Banging his fist with the smack of firm government, Cameron warned the energy companies yesterday that those who engaged in oil price-fixing will face the “full force of the law”. Oh yeah? They must be quaking in their boots.
Just 4 months ago when there was a huge public outcry at the surge in petrol prices, OFT ruled out a full investigation into petrol price-fixing after it concluded that competition was “working well” and there was “very little evidence” that petrol prices ‘rise like a rocket and fall back like a feather’.
Why should it be different this time? It’s just Cameron once again blurting out a promise he has no intention of keeping, just to get out of a tight corner. Just like the EU referendum bill debacle.
Cameron has made clear he wants the UK to remain in the EU, but that didn’t stop him offering a commitment to a referendum on EU exit which he will then vigorously oppose. The aim was nothing to do with giving the British public a vote, but all to do with holding his fractious party together. When the latter then declined his offer as not enough, he then offered government support to a Private Member’s Bill statutorily committing the next government (which of course cannot be done) to the vote in 2017 – which he will then oppose.
So should we believe his promises? Not a bit of it – just a tactical manoeuvre.
Then he had the gall – where does he get his endless supply from? – to pontificate that “modern-day slavery comes in many forms…we have to look at the rights of those who are affected, and take a criminal approach”. Who would have guessed that, after the previous government had protected domestic slaves imported by wealthy foreigners by giving them the freedom to change jobs, his own government then reversed this and required them to stay with their foreigh ‘owners’ however much they physically or sexually abused them?
Then we’re told by the master of pretence that as chairman of the G7 in July he’s going to crack down hard on corporate tax avoidance. So since nearly half the world’s tax havens are UK-controlled, why doesn’t he close them down? Why is his government now granting to multi-nationals such huge concessions that corporate tax avoidance isn’t even necessary because he’s serving it up to them on a plate? He’s actually cutting corporation tax for big Business with a finance subsidiary in a tax haven from 23% to a miniscule 5.5%!
I ask you, would anyone accept a second-hand promise from this man?
He’s a tory wide boy. The pirate-ised energy companies are run by chums of either his or his etonite colleagues. Ditto any company/corporate. He has far more in common with them than he has with the people of this country, so no, he’ll reward the chaps and shaft the chavs (I’m sure most non-privately educated fall into the latter category for him and the rest of the front bench).
As for the vaunted ‘efficiency’ of the energy privates – imagine I just turned the air blue. I’ve been battling one of them for nearly 4 months now, and the incompetence, unprofessionalism and (I think) downright dishonesty of this saga has been staggering. I would not have believed it possible if I wasn’t experiencing it! Thank heaven I have a full record of their cr*p, because I insisted on confining it to email!