BRITISH capitalism in the 21st century cannot guarantee even the most basic pre-requisites for life if you are not wealthy.
This is the stark message delivered over the weekend by an energy industry insider who spelt out that communities in the near future could be split between those who can afford to keep the lights and heating on and those who cannot.
In an interview with the Telegraph newspaper Andrew Wright, a senior partner with the energy watchdog Ofgem, warned that so deep is the energy crisis that: ‘In future, not everyone will be able to use as much electricity as they want and there will be a need to rewrite the rules.’
Wright went on: ‘We are currently all paying broadly the same price but we could be moving away from that and there will be some new features in the market which may see some choose to pay for a higher level of reliability. One household may be sitting with their lights on, charging their Tesla electric car, while someone else will be sitting in the dark.’
In the past, before the country’s energy production and supply was flogged off to private companies in the Thatcherite privatisation orgy, peak energy use during cold weather was planned and a supply margin was built in by central planners.
Now that the private energy companies run the show this type of forward planning has gone out the window and the industry limps on from day to day, starved of investment by companies whose bottom line is always to maximise profits for the shareholders.
The ‘Big Six’ energy companies supply over 95% of all UK households with gas and electricity and they are answerable to no-one but their shareholders. All these companies are reaping vast profits while gas and electricity prices go through the roof.
The real extent of ‘fuel poverty’ amongst even those in work was highlighted by a survey conducted in November which found that one in three working families struggle to pay their energy bills and stop heating even in the coldest weather.
Private manufacturing industry also wants to get in on the act of making money out of the energy crisis. A lobby group for the manufacturers is demanding that the Tories solve the crisis of supply by paying big manufacturers to close down factories to save electricity.
This would be a lifeline for the bosses whose factories are facing closure anyway as the whole of UK manufacturing is on the point of bankruptcy as a result of capitalism’s crisis. The real cause of the energy crisis was pinpointed by Wright when he said: ‘We now have much less flexibility with the loss of fossil fuel capacity. Coal has been important, but this is disappearing.’
The coal industry didn’t just disappear; it was deliberately and systematically destroyed by the Tories under Thatcher as a central part of the campaign to smash the organised working class by taking on and trying to destroy the most powerful union in the country, the NUM.
The sure-fire way of resolving the country’s energy supply crisis and ensuring that no child or elderly person dies of hyperthermia in 21st century Britain would be to re-open coal fired power stations. But this would mean re-opening coal mines closed down by Thatcher and with them grow the power of the working class through a revitalised NUM. This the Tories will never do.
The NUM fought Thatcher to a standstill in the 1980s, the only thing that saved her was the treachery of the TUC leaders who refused to support the miners and instead worked with Thatcher to prevent their victory and so kept the Tories in power to carry out the wholesale pit closures that have caused the present crisis. They dare not risk another confrontation.
What is clear is that the only solution for workers to this crisis is through the complete re-nationalisation, without compensation, of gas, electricity and every other industry pillaged by the privateers. This requires demanding the TUC call a general strike to kick out the Tories and go forward to a workers government and a planned socialist economy.
