IT’S ironic that the only politician saying anything sane about the looming energy cataclysm is called Brown.
Because it was another Brown who symbolised the insanity of politicians selling our publicly owned energy companies to corporate sharks which set us on the path to financial hardship.
Cedric Brown was the British Gas boss whose salary went up 900% in the decade after privatisation in 1986.
He was the original fatcat, who paid himself 47 times what his average British Gas worker got, and became so despised that headline writers didn’t want to offend felines, so nicknamed him Cedric the Pig.
The Pig was allowed to gorge himself on profits thanks to Thatcher and her ad-men conning people into believing (through campaigns like ‘Tell Sid’) that if everyone bought a stake in our gas industry it would bring wealth for all.
Cue millions of brainwashed Judases scooping shares, then swiftly flogging them to big investors for a few hundred quid.
Gas was the nation’s first great family silver sale, followed by water, electricity, railways and the Post Office. But far from heralding the dawn of a “share-holding democracy” it delivered nationalised industries into the hands of, mainly foreign, investment funds, allowing them to grow obscenely wealthy. It was a stitch-up between the Tories and big business, which saw their chums get richer, life’s basics become dearer, and taxpayers lose the national assets previous generations had built and nurtured.
And it landed us where we are today with some of the worst vulture capitalists from across the globe running our essential services as speculative hedge funds, awarding themselves billions in dividends.
Thatcherites fantasised that privatisation would liberate Britain from the shackles of state-run interference, slash prices, increase investment and make rich shareholders of us all.
So how rich do you feel looking at energy demands for £5,000-plus a year? How liberating is it to see your government in bed with these parasites, offering you only pitiful lip service?
You will be told the deaths that will result this winter from people switching off their heating are on Vladimir Putin for upsetting world markets with his war.
But they are also on Thatcher and her heirs who, driven by greed and dogma, willingly allowed British energy to end up in the hands of predators, encouraging them to treat our gas and electricity as huge cash cows, and laugh at the toothless regulators who were supposed to curb their greed.
Tories who define “taking back control” as an essential patriotic act, ceded control of our most precious assets to foreign capitalists and governments, leaving us powerless to stop their profiteering. Which leads to a few questions...
Why are Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss being judged by Tories on the basis of who is most likely to carry Thatcher’s inspirational flame? Why aren’t interviewers pointing out during these TV debates that her free-market fanaticism landed us with this financial catastrophe?
Why aren’t they being quizzed on how the underlying cause of this crisis is every government that followed Thatcher’s (including Tony Blair’s) being in thrall to a bankrupt ideology that benefits only the rich. Why isn’t the Labour leadership shouting that from the rooftops?
And, with no answers forthcoming, how soon before we take to the streets demanding legal action to reclaim what is ours?
If you know the answers, tell Sid.
