Re-nationalise Britain's energy supply now!

Fuel poverty no longer affects the few. 25% of the population are digging into savings to pay bills. 1 in 6 are having to take out loans to pay the big 6 energy companies. The current situation is clearly unsustainable an immoral.

Gas and electricity should never have been handed over to the private sector. They are national assets and an essential part of our daily survival. There is no real domestic 'market' for energy - we all need heating, light and ways to cook our food. The big 6 companies can get away with murder, and make a fortune at the same time.

Murder is an accurate description. With combined gas and electricity bills soaring by up to 12% - hard pushed families, and especially the elderly, will simply turn the fires off even during the harshest of Winters. Thousands may die this year as a result of the cold, and the companies responsible will get away scot-free, as will the government that is failing to hold them to account. The Tory solution? 'Switch accounts' - 'more competition.' All policies that simply end up giving more money into the hands of the private sector vultures running our energy supplies.

Despite giving away record dividends to their shareholders, and bumping up executive salaries, the company's chief executives all came out last week and blamed government policies for the massive recent increases, arguing that it is the 'green levees' that are at fault. The Tories response was to agree, and ditch much needed ways of forcing the suppliers to go green. At the same time, the government are offering guaranteed energy prices to the Nuclear power suppliers at twice the current rate - ensuring bills will soar while the tax payers will be doubly hit.

Labour are trying to capitalise on the issue, but are weakly offering an energy price freeze during the first two years in office, a policy obviously leading to increases in bills prior o the elections and big price hikes after the two year period.

There is one obvious solution. We need to renationalise energy production, distribution and supply (in a similar way to the French and Chinese governments, whose state owned companies we will be paying to build our new nuclear power stations!)

Common ownership of essential resources (Power, Water, Transport) is obvious in many other parts of the world. In the UK, the elites control of the political parties, the media and the gradual acquisition of education, means that such obvious solutions like nationalisation are almost entirely taken out of the equation.

Renationalisation of energy is credible, possible and crucial for the well being of the British population. We have to start building the case now, and force the national parties to begin to take the idea seriously. We simply cannot afford to let them get away with it.