Energy

‘Iraq turmoil sends crude oil prices to nine-month high’ is the sort of headline that used to send shivers down economists’ spines, especially if it appeared on the same page as ‘Europe faces gas shortage as Russia cuts Ukraine supply’. How worried should we be at the current turn of events in the energy world? Since Iraq’s new insurgency kicked off, the price of a barrel of Brent Crude has blipped from $105 to $115 — nothing to panic about — but the more pessimistic analysts are talking of a further $30 rise if Iraqi oil flows of 3.6 million barrels a day (representing about 4 per cent of global

In a healthy, competitive market, prices go down when costs go down. Not in the energy market. As Ofgem announced this week, the wholesale cost of gas and electricity has dropped by more than a third since this time last year, but our bills have increased. Wholesale power is the cheapest it’s been since 2010, so why haven’t the savings been passed onto consumers? The energy industry usually blames price rises on increasing wholesale costs, so the announcement those costs are going down is tricky for them. This week Energy UK, the Big Six trade body, said: ‘Wholesale energy is just one of a number of costs outside of an

Here’s something that you won’t read often in The Spectator: Ed Miliband is right. Britain’s energy market is broken, and a small number of big companies have the upper hand against consumers. But the solution, of course, isn’t state intervention – it’s more competition. That’s why The Spectator is making its own foray into the market. Under new rules put in place by Ofgem, energy companies are being told to simplify their tariffs. But you can also get a special rate negotiated by a collective of consumers, and our plan is to get enough Spectator readers (and anyone else who wants a good deal) together and then negotiate – something

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_3_April_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Matt Ridley and Fraser Nelson discuss the IPCC’s latest report” startat=67] Listen [/audioplayer]Advocates against global warming often frame the issue in terms of helping the poor. ‘You’re right, people dying thanks to climate change is some way off…’ ran one fairly typical advert recently, ‘about 5,000 miles, give or take.’ Indeed, the United Nations agrees that, looking toward the future, climate change ‘harms the poor first and worst’. And the logic stacks up: the poorer you are, the less able you’ll be to afford the resources to adapt to a changing climate. However, climate policies also have a cost, and these predominantly hurt the poor. And if you

I believe in free markets, but there are some markets that don’t work properly.  Where competition has not prevailed in favour of the consumer. Where customers are too weak, companies too strong and choice too constrained. One such market is energy.  Just six companies control 98% of household gas and electricity supply.  British Gas accounts for over 70% of all gas customers. In energy the regional monopolies that existed before privatisation largely continue to this day.  If you’re reading this and live in London I’d be willing to bet that for three out of four of you EDF is your electricity provider.  If you’re in Cardiff I bet it’s SSE. And

‘He was back after less than two years’ pilgrimage in a Holy Land of illusion in the old ambiguous world, where priests were spies and gallant friends proved traitors and his country was led blundering into dishonour.’ Those words are taken from Officers and Gentlemen, the second volume in Evelyn Waugh’s Sword of Honour, his trilogy about the second world war. The words describe the disillusion of the protagonist, Guy Crouchback, as Britain sides with Soviet Russia to defeat Hitler: an alliance with an atheist tyranny to defeat an atheist tyranny, an alliance that led to the betrayal – perhaps necessary – of Eastern Europe at Yalta. The words resonate

Last October, in these very pages, I wrote with what is now annoying prescience, ‘Like almost everyone else in the insane world of musical theatre, I don’t know how to create a hit.’ I am now facing up to the grim fact that my latest effort, From Here to Eternity, is folding after a six-month run at the Shaftesbury Theatre. The publicity has vastly exceeded the interest in the show when it opened last September. Never have the words of Bob Dylan seemed so relevant to me: ‘There’s no success like failure, and failure’s no success at all.’ The enthusiasm of the media to report gleefully on Eternity biting the