Darling (pounding table): "Now look here - you're all rolling in cash and we are broke. So you are going to give us piles of cash?"
Oil companies: "No we're not."
Darling (muttering): "Windfall tax...."
Oil companies: "Just you try - and we feck off to Ireland."
Darling (meekly): Biscuit, anyone?
Courtesy of Marquee Mark in a comment.
22 comments:
And the Tory policy to help those facing fuel poverty is...silence.
What Darling should have said is 'Cough up or we'll make it illegal (i.e. a crime) for you to cut people off this winter for unpaid bills. See how that affects your bottom line. We''ll change the law this autumn if you think we're bullshitting you.'
Labour now lacks the ruthlessness of Messrs Blair and Campbell. Its not presentation or a lack of ideas. Its no balls.
Iain,
I work for Shell. We've already 'fecked off' to the Netherlands.
Your imagined dialogue is funny because it's true.
Labour has an utterly incoherent energy policy. This is exacerbated by, frankly, rank ignorance in much of the media and certainly the trade unions on how a big multinational oil company works.
There is close to zero correlation between pump prices in the UK and quarterly profits from global operations (which come predominantly from the upstream not retail).
If, say, Exxon invests billions into offshore platforms in the Gulf of Mexico and then generates large profits that has really nothing to do with the razor thin profit margins they make in selling petrol on UK forecourts (the price of which is mostly tax anyway).
But as sure as the sun rising in the east Tony Woodley will be condemning 'obscene profits' and demanding a tax gouge.
Big oil makes big profits because, well, we're big. No shit sherlock. We invest huge amounts of capital to generate the profits. In terms of dollar of profit per dollar invested we're much more pedestrian. If you split BO into a thousand parts they would collectively invest the same and return the same profits in total - but no-one would decry the profits each bit made as they would only declare an amount equal to 'obscene / 1000'.
Makes me wonder if lefties would actually just prefer we shut down the economy and become crofters.
The only way to push down consumer prices is to promote competition on an open market and punish monopolistic abuse severely.
Believe me - fuel retailing in the UK is a cut-throat and fiercely competitive business. The only room for meaningful price cuts lies in Treasury hands.
Maybe Britain PLC should be run as a not for profit organisation?!
I vote for a windfall tax on all the labour MP's who so deperately want to penalise companies who let's not forget already pay corporation tax and who pay dividends into the pension funds that hold a large chunk of shares.
Do those labour MP's really need all the money they earn or is it a windfall for the few years they get to put their noses in the trough?!
Let's face it your average Labour MP is never likely to see that kind of salary from a private sector employer.
labourparty
There's no such thing as 'fuel poverty'. There is however a very real thing called 'poverty'.
If you struggle to afford fuel then you also struggle to afford food, rent, clthes and all the things needed for a decent quality of life - fuel is no different.
The way to avoid 'fuel poverty' is not state handouts for energy bills given with the left hand while the right hand taxes even the poorest in our society.
A moral and decent government would simply stop taxing the lowest earners in our society in the first place. Gordon and his 10p tax band show us all exactly where he stands on that issue.
The Tories don't need a policy yet. Your bed, you lie in it.
If you've hoping to get your house insulated by the government for this winter I should forget it.
We applied for a Warm Front(a government funded initiative) grant in March, we were told we qualified, but are still waiting for the surveyor to come.
I wonder just how much freedom of action Darling really has ?
One Conservative Policy already announced would be for the 4 million people who cant get a normal bank account but use the Post Office account to be able to pay their bills by direct debit thus qualifying for DD disocunt - saving about £100 per account holder.
Not only would this save 4 million people money but also generate extra business for the Post Offices thus helping to generate more income for them and hopefully help in some way in stopping the closure programmes.
Unlike the Government proposal that would have chucked cash and everyone the Conservative proposal would be aimed at those who are unable to access normal banking systems due to their poverty or finanical circumstances.
@3.25: Er, why give this clueless Government any (more) ideas to steal? Let's leave it to the 'best politician of his generation' Brown and his assorted wunderkind to sort out - aren't they 'getting on with the job', after all, and this surely falls in the equality for all, social justice remit that they keep trumpeting about . . . Doubtless your chums the union barons have plenty of ideas too - to return the country to a late 1970s economy.
