ofgem, the so-called watchdog has failed miserably. It is clear it is no more than a cosmetic device to hide the blushes of an incompetent minister. Stronger action is needed to bring down the price of energy and Ofgem is not able to do that.

Indeed, a government which places limitless trust in the mystical hand of ‘the market’ is probably unfit and is clearly unprepared to protect the economy. There was a time when latter-day Jeremiahs believed the earth was flat and was limited to their known horizons.

Today these same people cling to the fallacy of the mystical hand of ‘the market’.

We deserve better. We need better.