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Following the lifting of Covid restrictions and Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, gas and electricity bills inevitably skyrocketed.
But from the comfort of opposition, Sir Keir Starmer sought to reassure Britain that if he were prime minister, things would be very different. “Labour has a fully-costed plan to freeze energy bills,” he intoned, “which means people won’t pay a penny more.”
We can now file this away with all their other broken promises. Energy regulator Ofgem announced yesterday that the price cap will rise in October by 10 per cent.
This will be painful for many families, but millions of pensioners, who were stripped of their winter fuel payments by Rachel Reeves, will have to find an extra £500 to heat their homes this winter. Some will be forced to choose between heating and food.
What makes this all the more galling is the fact that, whilst pleading poverty, the Chancellor of the Exchequer has found billions to reward Labour’s trade union donors with generous public sector pay rises.
Energy Secretary Ed Miliband (pictured) blames Tory “failed energy policies” for price cap hike
Unsurprisingly, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband blames the Tories’ “failed energy policies” for the price cap hike, but his reckless and unfathomably expensive pledge to fully decarbonise the electricity grid by 2030 is likely to make things much worse.
If we rely on unreliable renewable energy and imported oil and gas, we will be vulnerable to skyrocketing prices.
Their claims that Net Zero fanaticism will cut our bills may turn out to be total fantasy, leaving us all colder and poorer.
Freedom of expression in danger
Britain has always prided itself on the Enlightenment ideal of free speech.
It is therefore deeply worrying that the Labour Party, which has been in power for just seven weeks, is already turning its guns on free speech.
One of his first moves was to scrap a new law to crack down on cancel culture at universities, which would have prevented students and academics from being harassed and even fired for expressing views that challenged leftist orthodoxies.
There are now fears that ministers will use the recent unrest as an excuse to introduce an “Islamophobia” law and strengthen the Internet Safety Act – two measures that could prevent people from protesting.
The Left has always been shamefully lax about eliminating legitimate viewpoints it deems inconvenient or a political threat.
Boris Johnson writes today that Britain has rightly “wagging its finger at regimes that suppress free speech”.
With Labour’s enthusiasm for progressive censorship, the danger of becoming such a regime has never been more acute.
Boris Johnson writes today that Britain has rightly “wagging its finger at regimes that suppress free speech”
A lesson despite everything
Once again, the excellence of Britain’s independent schools shone through in this week’s GCSE results.
Which makes it all the more absurd that the Labour Party wants to make private education more expensive and accessible, not less. But when it comes to class struggle, there is no room for logic.
By imposing VAT on them, the Government will push prices out of the reach of many ordinary families, forcing countless children into the already overstretched state system, where the evidence suggests they will fare worse.
Meanwhile, private schools will become the preserve of the super-rich, exacerbating the problem Labour claims to be tackling.
Rather than attacking them, should ministers not be reflecting on why independent schools are so attractive to parents and how to level up the state sector so that millions of young people can benefit?
