Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, has asked Ofgem to crack down on inaccurate and large bills. Photograph: Ina Fassbender/AFP/Getty Images
Exclusive: Whitehall source expects bills in England, Scotland and Wales to rise by about £9 a month over the next three months
Ed Miliband has urged the energy watchdog to take swift action as it emerged that the typical energy bill could soar by more than £100 a year amid a rise in global gas prices.
A Whitehall source said they expected bills in England, Scotland and Wales to increase by about £9 a month over the next three months in another challenge to government plans to tackle the cost of living.
They blamed volatile global gas prices linked to the end of the transit deal that enabled gas to flow to Europe, through Ukraine, from Russia.
Miliband, the energy secretary, has written an urgent letter to Ofgem, saying the price rise means the energy regulator must move faster to protect consumers.
This month, gas prices hit a two-year high, exacerbated by the lack of gas storage in Britain and Europe, combined with colder weather though prices have begun to stabilise. Cornwall Insight, a consultancy which produces closely watched forecasts for the energy price cap, is set to release its latest forecast on Tuesday.
Argentina’s President Javier Milei (C) attends Donald Trump’s inauguration as the next President of the United States in the rotunda of the United States Capitol on January 20, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Shawn Thew – Pool/Getty Images)
“Look where you brought us with your madness! You turned Argentina into a casino where the croupier is the president himself,” one opposition politician said.
Argentina’s far-right libertarian President Javier Milei faces legal challenges and calls for impeachment after a cryptocurrency he touted on social media over the weekend rapidly rose and then tanked in value.
Milei first promoted the $LIBRA coin from his personal account on X Friday night, which then skyrocketed in value to $5 apiece, according to Reuters. Within hours, however, the coin’s value plummeted to under $1. Milei deleted his initial tweet five hours after he first posted it, The New York Times reported, writing in a new post that he was “not familiar with the details of the project.”
“We just witnessed one of the fastest and largest destructions of wealth in retail trading history,” noted The Kobeissi Letter, which tracks capital markets, in a social media post. “Argentina’s memecoin, $LIBRA, erased -$4.5 billion of retail capital in seven hours. Truly destructive.”
In the first 40 minutes after Milei first tweeted boosting the coin, its value rose by more than 2,000%, CoinDesk reported. However, it then began to fall as early investors sold their shares, eventually plummeting 95% from a maximum value of $4.4 billion.
Crypto experts warned the $LIBRA coin, which was developed by KIP Protocol and Hayden Davis, could be a “rug pull,” a scam in which a crypto developer launches and inflates a coin only to pull out and leave investors hanging.
“Milei’s participation in the crime of crypto fraud is extremely serious,” the Lower House bloc of the Peronist Unión por la Patria, a center-left opposition group, wrote on social media Saturday. “It’s a scandal without precedent. Our bloc of national deputies has decided to move forward with presenting an impeachment request against the president of the nation.”
Opposition lawmaker Leandro Santoro further called Milei’s actions a “scandal, which embarrasses us on an international scale” and “requires us to launch an impeachment request against the president.”
On Sunday, Socialist Party lawmaker Esteban Paulón also called for impeachment proceedings.
“If as a president of a country you propose something for private benefit there is an obvious conflict of interest.”
On Monday, Argentina’s benchmark S&P Merval had fallen by 4%, according to Reuters. The incident sparked more than 100 legal complaints, which were assigned to Federal Judge Maria Servini on Monday.
One case was brought by a coalition of lawyers involved in the Right to the City Observatory think tank as well as economist and former Argentine Central Bank President Claudio Lozano. The group accused Milei of fraud, dereliction of duty, and criminal association, according to theBuenos Aires Herald.
An official statement from the president’s office on Saturday said that Milei had met twice with the developers of $LIBRA and had decided to promote the coin “as he does daily with many entrepreneurs who want to launch a project in Argentina to create jobs and obtain investments.”
