"One in four facing fuel poverty"

Blah blah, this is the best bit:

"The charter, supported by Friends of the Earth, the Association for Conservation of Energy and National Energy Action ..."

Friends of the Earth? Whose European umbrella body "gratefully acknowledges funding from: EU DG Environment, EU DG Employment & Social Affairs, EU DG Development, German Ministry of Environment - UBA, Austrian Ministry of Environment, Dutch Ministry of Environment - VROM ..."?

The Association for the Conservation of Energy? Which appears to be some EU-approved industry lobby group, i.e. 'lobbying for subsidies'. Whose members include British Gas, E.On, EDF and Scottish power?

National Energy Action, who get £11m a year from the gummint, as previously reported?

"Measures to target fuel poverty"

For a load of shit ideas dreamed up by a long list of quangos, see here.

Or, from the MW manifesto:

1. Scrap VAT on domestic fuel* (and possibly reduce other taxes thereon). That gets the cost down by 5% at a stroke.

2. Encourage/enable pensioners and welfare claimants to set up a low-cost, basic bank account (any bank that refuses to offer such accounts gets its banking licence withdrawn). Encourage them (i.e. tell them how much cheaper it is) to pay by DD rather than pre-payment meter. That gets the cost down by a further 16%. DD payments can be made weekly or monthly.

3. Replace Council Tax/SDLT etc. with a Property Bubble Tax, and replace means-tested old-age benefits with a Citizen's Pension, which would encourage** the one million pensioners below the poverty line who still live in a three-bedroom house to trade down into a smaller home.

* Actually, phase out VAT on everything, but this would go first.

** Or at least not discourage which is what means-tested benefits do - if you swap big house for small house-plus-pile of cash, you lose so much in Pensions Credit and Council Tax Benefit that it often isn't worth the hassle. And SDLT of course disourages mobility.