EDF - A Brown Company

With startling predictability the energy utility company EDF has announced profits of almost £1.6 billion. The company is French owned and employs, for media relations Andrew Brown, brother of the economically illiterate Gordon. Somehow you knew someone like that would have their hand in a company making pots of money, through government complicit chicanery.

What? Are they up to no good? Well, obviously that is the outcome, but to get there they don't need to break the law, the door is opened for them by very helpful politicians, who sometimes are relations. Companies like EDF have virtual monopoly status and are pretty much left alone to get on with it. The quango set up to monitor energy and protect the consumer, feel much more comfortable getting friendly with the outfits they are paid to watch. They all do.

It is the complete absence of protection for consumers that attracts overseas companies to buy these monopolistic ultilities; they are virtually all foreign owned. Often, their own countries don't allow the kind of operation they routinely run here, because the governments there feel a need to protect consumers. For vital, national infrastructure such as energy, so should we.

I am no great believer in nationalised industries, but some things are for the overall national benefit and the utilities might just be better under a public umbrella. Obviously not run by Unions or their puppy dog, the Labour Party. We were quite happy to take over Northern Rock, casually forgetting the shareholders, so how about we take over EDF Energy with a similar lack of care. It would certainly make other companies think twice about arriving in Britain to rob us blind.

The Mail, as we have discussed before a terrible rag that has no value, helpfully points out that the profit EDF has made amounts to £427 per household. Think what percentage of your annual bill that represents. That is the extent of the duplicity with which our supine government and watchdogs operate. It smacks of too many friends in too many places. All we need now is Dave Hartnett to arrive at the most expensive restaurant local to EDF HQ and suddenly discover that £1.6 billion is such a tiny sum that they shouldn't have to pay tax at all.