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Like many European nations the government are planning to launch a public information campaign to encourage people to use less energy. This seems like a sensible move, as the less energy everyone uses, the lower our bills and the price of energy will decrease. There will be less likelihood for power cuts in the winter and it reduces some of the leverage that Putin has over the west. I'm sure there are lots of things that we could be doing more for the common good that a little gentle reminding would help us out with.
edit - never mind, Liz Truss has scrapped it for ideological reasons.
They don't want to advise people to use less energy because "we're not a nanny state"
What a baffling stance to take.
I think a campaign on sensible ways to cut energy usage would be a good thing that they should do. But you absolutely know how it would have been spun by her opponents - as the govt discouraging people from heating their homes / pressuring the elderly into not using energy etc etc etc. Any elderly deaths would have been pinned back to that campaign. Thats how toxic the political climate is. They are damned if they do and damned if they don't. Someone will be wheeled out to say "the govt told me to use less energy and now I have damp walls", "The govt told me to ration energy and now my kids are in cold rooms" etc etc etc.
Charities etc are probably best placed to do this, and the vast majority of people will know that this is the winter to reduce energy use.
We are already seeing it with how people are spending their money.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ts-winter.html
Like I said, I think we should be encouraging people to use less energy, but I think you will find that will happen organically without a formal government campaign
Fair play to this Government, it's very transparent. At least everyone can see it will remain utterly loyal to its friends to the end.
I'd bet my energy bill that if the govt had done this, you'd have been on here saying:
"Ha! typical of this bloody government. Won't go after their mates in the energy industry and put a windfall tax on them, but will ask Old Mrs Jones and desperate families to use less heating. Absolute scum!"
Or words to that effect..
Polling has suggested that something like 25-40% of people think their bill is capped at £2500. Less incentive to organically reduce your bills if you don't think you are footing the bill. The cause of this is the bungled messaging around the cap from the government, they were more concerned with making the support package sound as good as possible than actually making sure people understand what the energy bill support does and how it works.
As for your first paragraph, if you mean the opposition wouldn't have supported the message then you are definitely wrong.
This is about taxpayers money going directly to energy companies. Every unit used unnecessarily will cost the future taxpayer. I think this is too important to just hope charities pick it up.
Why is that not a valid point?
The government spreading awareness of how to reduce energy costs shouldn't be rewarded with a "give them a clap, they've solved the problem". Regardless of the government advising people on energy usage or not, some people will voluntarily go cold or hungry or both this winter. Others won't have the choice.
Running an ad campaign shouldn't absolve them of criticism.
£2500 is not exactly a free gift is it? I was paying a third of this a year ago.
I'll be honest, i and my family were one of those idiots who had heating constantly on from september until april. Oven was blasting cooking food every evening, lights on all over the house, washing machine and dishwasher constantly on. However past few years we already started paying attention a bit more, the kids have taken it on board and our eating habits altered over the covid period also to shop wiser and prepare better. We had the loft re insulated over the summer and already notice the difference as the heating is hardly on yet.
I'm still expecting our costs to go up just because of the rates and what it is but we are trying and i think a lot more people are of the same mindset. Surely this will bring down the environmental impact we are all making?
With food prices going up, fuel, and now the energy most people simply have no choice but to cut back and actually seriously watch what they are doing and pay more attention.
Good man. I think as a society we need to ween ourself off the idea that "energy is free" a bit, at least for a few years. Better for the environment, personal and national finances, even national security.
Turning the heating off and putting a jumper on is in most cases just the right thing to do, in much the same way that in the 90s it was the right thing to do to recycle newspapers and in the 2010s, it was the right thing to do to separate our household waste up etc.
Telling the kids to stop gaming so much is another task mind..
For any gamers: as of the 5th September prices, leaving an Xbox Series X on “standby”, its default switched off mode, will cost you £132 a year. Dip into settings and toggle it over to “energy saver” (By contrast, the PS5’s default costs around £4).
Source: Metro Entertainment