Keep seeing features, TV programs etc. about saving energy to get our household bills down. Not sure I get it..

Given that the shareholders in the energy companies have got accustomed to very high dividends, they will not want to loose them as we all get energy canny. Even if everyone manages to use less energy, the companies will just raise the cost per unit to maintain the divvy to shareholders... Seems like basic sums to me.. we are entering a round of getting ever less energy for our our money and this government is just standing by and letting it happen.

I think they must have other agenda. The fact is, we have been profligate with precious energy. We've been allowed to waste it if we can afford to. This attitude strikes me as morally wrong, especially when so much still comes from non-renewable sources; things certainly had to change.

So here's an idea on the other agenda that might be behind the Government 's 'hands off ' approach with the energy provider's price hikes. If we all cut energy consumption it will ease the urgency to get our national energy production in shape and avoid bringing attention to the fact that our energy infratructure is in critically poor shape. Reducing demand buys the Government time to get their act together. Cutting energy consumption through increased pricing is also a boost to carbon emissions reduction targets.

To my way of thinking, these agendas are fine; we will all benefit from a reduction of our national carbon footprint or fewer nuclear power stations. In a perverse result of free market strategy, higher energy costs help to solve global warming problems. But why should so much of the financial benefit of us paying for what we are not getting, go to the private energy companies? I see this becoming more apparent over the years ahead as the energy company shareholders bay for the same divvy from less and less consumption. Seems to me the less we use the more we'll pay per unit. In the long run there will be no saving to us, just the same profits for less production from the energy companies.

There have always been incentives to reduce enegy consumption and waste.. our annual bills. The tricks for doing so, switching off devices on standby and the rest, have always been there; many of the less well off who have been frugal with energy for a long time know these well. They just can't make any more savings and need real financial help not more 'handy tips' .

It' s just a shame that because we live in a culture where it 's OK to waste if we can afford it, it hasn't been recognised sooner that there are somethings no-one can afford to waste or be allowed to.

That attitude towards household energy is now being confronted..as it has been elsewhere with fuel and food over this last 12 months. In my opionion, about time too, but it is galling that the lessons have come from private companies motivated by huge private profit and not global or individual welfare. Consequently, as usual, the worst hit. are the poorest who don't need such 'lessons', whilst the shareholders who have plenty will not be suffering the cold this winter.