“Not having been part of any instance of the development of the cryptocurrency, after the repercussions that the launch of the project had and to avoid any speculation and not give it further dissemination, he decided to delete the post,” the statement continued, adding that the president had asked the Anti-Corruption Office to investigate whether he or anyone else in the government engaged in “improper conduct.”
However, the lawyers challenged Milei’s account, according to the Buenos Aires Herald:
In their report, the lawyers dispute Milei’s subsequent claims that he was not aware of the project’s details. They highlight that the president made his post just three minutes after $LIBRA was launched, timing that indicates he knew it was coming before it was announced. They also argue that, as an economist, it is unlikely that he did not understand the details of the project he was sharing.
In a post addressed to Milei directly, former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner heavily criticized the current president for painting himself as an expert yet claiming innocence of the scheme.
“Weren’t you the ‘best president in history’? Weren’t you the ‘genius of the economy’? From self-proclaimed ‘global leader’ to CRYPTO SCAMMER,” de Kirchner wrote.
“Look where you brought us with your madness! You turned Argentina into a casino where the croupier is the president himself,” she continued. “THAT IS YOUR MARKET FREEDOM… that of the casino. Your mask has fallen off.”
While experts say impeachment efforts are unlikely to succeed, the incident could harm Milei in the upcoming midterm elections.
“It is extremely serious if confirmed, especially in terms of a president’s powers to promote something private,” left-wing Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum told Reuters. “If as a president of a country you propose something for private benefit there is an obvious conflict of interest.”
The scandal drew comparisons to U.S. President Donald Trump, who also launched a meme coin shortly before taking office, the value of which also first rose and then fell dramatically. Milei has expressed support for Trump in the past, while Elon Musk has taken inspiration from Milei’s chainsaw-wielding approach to government for his ideologically-driven anti-government effort Department of Government Efficiency.
Power-mad orange gasbag Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
SELF-DECEPTION: A 245-tonne steel dome is lifted onto Hinkley Point C’s first reactor building, at Bridgwater, Somerset on December 15 2023 – note the slogan on the banner
The government’s nuclear power expansion plan is a hollow betrayal of working people that panders to wealthy corporations and will rip off consumers, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
…
The restriction on building new reactors on existing nuclear sites is to be lifted so they could be built anywhere and everywhere and people who “hadn’t thought there’s going to be anything nuclear near me” will simply “get used to the idea of it,” Starmer said.
…
The whole thing is of course a massive con that would, if such a plan ever materialised, dramatically raise electricity rates, further fleece taxpayers, impede real progress on climate by diverting money away from already available renewable energy solutions, and put countless communities in danger.
And of course, what will become of the radioactive waste these “small” reactors would still produce? A recent Stanford study found that small modular reactors will actually generate more radioactive waste than conventional nuclear power plants.
Unions should not be fooled. Promising jobs that will likely never materialise and would be better created immediately in industries such as renewable energy that are here now and have a long-term future, isn’t a boon to working people, it’s yet another betrayal.
Further, nuclear power, as the industry has itself demonstrated over and over, is the slowest and most expensive energy choice among the so-called low-carbon options.
No nuclear reactor, small or otherwise, will ever be built in time, affordably or in enough quantities to address the climate crisis that is already upon us.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance speaks at the Munich Security Conference on February 14, 2025. (Photo: Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
Rebuking the U.S. vice president, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that “a commitment to ‘never again’ is not reconcilable with support for the AfD.”
U.S. Vice President JD Vance faced growing backlash on Saturday after scolding the European political establishment for shunning far-right parties and subsequently meeting with the leader of the neo-Nazi Alternative for Germany, just a week ahead of the country’s general election.
While Vance did not explicitly mention Alternative for Germany, or AfD, during his remarks Friday at the Munich Security Conference, he declared that “there is no room for firewalls”—a reference to mainstream German political parties’ refusal to work with AfD or include it in governing coalitions.
The Guardianreported that “a whisper of ‘Jesus Christ’ and the squirming in chairs could be heard in an overflow room” during the U.S. vice president’s remarks, which he delivered a week after hundreds of thousands took to the streets of Munich to protest far-right extremism.
