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Friday, 23 August 2024

It's almost impressive.



Pensioner, 90, says he will have to shower once a week as government withdraws fuel payment and energy bills go up

Energy Secretary Ed Miliband admitted the rise in the cap was "deeply worrying" but defended the cuts to winter fuel payments.

He said: "The truth is that the mess that was left to us in the public finances is what necessitated that decision around winter fuel payment and us focusing it on those who need it the very most."



Political bungling on this scale has a certain solidity about it, an impenetrable block of wooden ineptitude which defies probing analysis because the incompetence is all there on the surface.

But there's more - Ed Miliband says "The truth is..." then effectively says "the Tories made us do it." It's not so much the issue itself, but the apparent inability to see this coming, the scale of political incompetence.

It's almost impressive.

8 comments:

Sam Vega said...

Very good, Mr. Miliband, but I suspect that excuse involving the Tories will be difficult to maintain. And as for the difficulties involved in providing cheap clean energy from a start-up nationalised industry, well, we ain't seen nothin' yet.

dearieme said...

"decision around winter fuel payment": no, you idiot, decision ON not "around".

"and us focusing it": no; a verbal noun takes the possessive, so 'our focusing it'.
Wokeypedia says this twerp got an A in A-level English. Did he send a ringer?

"on those who need it the very most": the VERY most? Are we at primary school now?

This oik went to Oxford, you know. Much good it did him.

Doonhamer said...

Somebody gotta pay for hundreds, thousands?, of windmills, millions of magic glass panels and thousands of miles of copper thick enough to carry the rare peak output of of the first two on a scorching, windy, but not too windy, mind, cloud free, mid summer day but for ninety nine percent of the time will just be trickling a few amps barely enough to keep them warm enough to keep them I've free.
And complete replacement every ten or 15 years. And the cost of removing the embarassing , endangered bird carcasses.

A K Haart said...

Sam - "well, we ain't seen nothin' yet."
I wonder what the betting is on the odds of never seeing nothin'?

dearieme - "Did he send a ringer?" He has a brother so who knows? He's a puzzle, but maybe it's a consequence of years spent with political colleagues, supporters and other nutters and their habitually loose language. Maybe he acquired a taste for evasive language from his father too, such as "decision around winter fuel payment".

Doonhamer - yes, somebody gotta pay and sooner or later that brick wall may finally become visible to enough people so that even the media have to admit it.

Anonymous said...

Now that Reeves has said no winter fuel allowance for pensioners, and being supported in this by her colleagues, I wonder if this means that Reeves and the rest will not claim their tax paid heating allowances for their second homes? For some reason, none of the media interviewers appear to have thought of asking her this. Funny that. No doubt someone from GB News may have asked this, if it wasn't for Ministers refusals to be interviewed by them.
Penseivat

A K Haart said...

Penseivat - that's a good point, the media could be all over that particular question. They could even ask how much Reeves and the rest spend on heating but they don't. As you say - funny that.

dearieme said...

We had a breakfast conversation. Are we right in our memory that Two-Tier's Secretary of State for Energy Incompetence was, earlier in life, revealed to be Two-Kitchens Miliband? Wasn't one for the housekeeper/nanny and one for the Milibands to show off with when people came round for dinner?

I trust he's arranged that neither kitchen uses gas. Indeed, I trust that his car is an EV and that he heats his house with a heat pump. Shouldn't he be asked?

A K Haart said...

dearieme - that triggered my memory of Two-Kitchens Miliband so I checked and yes he had two kitchens and maybe he still has. He should be asked about his own use of gas, EVs, heat pumps and so on but it's one of those questions that outfits such as the BBC seem too busy to ask. Maybe Gary Lineker could raise it as the senior current affairs bod.