True to form, as the temperature drops, and more and more people are facing fuel poverty, along come the corporate highway thugs. We in Scotland have seen the first real drop in temperature since last winter and this is met by SSE energy company announcing that it will raise it prices as from November. We can expect to see an 8.2% increase in energy costs this winter. This is a company that last year (2012) announced profits in the region of £1,500 A MINUTE!!! While they are shaking their heads and saying we have to increase prices, the top three parasites in the company are now looking at almost doubling of their salaries. The top blood sucking leech, in this rip-off company will this year stash almost £2 million salary into his already fat bank account. As you see this is just a slight increase from his miserly £1.1million salary for 2012. This, of course, is in keeping with our wage freeze/cuts, proving that we are all in this together. Fat salaries and bonuses, as you and I know, are not a new thing, the corporate world throws them around their little circle of friends, as you and I would pass round the crisps. Recently Ian Marchant stepped down as chief executive of SSE and left with a smile on his face, as his little parting gift was salary and bonuses worth £1 million and a pension pot of £9 million and just in case he found things difficult after leaving, he also got share options worth £4.8 million.
In this greed driven exploitative system of injustice, winter is seen as an opportunity to rip people off. In any decent compassionate society we would see winter as a time to help each other, to see that nobody suffers because of the cold winters. Energy price increases mean increases in avoidable deaths from cold related diseases. This is criminal in a country where fuel poverty is rife and rising. Price increase are not a matter of survival for the big energy companies, there are a desire and policy. The big 6 energy companies have seen their profits rise by 74% since 2009. In the same period prices have risen by 13%. For the first six months of 2013, Centrica, owner of British Gas, saw their operating profits rise by 9% giving them a staggering £1.58 billion.
While our elderly and vulnerable suffer and die in our cold damp winters, we tolerate the leeches feeding of their blood. There is no grounds on which this type of behaviour can be acceptable. Energy is not a commodity, to be sold to those who can afford it, in any decent society, it is a necessity available to all. Don't expect them to change things. If we think this is intolerable and inexcusable behaviour, then we will have to change the system. Remember, the energy companies used to belong to us! It is up to us and us alone.
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