We have the worst of all possible worlds

I AM neither a politician nor an economist, but I can clearly understand the folly of those attempting to combine both careers. An earlier administration tried to convince the electorate that once we were free from the constrictions of the EU we as a nation would be able to set our own economic destiny. Also, a previous administration had long ago informed us that competition among suppliers would give customers choice and the possibility of reduced prices for goods and services. In other pronouncements we have been alerted to promises of short term pain for long term gain. It is abundantly clear that, as the polymath Gottfried Leibniz might have said, today we have the worst of all possible worlds. We are repeatedly being told that the present energy crisis is caused by ‘world events’ and therefore beyond Government control. It does not have to be.

Prodigious sums have been and are being spent in this country on the infrastructure for producing sustainable energy, which meets an increasing percentage of energy demand and is generally becoming cheaper to produce, yet consumers are being charged ever increasing amounts for it. Even if our indigenous sustainable energy supplies provided the vast majority of our needs, we would still not reap the benefit of lower prices.

Instead of governments reshuffling taxpayers’ money and then falsely claiming it as financial help, consideration needs be given to more correctly relating the cost of supply with the cost of production and not using some esoteric formulae to calculate the price of energy being delivered to the end users.

Gas produced in this country is sold at world prices, so although we can rely in part on an indigenous product we, for some reason, have to pay the going variable global rate.

This is all quite contrary to what we were being told at the 2016 referendum.

Anthony G Phillips Salisbury, Wiltshire