Getting The Feeling We Are Being Cheated

Johnny Rotten asked 'Ever get the feeling your being cheated' and the answer is a resounding yes when it comes to the Fuel Bill hike.
Nice of the Government to lend us £200 to pay our increasing utility bills, they want it back obviously because the UK is £2.2 billion in debt but it was awful timing by Shell to announce they made a £19.3bn profit last year a day after it was announced that the average gas and electric bill will increase for everyone by 54%, or £693.
The cause of the increase has been blamed on a record rise in global gas prices and the Government has considered cutting VAT and Green levies but plumped for lending us a third of the money to pay the Utility companies instead.
That way the rise is still an eyewatering £493 but the Utility companies such as Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks, E.On, Scottish Power and Centrica get to keep their billions of pounds in profits.
The bosses of the Big Six energy firms remain some of the highest earners in the UK. In 2019 the Centrica chief executive was paid £2.4m and the boss of SSE, received £1.6m so under the Governments deal, they will still get paid in full.
Shell did not even try to hide their priorities, tweeting that they have: 'ambitious plans to generate shareholder value' and there is the rub, we pay more so they can keep up their profits and pay the shareholders.
The Labour Party suggested a windfall tax on the billions made by the companies to offset the rise in prices but the Government never even entertained that idea, preferring to wring their hands and loan us the money to pay the mega-rich companies, companies which have donated more than a million pounds to the Conservatives since 2019.
Companies that pay that much do not do it out of kindness or altruism, they pay it so when they want something, they are almost certain to get it and what they wanted was their profits to not be dented, and the Government have made sure they won't be.
To answer you Johnny, yes, we are being well and truly cheated as well as screwed, deceived, gypped, conned, scammed, duped, hoodwinked, swindled and ripped off.