Turn The Fucking Lights Off Now

My kids do not grasp how much the electric and gas bill costs. We have explained it every single day since they came back from a summer break. And still they leave lights on like it doesn’t cost me almost £0.17 per kilwatt hour(Edit on September 1, 2022 : it now costs £0.52 per kwh), plus standing charges that are eyewatering and unregulated by any kind of cap.

Well, this morning I found the upstairs bathroom light had been left on for some indeterminate stretch of the night. I woke up the guilty party to have a wee chat about it at 8am. Daughter the Second will try harder to remember, but being cute and brilliant must take up so much of her time already, you know?

After a daughter snuggle and a coffee, I came down my office to read up on the latest. Caught some marvelous articles on Medium by the crazy bunch I follow and checked the live news for fresh bullshit.

Gordon Brown is finally saying what we are all thinking in plain English and nothing will be done. The Tories will hardly come up with a Pleb Rescue Plan whilst they have infighting.

I read a gem of an article about how absolutely fucked we all are here in the UK come cold time, see excerpt below. I thought I must be remembering wrong, but there it is — 70% increase in October.

Analysts Cornwall Insight previously predicted in May that energy bills will rise by 46% in October, with a new price cap of £2,879 and then said it would go up by 51% in June. In has now increased its predictions twice in July from an increase of 65% to an increase of 70% for the October cap, costing a typical household almost £300 per month.

It also expects energy prices to rise by another 7.5% in the first quarter of 2023.

Fuck me. What does that even mean when you live in a drafty old house like I do? It means fuel poverty and we will still probably be cold. We replaced our boiler last year and managed to get our bill way down, but all the savings is going to be lost and we’ll be back to paying more for our energy than for our mortgage. Dammit.

It means we have the kettle from camping on the gas hob instead of our electric kettle being used. It means being grateful for our woodstove and fireplaces, as we have some hope of heat with foraged wood. Coal is super dear, but I have been hoarding a half bag all year. Don’t get me started on how those prices have risen too. If things get too crazy to even use gas, I have a camping stove and fuel bottles for it.

I know my kids will have warm clothes and a school to go to, food to eat, even if they don’t like it, and relatively normal lives. I am thankful. What worries me is the child down the street I may not see or know about that is hungry. The old person too ashamed to let on that they need help, or company. The single parent working so hard and not eating enough, slowly draining themselves and praying their kids don’t feel the pinch.

I am truly furious that I feel able to do nothing. It makes me want to do something. What?

If someone as well insulated from poverty as I feel I am is this afraid and disgusted, how must many others who are not so fortunate feel?

I know the dull rage of unending hunger was not as horrible to experience as the shame of the situation was. I always felt shame when I was poor. Like it was all my fault that I worked every hour G-d sent and still couldn’t afford more than just scraping by. Well, I wish I could go back and tell myself not to feel that way.

Oh, there is shame in all this. Shame on the leaders of this country. Shame for their exploitation of the population. Trying to turn this island into a little extraction operation for multinationals to feed on.

Apparently, no one has any shame that should. Liz Truss promised to ignore the First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon. Then she refused to apologise for the remark. Frankly — well, no I can’t tell you what I want to say, frankly.

We will not see the Union last if Tories stay in power. Keir Starmer could be beaten by a wet paper bag, so electing Liz Truss to defeat him in some hypothetical future is ridiculous. I reckon Sam Tarry will end up in Keir’s job by the next election anyway.

Rishi Sunak is the better of the two Tory options, but he is South Asian and that will hurt him with the gammons, I imagine. I want to see him win, simply to be able to watch Jacob Rees-Mogg float away into nothingness like a fart.

Whoever the Tories elect as leader, it isn’t getting done until September 6th at very soonest. There is no way for them to actually lead this island in any positive direction as there is no actual leader to do so.

This is like watching a horrible divorce where no one is concerned with the kids’ welfare. (The Scottish kids are already on the phone to lawyers looking into “emancipation of a minor” and shit, we are not playing.)

I saw that new #EnoughisEnough video on Twitter and thought, “weak sauce”. Yeah, we do need to channel anger into action. If you haven’t got a suggestion of how — like a general strike or something, what is the video about? Yes, we’re all terrified and furious. Yes, we all feel powerless about it.

All I can do is love my neighbours and feed as many kids that come through my doors as possible. All I can do is ask my kids to please, turn off the lights and switchcovers. I’ve even made up a death metal song about it called “Turn The Fucking Lights Off Now”.

Well, that was what I was worrying about today, two coffees in. I can’t even publish what I write by the time the news cycle spins round again in the evening, as it is mostly swear words.

What the hell are we going to do about this energy price crisis? This rip off at the expense of our children? What are we going to do?