A BITTER WINTER IS FORECAST

I’ve just read in the Daily Telegraph that long range weather forecasters are expecting a very cold winter with temperatures falling as low as -20C.

At the same time Ofgem is predicting that energy prices may rise by as much as 13% during the winter.

So if you put these two things together it looks like this winter will see many poor families and of course older people in real difficulties. The reduction in services forecast by many after the announcement by the Finance Secretary on the 20th of this month will also mean that pensioners will have a harder time coping. It is also a possibility that, despite a categorical denial prior to the election, winter fuel payments, or their scope, may be reduced.

It makes me sad, and ashamed to live in a country where on average somewhere between 2500 and 3000 old people die of cold related illness every winter, with a higher proportion being in Scotland due to the longer and colder winter.

Why can’t the British government do what the French government does and limit the increase in fuel prices to the inflation rate? That would at least put people’s minds at rest a little.

Private companies are only in the supply of energy business for one reason... and that is to make a profit. If they do it on the backs of pensioners, or poor people, who have to choose between eating and heating, so be it. Shareholders still expect their dividend and directors need their bonuses. Governments have to step in and make sure that their people don’t die of cold. We expect no less of them. Labour didn’t. Perhaps the Tories will

The article linked here gives some very obvious advice about getting boilers checked and insulating homes, so it may be worth a read if you can afford the expense involved in the suggestions.

Let’s hope that the weather forecasters and Ofgem are wrong... and that the government has the decency to look after the poor.