Of course the real answer here is to cut taxes. If that means cutting public spending, so be it.
Just what has the billions taken from us actually achieved? The NHS is a disgrace, NHS dental services are crap and our education system is a joke. WE hand out billions to bone idle gits on council estates who spend all day drinking and breeding.
If that stupid jock Broon and the halfwit called Darling had any sense they'd slash public spending and cut taxes, in particular fuel tax and as others have pointed out raise the rate at which people start paying tax which would benefit all low paid workers.
The problem with Broon is he is obsessed with handouts, probably so he can target those most likely to vote Liebour (although even in Scotland they told him to sod off)
All these family tax credts and child benefits miss out millions of low paid single people who get jack shit off the state. Hence the mess over the abolition of the 10p tax rate. Broon totally forgot about the 5 million low paid single people who don't get handouts.
Lefty twats, what exactly do you mean by "Fuel poverty"?
I know a woman who lives in a house which is worth about £4 million and costs something like £7,500 per year to heat with oil.
She "earns" about £20,000 per year interest from her savings. Therefore, she is in fuel poverty.
Where can I tell her to apply for these winter fuel payments, twats?
Anonymous said...
If you've hoping to get your house insulated by the government for this winter I should forget it.
We applied for a Warm Front(a government funded initiative) grant in March, we were told we qualified, but are still waiting for the surveyor to come.
September 05, 2008 3:45 PM
Its easily available in Scortland though.
Now aint that a surprise !
The Treasury has benefited from the rise in oil prices to the tune of £6Bn. Why not use that money?
labourparty 3.25
Whatever the Tories, the Liberals, the BNP, the Workers Party, the Greens, UKIP, et al have as a policy to help people with energy bills is negated by Government finances. There is no more money - we're broke, flat broke.
But, of course, that's Thatcher's fault, isn't it!
One way to get money to pensioners. Reduce higher rate tax relief on pension contributions and stop paying rebates to people who opt out of the Second State Pension. Saving to HMG - from what I understand, around £10bn.
Use that money to raise the basic state pension by a considerable margin. According to Roz Altman, approximately £150 per week as a state pension.
If someone in the cabinet had a brain, maybe things wouldn't be quite as bad as they are right now.
And the Tory policy to help those facing fuel poverty is...silence.
the last i heard it was a fuel stabiliser that would cut duty when prices rose. And if Patrick is to be believed - and I know nothing about big oil so i don't see why he's not - then duty is the main problem facing people.
But as william says, they don't need a policy. Not till you lot have disintegrated. The way things are going they could take the next election without stating any policies at all. Look at the polls. Labour is facing a rout. And you deserve it. Every bit.
Re labourparty 3.25pm
TheLabour Party are so desperate for someone to come up with what to do that it appears that they're now resorting to asking people on political blogs for advice.
If you want to know the Conservative policy than call an election and let the voters decide who they most trust to get the country out of the present mess that 11 years of Brown's ineptitude has brought this country and its people to
I have to agree with Patrick on this. I don't think the general public realise just how much of BP and Shell have now left the UK.
BP have to be close to relocating to the US, where most of their business is.
The electricity generating industry is now mostly foreign owned and shortly we will be reliant on foreign gas imports with negligible storage capacity of our own, unlike the French and Germans who have up to 3 months storage ( hence they can buy at the good prices ).
This pathetic government has nearly no influence left over them - and the EU will overrule Brown is he does anything.
Shell are legally located in the Netherlands, and can move the remaining business quite easily.
The energy crisis was entirely foreseeable, and the Labour government having been in office for ten years is culpable.
If they had any honour they would resign and let some one with talent run the country.
a dialogue like that is to be heard every time a regulatory agency turns up at a company's HQ
Environment Agency: - we'd really rather you stopped polluting that river
Large Industrial Dinosaur - *coughs* - 2,000 jobs, ahem ...
EA: oh, I see, sorry I spoke
Dino: have a biscuit - just the one, mind
We can fantasize about how the energy companies might stitch up our inept and incompetent government, and what tactics a power struggle might entail.
