https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/its-not-difficult-way-cut-energy-prices-public-ownership

THE bad news is that the typical yearly household energy bill in Britain will rise by about £150 from this autumn.

…

Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, who should know better, put a superficial gloss on the situation by arguing: “The rise in the price cap is a direct result of the failed energy policy we inherited, which has left our country at the mercy of international gas markets controlled by dictators.”

The first part of that statement is spot on in as far as Labour has made a few steps to reverse the Tory barriers to a more sustainable energy policy — although not as many as Miliband would like. And Russian President Vladimir Putin is an unsavoury character but actually he wanted to keep on selling his cheap gas to the Germans and us.

Western oil and energy monopolies have long been in partnership with dictatorial regimes in the Middle East who lack even Putin’s pretensions to democratic accountability.

Labour could tighten up the regulatory regime to control consumer prices, could tax energy profits more, could use the sovereign powers that leaving the EU confers by asserting domestic controls over wholesale energy prices.

But the quickest and best way to put the energy industry at the service of the people is to take it into public ownership, use the profits to retrofit our housing stock to save energy, invest in renewables and keep consumption and prices down.

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/its-not-difficult-way-cut-energy-prices-public-ownership