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 Big Six Energy companies are saying; let them eat cake!
By Simon Icke
Do the big six energy companies think the British public are fools? ...to treat the UK population with such contempt? Their very recent pathetic gesture; playing follow my leader offering an average of just 5% off either domestic electricity or gas; but not both, is little more than the famous quote made by the French Queen consort Marie-Antoinette; just before the French revolution: 'Qu'ils mangent de la brioche"; which translates, let them eat cake! She is supposed to have said this when told the French populace had no bread to eat: The usual interpretation of the phrase is that she understood little about the plight of the poor and cared less: Ditto the big six energy companies, who have little or no understanding of just how many poor and elderly are suffering because of their greed or have died in recent cold winters; due to not being able to afford to heat their homes because of the extortionately high prices charged by the big six utility companies for domestic gas and electricity; including by default charging the highest prices to those who don't own a computer or hold a current account therefore have no access to the cheapest online tariffs. How wrong is that!... yet the Government regulator Ofgem allows these myriads of deliberately confusing tariffs to continue. As for the 5% reduction, it is no more that a 'sweet tiny piece of cake' to keep the grumbling consumers quiet; recent surveys have shown around 50% of the British public are unhappy with their energy supplier. Not surprising when wholesale prices of both gas and electricity have both fallen more than 15% since their peak last August 2011; this fall in costs is not being passed on. It seems all the greedy energy companies want to is to ensure massive increases in profits year on year. They are not really interested in the poor customers who are too frightened to use their heating during the cold winter months. No they continue to charge the maximum they can get away with, there is no real competition in this domestic UK energy market; and the truth is there never has been; they just play 'follow my leader price fixing'; with very little significant difference in prices between the companies on comparison websites. Also lets not forget the tens of thousands of customers who were urged to fix their prices just before Christmas and 'protect themselves from further massive price hikes'; (like we experienced from August to October 2011, mostly averaging around 20%); these poor people won't be receiving a penny of the miserly 5% reduction. It tells us all we need to know about the 'cynical pricing games' these companies are playing with the public in that the reductions for the most part were only offered in one of the energy tariffs, with notabale previous major British Gas supplier only offering a reduction in electricity and the previous 'electricity companies' offering only a reduction in gas. IMO they are just playing games to suit their clever marketing ploys, they know they can do what they want when they want to whom they want and the Government regulator Ofgem won't do a thing about it. These companies think they are untouchable, for this reason they can continue to treat the British public with contempt: "LET THEM EAT CAKE!" Due to problems with spam only SalfordOnline members can now leave comments. Becoming a member of SalfordOnline only takes a minute, just hit the red Join Us button at the top right hand side of the page to create your Personal account. |