Following his speech, Vance met with AfD leader Alice Weidel, who praised the vice president’s Munich address as “excellent” in a post on X—a social media platform owned by billionaire Elon Musk, who has also expressed support for AfD as he works to dismantle agencies throughout the U.S. government.
Reutersreported that Weidel—whose grandfather was a Nazi judge appointed directly by Adolf Hitler—met with Vance at his hotel “for about 30 minutes and discussed the Ukraine war, German domestic policy, and freedom of speech.”
On Saturday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz rebuked Vance and said that “we will not accept outsiders intervening in our democracy,” even “friends and allies.”
“Never again fascism, never again racism, never again aggressive war,” Scholz said in his speech at the Munich Security Conference. “That is why an overwhelming majority in our country opposes anyone who glorifies or justifies criminal National Socialism.”
“A commitment to ‘never again’ is not reconcilable with support for the AfD,” said Scholz.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
Workers pack the State Capitol building in Salt Lake City, Utah demanding Governer Cox veto HB 267. Photo: UEA
Utah’s controversial HB 267 seeks to ban collective bargaining for federal workers, drawing fierce opposition from unions and activists.
A controversial bill in the US state of Utah, HB 267, is making its way through the state legislature, sparking intense debate and widespread opposition.
If signed into law, the bill would make it illegal for any federal agency in Utah to recognize labor unions or engage in collective bargaining with their employees. This sweeping measure would impact thousands of workers, including teachers, health care workers, emergency responders, and a variety of other workers employed by federal agencies. Many federal employees rely on unions to fight for fair wages, benefits, and working conditions.
The bill has been met with fierce opposition from labor unions, federal workers, civil rights groups, and grassroots organizations. Many of whom see HB 267 as not just harmful to individual employees, but having far-reaching consequences for the broader labor movement and worker’s rights in Utah.
Despite the opposition, HB 267 passed the House floor on January 26 with a 42-32 vote and narrowly passed the Senate on February 6 with a 16-13 vote. It now awaits a decision from Utah Governor Spencer Cox, who must choose to either sign or veto the bill in the coming days.
Labor movement fights back against HB 267
The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), Utah AFL-CIO, and the Utah Education Association (UEA) have held several rallies at the State Capitol in protest of HB 267. Thousands of workers packed the building after the Senate passed the bill, demanding a veto from the Governor.
Workers carried signs with statements like, “Workers rights are worth the fight!” and “Bust the billionaires, not the unions!”
Michael, a pipefitter with Local 140 who is involved in the growing movement against HB 267 explained:
“I feel like it’s a power grab. I feel like they’re taking away our voice…Teachers, first responders, nurses. Those industries are under huge attacks since COVID. So therefore, you’re taking an industry that’s already been depleted and depleting it even further by taking away their voice.”
The anti-union bill, and the fight against it, reminds labor leaders of a similar anti-union bill in Wisconsin in 2011, called Act 10. That bill sparked an unprecedented worker’s movement that almost culminated into a general strike in Madison.
UEA leads resistance against legislative attacks
In response to the Utah bill passing the House floor, the UEA stated:
“We believe HB 267 represents a dangerous precedent that undermines the principles of democracy and the rights of public employees to organize and advocate for their professions. It is an attack on public educators who dedicate their lives to teaching Utah’s children, ultimately threatening the quality of public education across the state.”
The UEA is the largest teacher’s union in the state. In 2024, they led a broad coalition in a successful fight to shut down Constitutional Amendment A, which would have opened up the use of the income tax fund allocated to public education for other “needs” like private school vouchers.
“The teachers were able to fight hard and [Constitutional Amendment A] got removed from the ballot. It’s clear that the legislature is retaliating against teachers and retaliating against unions,” said Dodge Hovermale, a member of United Campus Workers of Utah Local 7765, speaking with Peoples Dispatch.
