Privatisation - The Bill Arrives

"The privatisation of profits and the nationalisation of losses". That's how cynics see the result of forty years of 'free market reforms'. Whether carried out by Thatcher, Blair, Theresa May or any of the other criminal Prime Ministers of the era, the result is always the same: Gigantic short-term profits for the already mega-rich, with the long-term bill being picked up by millions of ordinary Brits.

The 'reform' of 2018, which opened up our electricity system for greedy spivs posing as energy suppliers is now turning out to be no different to all the rest.

Energy watchdog Ofgem is under fire after it emerged the taxpayer has spent £9.2billion bailing out failed suppliers over the past 18 months. The huge bill follows the collapse of Bulb and 28 other firms.

It has cost an astonishing £2.7billion – or £94 for every UK household – to transfer the customers of 28 collapsed companies to rival firms.

But that sum pales in comparison to the £6.5billion required for Bulb alone, making it the largest state rescue since the Royal Bank of Scotland in 2008. The price being paid for the Bulb debacle is the equivalent of every household in Britain coughing up £230 to prop up the business.

Tory MP Tobias Ellwood yesterday called for a public inquiry into what has happened to the taxpayer cash. He said: ‘I think they should all be called in – Bulb, Ofgem and the other suppliers – to explain what has happened and where the money has gone.

‘Energy suppliers should not just come and go. The structure in place was not robust enough.’

He's got some front, hasn't he? The UK energy market was upended in 2018 following the Tory decision to try to increase competition in the sector. The change saw licences handed out to hundreds of new suppliers.

So this corrupt shambles isn't the result of some act of God, law of nature, or simple accident. It is the inevitable - and widely predicted - result of the Tories turning the natural monopolies of energy, water and similar public services into gambling chips.

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