WE PAY HIS WAGES...
THE chairman of British Petroleum has been given £4.5million – with more on the way – for the company’s stellar financial performance. But that isn’t due to fantastic wisdom and hard work on his part.
The reason the oil companies’ profits are booming is the recovery from Covid and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. These are not profits from normal trading, in which the normal peaks and troughs are a legitimate part of the business cycle they are windfall profits from abnormal external factors. Profits because you and me are having to pay more for oil and gas.
So why is the Government unwilling to levy a windfall profits tax on the companies and spend the money on helping consumers with their domestic gas and electricity bills as Labour is proposing?
Could it be that the Conservatives feel more sympathy with oil company shareholders than with ordinary consumers? After all, Boris Johnson, Chancellor Rishi Sunak – Britain’s richest MP with seven homes – the lawyer Conservative MP who was paid £6million for representing foreign tax havens while moonlighting from his paid job representing his constituents as an MP, and so on, aren’t people who struggle to pay energy bills.
The energy cap may have risen to £2,000 a year for an average home, with warnings that it could reach £3,000 or even £4,000 if current prices continue, but it’s just loose change for them.
The Chancellor is considering a cut in fuel duty. Good for people who can afford to run a car. To the man in the street who is faced with soaring gas and electricity bills, 8% inflation, not to mention a rise in national insurance, a levy on excess profits from the oil and gas companies makes perfect sense.
Harry Dobson