Public pays
high price for
energy rip-off

ONE quiet day last week our entire, massively subsidised bank of 4,300 wind turbines managed to produce 31 megawatts between them. Fortunately Drax was able to gear up to somewhere near its 4,000 megawatt potential (around seven per cent of total national demand), at around a quarter the cost per megawatt.

Last month, we learned from a Scottish Government-sponsored research body that wind generated power on peat uplands (where most are sited) results in more carbon emissions than equivalent fossil fuel generated power. This results from disturbance to the embedded store of carbon in the peat.

The conclusion must be that this is a massive scam. The victims are the British taxpayer, British industry and householders who have taken a reasonably priced, reliable power supply for granted for several generations.

The beneficiaries will be those countries, notably China, India and Germany who while emitting carbon in increasing amounts will step up their coal-powered generation to make up the shortfall in our productive capacity, thereby adding to the carbon dioxide we breathe in while we shiver and wonder.

Our cunning master plan is to close five productive coal-powered power stations this month and on April 1 increase carbon tax to further penalise the remainder for daring to produce cheap reliable power that has served us so well.

You really couldn’t dream it up.

From: Terry Palmer, South Lea Avenue, Hoyland, Barnsley, South Yorkshire.

HERE we go again! British Gas give a winter inflation-busting six per cent price increase on their customers raking in millions of pounds into their overflowing coffers and now barefacedly announce huge profits of £606m – an increase of 11 per cent.

They then have the cheek to refuse to rule out any further huge increases later this year. They have also announced a pay off of £10m lump sum and a £226,000 a year pension to their outgoing boss Phil Bentley.

Hard up families shiver while struggling to pay their bills while these bosses line their pockets.

Of course, it makes it much easier knowing “we are all in this together”. It’s time “Posh” Dave Cameron and his partners in crime got their fingers out and forced these rip-off merchants to plough these exorbitant profits back into reducing bills.

It is now time to re-nationalise and take back the ‘family silver’ that Margaret Thatcher gave away.

Premium cost
of bad service

From: Rev Neil McNicholas, St Gabriel’s Parish, Ormesby, Middlesbrough.

ON the subject of insurance policy renewal by Tom Richmond (Yorkshire Post, March 2), I wonder if anyone still remembers the good old days when, if you made no claims against your insurance, you were guaranteed a lower premium next time around – that was the whole point: reward for being careful and reward for loyalty (a word that seems to be missing from their corporate dictionaries).

Now, as Mr Richmond discovered, it is automatic that premiums increase regardless – to pay, so the insurance companies inform us, for the accidents and claims of others.

Why should claim free customers be penalised in this way? And also why is it that if you call an insurance company to cancel a policy because the premiums are too high, they will then (and only then) magically discover a lower and more competitive price? If they can do that when they have to, why don’t they offer the cheaper quote in the first place? In many cases, also, the company you think you are insuring with is not actually the company that underwrites the policy. Wouldn’t cutting out the middle man reduce the costs involved? And if that practice has to do with spreading the risk then fine, but traditionally it was up to the insurers to find ways of spreading risk, not passing on the cost of it to those being insured.

They are already making millions otherwise they wouldn’t be in the insurance business in the first place.

Leave bankers alone to do job

From: TM Driffield, Bagby, Thirsk.

I HAVE just watched the evening news and read Richard Heller’s article (Yorkshire Post, February 28). Are we missing something?

The EU has decided to limit bankers bonuses, they do deserve some censure for their part in the current financial crisis, but we must not forget that we are currently in a deep recession.

The EU, and Britain, needs every banker they have, and then some, as they are both to all intents and purposes bankrupt. Any banker worth the name will be heading for Switzerland and the USA. We need friends and tax revenue not further withdrawal of capital and manpower.

George Osborne complains certain companies and individuals are quite legally avoiding paying tax. No one wants to pay tax when our political masters waste it on enormous subsidies for green energy, foreign aid and paying benefits to people who appear at our ports and airports with their hands held out.

Unfortunately, if every politician’s brainpower in the EU and Parliament were to be joined together, we would st ill be dealing with an idiot!