For a start, how about all energy bills boldly stating Tax as a separate line item: '60 litres of unleaded @115p/litre: Fuel £28.51 + Tax £40.49 = Total £69.00'
A windfall tax could be passed directly on to the consumers with letters making clear that the rise is due entirely to the new tax: 'Due to an increase in taxation announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, we regret that gas prices will rise by 4.7% from...' Like in pubs after the budget. That'll be a vote winner.
Using a modern CRM system, it would be easy enough to target letters to specific areas of country, such as vulnerable Labour seats. The price rise could even be precisely targeted: 'As your home is located in a constituency that elected a Labour MP, we hold you responsible for a rise in our costs...' bringing a whole new meaning to postcode lottery!
What is the legality of large companies applying their retail muscle directly to politics like this? It might need to be dressed up a bit. Maybe only the utilities in Northern regions would put up their prices. (After all, petrol prices already vary around the country, although I’ve always assumed this was to reflect the much greater prosperity of the Conservative-ruled South.)
Power cuts (which will become inevitable if we don’t invest soon in some new generating capacity) could be timed to target particular demographics: start of soap operas, football matches, party political broadcasts, Newsnight, Andrew Marr.
Making it 'illegal (i.e. a crime) to cut people off this winter for unpaid bills' would be a particularly stupid move (not to mention illegal) that would completely undermine the confidence of any business to trade in the UK ever again. If it can be applied to fuel, why not also food and other products. If a company can't collect payment for its goods, there's no point in delivering them. Instead, they'd sell the oil to the Chinese, who I'm sure always pay promptly and in dollars. In the UK, we'd forever more pay a premium price to reflect the bad debt risk.
'We'll feck off to Ireland' would be the least thing, if there’s any energy companies left still domiciled in the UK.
'We'll feck off to Ireland taking our bloody oil with us' would leave the government (not to mention the entire UK) in an impossibly deep pit. Riots on the streets within days that would be impossible to suppress once the police and army's fuel reserves had run out (assuming they remain loyal, which is a rather big assumption).
Of course, this is all just entertaining fantasy. Energy companies are simply interested in doing profitable long-term business wherever they can. So they'll do their sums, trade at a profit passing on the costs, and if the UK is not an attractive place to invest, they'll move on to somewhere they like better. Rather as they're already doing. There is very little that is more global than oil and gas. It doesn't have to come here, nor at prices we like.
Darling really has very little freedom of action, other lowering than the taxes he charges.
labourparty
If you want the Tories to make any policy public dissolve parliament and all will be revealed.
until then clear up your own canine excrement.
Along the same lines, those June Saudi talks in full:
Salaam alykum, Mr Broon. Inshallah we shall have a productive meeting, but before we kick off, perhaps you could clarify a few points for us.
1. Are you aware that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has exactly one export and no other means at all of generating cash of any kind?
2. Are you aware that when it comes to creating jobs, the oil industry is total pants on the basis of jobs per billion capex, and that we need this money to create industries our people can work in?
3. Are you aware that, while the price of a barrel of our crude oil is about $125, the tax you add to it at the consumption end triples this cost?
4. If so, why exactly do you think our meagre piece of the action is a bit rich?
5. You want us to pump more oil. At these prices, what makes you think we aren't busting our nuts to do just that?
6. If you think oil supply is a problem, why did you as Chancellor persistently increase the taxes on North Sea E & P to make it less attractive to produce in your own back yard?
7. You are supposedly also concerned about the environment. Leaving aside the question about why the current oil price isn't therefore causing your inner environmentalist to whoop with joy and punch the air, how come you keep introducing or supporting laws (retrospective VED, congestion charging) that will - even if successful - result in the manufacture of more, albeit supposedly "greener", cars?
8. You want us to lower the price of oil and thus reduce our national revenues. We are then to spend that money in your country - on funding competitors to ourselves! We're probably being thick and we missed something. Could you, um, just run that one by us again?
9. Do you ever get the impression, as we do, Mr Broon, that if you were running a barber's shop people's hair would stop growing?
And finally....
10. Who told you our country was called "Soddy" Arabia?
(props to http://boards.fool.co.uk/Message.asp?mid=11109247&sort=whole)
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