Electricity and gas prices are set to rise by 60% while road fuel is at record levels. Gordon Brown, our "prudent "prime minister scurries round Arab countries asking them to cut oil prices and blames world conditions.
This fuel crisis could and should have been forseen, and our troubles have been caused by the short sighted policies of both Labour and Tory administrations with added vindictiveness by the latter.
When Noth Sea oil and gas was discovered it caused the pound to rise to such an extent that our industry could not compete abroad causing us to lose much of our manufacturing base.
After Thatcher beat the miners the Tories put the boot in them saying they would not be held to ransom again. They did this by building gas power stations run on North Sea gas. Unfortunately in a particularly vindictive move they shut many profitable mines and others which although they did not pay at the time held vast reserves of coal, and which could have been mothballed until the price of coal went up as it has done now.
Labour, supposedly the party of the miners shut most of the other pits including the giant Selby complex, only opened 20 years previously and locally the Bickershaw/Golborne compex. To be politically correct and in order "to cut carbon emissions" they said that gas was the thing for the future.
Why were these pits not mothballed? Hundred of millions of tons have been steriised by subsequent developement and we are now dependant on countries such as Russia for much of our coal.
At the same time they sold gas and oil cheaply to Europe which helped plug the balance of payments deficit resulting from the demise of our manufacturing industry and increasing imports.
They could not see that this was a wasting asset and would run out at a time when global prices were rising.
Meanwhile a false sense of prosperity was created on the back of cheap credit and Chinese imports and the increased government revenues squandered.
Now the chancellor has no savings to cushion the blow that they in part have created and we are dependent on Russia for much of our gas and coal.
How very secure. They don't need to attack us, just turn off the tap. Even during the war we could guarantee power and gas from our own resources.
Governments Tory and Labour should have seen this coming years ago and refrained from selling our gas and oil at knock down prices and saved it for times of shortage. Similarly they should not have sterilised our coal.
If the treasury had saved rather than wasted our taxes when times were good they would have been able to reduce them now times are hard.
Is it incompetence or greed for power or both? I think both.
Gordon Brown as a "son of the manse" should have remembered his Bible.
The seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine in Egypt and also the parable of the prodigal son.
Only this time there is no happy ending as we have no fatted calf--we ate it last year.
The other parties were happy to govern for the short term even if that meant destroying our assets, AND NOW WE ARE PAYING THE PRICE.
THE BNP WOULD ALWAYS THINK OF THE LONG TERM IN PRESERVING OUR NATURAL RESOURCES AND JOBS FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS.
