Why do we accept such short-sightedness, from our politicians?

[anotheoldgit]

i cannot compremend why this Goverment and the Goverment before them, did possess the foresight to have more gas storage containers built.

We are now suffering future astromonical price rises, almost all due to this lack of foresight.

Britain could have insulated itself from the need to import so much gas if the Government had ensured the UK built new gas storage facilities over the past 20 years.

Cheap North Sea gas could have been put into storage in the summer and then called upon during the winter.

However, the UK currently only has sufficient storage to hold 13 days of its gas needs.

That compares to 99 days in Germany and 122 in France. The failure to build this vital infrastructure means Britain is exporting cheap North Sea gas in the summer to Europe where it is put into storage.

This gas is then sold back to the UK in winter at a vastly higher price. The Government was warned repeatedly over decades about the lack of storage but failed to ensure it was built.

[R1Geezer]

It's the same reason our public transport is a pile of cack. It's takes longer than one parlaiment to implement. Therefore no governement will start the project because it may well be out on it's ear mid project. Ok governments have won multiple terms but they do not know that from the outset.

[Gromit]

Short-sightedness.

You must mean the politician who flogged a national asset (British Gas) in 1986. So that today, energy supply in the UK is dominated by French and German companies. These companies are only interested in making vast profits. There is no incentive for them to store gas and sell it to us cheap in the winter (where is the profit in that?).

The privatisation election bribe worked because the short-sighted politician was re-elected. And the people who bought the cheap shares sold them, no questions asked, to the highest bidder for a quick grubby profit. And so a network of strategic national importance is now run by giant companies on the continent.

When the old lady eventually does die and gets her state funeral, I doubt she will have been the victim of hyperthermia.

[sandbach99]

They are turning some of the old brine extraction plants in Cheshire into gas storage facilities against the wishes of the local residents, the parish, local and district councils, and against the recomendations of a public planning hearing.

How, because MANWEB as it was then, bended John Prescotts ear.

Before anyone says the locals were wrong to campaign against these plans, none of these holes in the ground have props or anything else to hold them up and do collapse. Still if this potential bomb goes off part of the M6 will disappear.

[rov1200]

The storage capacity already existed but the government in its wisdom drained them dry by selling our gas to Europe where they stored it in their own tanks. If the gas had remained in the gas fields and we only extracted what we wanted we would not be in this position. All for a quick buck and as Gromit said started under Mrs T.

[SeaJayPea]

If the pits had been kept open after 1984 and the coal brought to the surface, we wouldn't have had to generate electricity by burning all the North Sea Gas. It would still be under the sea. We had 100 years of coal at the time of the strike, and now we're importing it.
We'll be paying Mr Putin and his mates for gas for years to come, with the French and German companies Gromit mentions taking the profits.

I'm intrigued to know where your quote comes from.

[rov1200]

With the Chinese opening 1 coal fired station a week don't you think its incredulous that we are trying to shut our pits down in order to save the planet? Please........let sanity return!

[Gromit]

I'm intrigued to know where your quote comes from.

Regular AOG observers will know where that quote comes from:-

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/textbased/news/arti cle-1039872/British-Gas-parent-firm-set-announ ce-992m-profits--day-customers-hit-35-price-hi ke.html#top

It is none other that a newspapers that made a mint by running full page advertisements everyday for 3 months with the snappy title "If you see Sid tell him we'll be screwed in 20 years time"

The same newspaper in fact, who's editor received a knighthood for being submissive to Mrs T, and who are now screaming the loudest about Sid's friends taking obscene profits.

Talk about being short-sighted!

[jake-the-peg]

And here was me thinking that the price of gas was going up astronomically because it is linked to the price of oil!

I must be betting my information from the wrong sources!

[Jeth]

At the risk of appearing (and rightly so) somewhat thick, please can one you more knowledgeable bloggers explain to me the economic rationale behind British Gas selling gas on to other suppliers who in turn sell on the public. Who gains other than the shareholders of these pointless middlemen?

[LeMarchand]

You filthy wishy-washy leftie traitors! How dare you suggest that the great Lady Thatcher is to blame? You should be shot for treason.

Sorry, got possessed by whiffy for a moment.

Of course Thatcher and her cronies' sell-off of the country is to blame. BTW, don't know if it's been mentioned here, but apparently greedy French energy company EDF (part owned by the French government) isn't allowed to hike their prices in France, so keeps its profits high by stuffing the British. Way to go, Maggie! Privatization working at its best...

[paranoidus]

jeff they have to under eu rules thanks to brown, don't forget who sold our gold . when gold was at its lowest price and who has given the eu over 6 billion back to the eu.

when people are freezing in the winter blame thatcher ? you must be joking.

build a bonfire and stick brown on the top

[Gromit]

The structure of the British Gas market was devised in 1986 when Thatcher privatised the industry, long before Brown had any influence, and nothing to do with the EU.

I don't know what selling gold has to do with OAPs freezing in the winter?

Jeth - It is supposed to create competition in the market and keep prices down. Whether that is what we have now is debatable.

[paranoidus]

re gold , i was pointing out brown's stupidity

we have to sell our gas to them but they don't have to sell to us .eu rules or the big noise from the government was telling porkies

[anotheoldgit]

For goodness sake Gromit change your record.

Maggi bashing and Daily Mail bashing, anyone would think you could put all Britain's troubles at these two doors.

The Daily Mail is not the only paper in the country, and people are not forced to read it. I know your type would love for there to be a curb on the freedom of the press, and only certain papers allowed, that followed your own particular political leanings. Dream on this is never going to happen, or at least we hope not.

As for your constant Maggi bashing, how far back in history are you prepared to go, so as to blame the countries woes on one particular individual? We have had a Labour goverment now for almost 10 years, why have they not reversed matters? Their past record has not been nothing to boast about.

The Labour governments 1974-9 presided over the shock-waves from the oil crisis following the Arab-Israeli war and domestic industrial relations problems. Inflation rose to over 25 per cent and unemployment to over 1 million. Labour was forced to seek a loan from the International Monetary Fund in 1976, and left government 1979 tarnished by the image of the winter of discontent, 1978-9, when Britain was hit by a wave of strikes.

Jonathan Bradbury.