Thread by @TheCosmosUK1

1/ Thread:
@UKLabour's dire response to the energy crisis and the false premise on which it is based...
#energybills #EnergyPrices

2/Incompetent messaging:
Announcing their policy drive, Labour confirmed that they weren't yet "on it", while criticising the gov. for not already doing more. politicshome.com/news/article/l… #energybills #EnergyCrisis #EnoughIsEnough

3/ Redundant economics:
Labour's "plan" is to double down on the trickle-down economics that led us into this mess, offsetting the cost of their plan to end the overcharging of people on pre-pay meters by giving the already profit-swollen companies even more cash. #EnoughIsEnough

4/ Rewarding bad practice:
Part of the issue is essentially "price fixing" by the big 6, so this feels like a reward for bad practice rather than any kind of meaningful fix. Worse, it's based on the false Thatcherite notion that there's "no alternative" to this broken model.

5/ Avoiding renationalisation
Renationalisation is - far from being too expensive - actually very cost effective and would, deliver big savings to ordinary people. This has been explained by many sources & is clearly expressed in the pictured report from 2016:
#EnoughIsEnough

6/ Affordability and efficiency:
"There is a widespread beliefthat the private suppliers take excessive profits out of the system through the payment of dividends
to shareholders and interest payments to creditors, by charging higher prices than necessary"

7/ Lower cost of capital:
"A report by Corporate Watch in 2015
calculated that the annual savings from bringing the energy, water & rail sectors into public ownership
could be £6.5 billion – equivalent to £248 each year for every household in the UK" #EnoughIsEnough #energybills

8/ Lower prices from natural monopolies:
"Publicly owned companies need not maximise profits, and so the incentive to over-charge and
confuse customers is removed... Public ownership of such networks removes the commercial incentive to abuse such monopolies."

9/ Democratisation:
"The simple advantage of public ownership of the energy system is that it enables democratic control
and public planning of a system providing an extremely important public good." #EnoughIsEnough #EnergyCrisis #energybills

10/10 Conclusion:
The economics of renationalising the utilities are all positive & shld incentivise politicians to do it. By contrast, there's no good argument for @labour's new policy of rewarding failure to divert attention from the real solutions to the #EnergyCrisis.