Gary Gibbon
Ed Miliband’s new, vote-winning energy idea – the freezing of energy bills for two years – is not that new, Gary Gibbon finds – and the Tories don’t think it will be a significant vote winner either.
Gary Gibbon
Do we know what last year’s “predistribution” buzzword means now? Ed Miliband’s new policies appear to show he is more pro-intervention than Blair or Brown. And In the hall, they loved it.
Are we at the dawn of a new energy age – with conflict-free natural gas beneath out feet? Getting gas out of a stone isn’t going to be easy, let alone provide a solution to Britain’s energy needs.
Siobhan Kennedy
For all the talk about infrastructure spending, the numbers show it is actually falling. So no wonder the chancellor wants some good news – and the shale gas survey has delivered.
David Cameron keeps on saying the government will, by law, force energy companies to put customers on the lowest tariffs. Doesn’t appear in any bills FactCheck can find.
I know that comparisons to the The Thick of It are wearing a bit thin these days but the latest row over comments by Energy Minister John Hayes is beyond DoSac.
Not so much an omnishambles as a combishambles – as twitter has dubbed it. David Cameron’s energy bills announcement has been unravelling now for over 24 hours.
Gary Gibbon
David Cameron says he will legislate so energy companies offer customers their lowest tariff. But is he just following Ed Miliband’s lead. And in any case, is it practical?
And of course, it isn’t all doom and gloom for Centrica when wholesale prices go up, because the giant doesn’t just buy gas and electricity at source. It produces it and sells it wholesale too.
Blaming wholesale prices for energy price rises has become indefensible. Faisal Islam blogs on how today’s announcement by SSE suggests that the companies now get this.
“Mr Huhne said the average consumer would be ‘better off’ by the end of the decade…that’s a claim that immediately set alarm bells ringing at FactCheck Towers.
Faisal Islam unpicks the peculiar government response to inflates energy bills.
The Claim “We will scrap Labour’s target of [getting] 1.6% [of the UK’s electricity from decentralised sources] by 2020 and significantly raise the level of ambition for decentralised energy in the UK by 2020 and beyond.” Conservative party policy document, seen by Channel 4 News FactCheck Cathy Newman checks it out “Decentralised” energy is the…
Jon Snow
Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy put aside old rivalries to set out a joint vision for a stronger economic future, blogs Jon Snow for Channel 4 News.