"British Gas urges customers to ditch David Cameron after he hikes taxes by more than 10%"

From The Evening Standard:

Struggling London families were dealt a huge blow two years ago when the Conservative-led government increased taxes on output and employment by 10.6 per cent.

The bombshell from Britain's biggest government reduced disposable incomes of an average household by nearly £1,000 and sent their annual total tax bill spiralling to a record £20,000 a year...

The VAT and National Insurance rises, which came into force in 2010, did not trigger a storm of protest and consumer groups did not accuse the Liberal-Conservative coalition of delivering a "big, nasty" shock to taxpayers that will force thousands to make a "heat or eat" choice over the winter.

British Gas chairman Sir Roger Carr today said the tax rises were "disappointing" and urged people to try to save money by switching governments.

Shadow energy secretary Caroline Flint said: "People are too feeble to stand up to the government. Britain's tax and welfare system is not working for ordinary families and businesses.

"Heck knows how we keep getting away with it."

Double standards don't have to be taxing...

This week we learned that OFGEM arbitarily fined British Gas £2.5 million for poor customer service. Now it turns out HMRC have been slapped down by MP's for the same crime.

MPs said they found bad management and demoralised staff, and that some levels of service were “­unacceptable”...

So what happens now? Do we all get a rebate? Do heads roll? Do our elected representatives simplify the tax code?

I don't wish to be seen as unpatriotic, but...

Has anybody else noticed that organisations whose name starts with the word 'British' are all 'a bit shit'?

British Aerospace (cue smartarse who claims that they are called 'BAE' nowadays)
British Airways
British Broadcasting Corporation
British Council
British Energy
British Gas
British Institute of Human Rights
British National Party
British Petroleum
British Telecom

One more reason to hate British Gas

They allow their spokesman to express support for the government's Loony Idea Of The Day, being speed-limiters in cars.

"Ministers consider windfall tax"

Oh God ... at least John Hutton shows a glimmer of commonsense.

The point is, the gummint has already had plenty of windfall taxes on the back of rising oil and gas prices:

The British Chambers of Commerce reckoned the annualised extra revenues would be over £4 bn on petrol alone, let's add on 50% for domestic fuel (only 5% VAT) and double it for additional corporation tax, which is 48% on North Sea oil and gas production = £12 bn.

That's £500 per household, for f***'s sake!

We could scrap the extra £70 per household for 'green' subsidies while we're at it.

Centrica & British Gas profits

At the end of this cacaphony of wailing on the BBC website, the small voice of reason:

Sam Laidlaw, Centrica's chief executive, justified the price rise, saying: "This is a business that has got a million shareholders - a lot of pension funds and people have got their savings invested in British Gas shares and we have to look after them".

I am, of course, assuming that he's telling the truth about those 'million shareholders'. I can't find anything in their 2007 accounts to prove or disprove it.

Centrica's detailed first-half results are interesting. They did indeed book the bulk of their profits, i.e. £504 million, in Centrica Energy (gas extraction and electricity generation). Also worth noting is that Centrica only extract one-third as much gas (1,413 mmth) as they sell (4,399 mmth), so the business (i.e. the mark-up on gas) is not absurdly profitable (4.3% operating profit margin - as against 5% VAT that the government skims off the top).

Final thoughts; with ten million gas customers and six million electricity customers, Centrica's £1 billion profit is £62.50 profit per customer (or £131 if you are on dual fuel), which doesn't seem wildly excessive to me. Their tax note suggest that the group's tax bill is about 40% - 45% of profits (corporation tax, petroleum revenue tax and VAT), which I think is quite enough.

Outbreak of commonsense!

Against a long backdrop of the LibLabConsensus trying to out-do each other in the MMGW-f***wittery stakes, comes this in today's FT:

Hutton eyes coal to replace imports of gas

John Hutton, business secretary, yesterday paved the way for a new generation of coal-fired power stations, claiming Britain could not wait for new clean-coal technology to come on stream... He said the Conservative policy on these plants - which would place a limit on carbon emissions - was "a potential threat to our energy security"... But Alan Duncan, shadow business secretary, said the intent of the government to develop coal "at any cost", was a decision that would leave future generations with a "massive carbon headache". He added: "That means they can only keep the lights on by being dirty."

What a turnaround! It only seems like a few days ago that The Goblin King heralded windpower as The Next Big Thing ... oh, it was.

Of course, John Hutton seems to have overlooked the EU's Large Combustion Plants Directive, which means we can't build them anyway, but hey.

"UK mulling fuel poverty voucher"

Ooh! Big numbers! And where there's a big number, there's a f***witted idea not far behind, in this instance, a windfall tax to fund fuel vouchers for those in 'fuel poverty'.

Hmm. British Gas' domestic energy division has 10m gas customers and 6m electricity customers (see end of here). So those £571m post-tax profits (which are after paying corporation tax at 50% or 75% don't forget!!) are, er, £35 per household per annum (or £70 if you get gas and electricity from British Gas).

The spokesman for the oil industry points out (see first link) that the government is already getting £1,000 million from households in VAT on domestic fuel = £40 per household per annum, and politely doesn't mention "as much again in bloody corporation tax".

So how about this for a plan ... if 75% tax ain't high enough, levy a 100% windfall tax and give everybody a £35 'fuel voucher' ... oh ... that's no good ... the industry would shut down and we'd have to go without gas or electricity altogether. Hmmm.

Truly, f***wittery of the highest ordure!

Oh, and as is tradition on this 'blog, let me point out that National Energy Action, Charity No. 290511 (mentioned in the first link) is not a group "which helps people on low incomes", it's a f***ing quango. It gets a cool £2m in grants from various government departments (see note 6 to the accounts). Its subsidiary Warm Zones Limited, gets another £9m from the government. Heaven knows whether poor people ever see any of that money.