16 February 2023 , 22:22
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An estimated seven million people in this country are unable to afford their energy bills.
Many of them are forced to choose between heating and eating.
Others have used up all their savings so they can keep warm.
While they worry about how to make ends meet the bosses at Centrica, the parent company of British Gas, are celebrating a year of bumper profits.
Like BP and Shell, the firm is reaping the rewards from Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine that has driven up oil and gas prices around the world.
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Instead of looking at ways of helping their customers they have been driven by a lust for ever greater gains.
While Centrica was making more than £100-a-second, British Gas was hiring debt collection agencies who forced their way into people’s homes to fit pre-payment meters.
This is not a company that cares about social responsibility. It is a company that cares only about the bottom line.
The best way to force these firms to act in the common interest is to bring a proper windfall tax. It’s time to put people before greed.
British Gas has been found to have hired debt collectors who force-fitted pre-payment meters in customers' homes (NurPhoto via Getty Images)Pay our nurses
The decision by the Royal College of Nursing to escalate the strike action will have been done with a heavy heart.
Nurses do not want to desert their patients but they have been forced to take this step because of the Government’s refusal to enter into meaningful negotiations.
Tory ministers have a choice.
They can either engage in talks to resolve this dispute or they can see patients suffer as appointments and operations cancelled.
Nurses are not striking out of greed.
They are walking out because they fear for the future of the NHS under a Government that refuses to pay staff they wages they deserve and has failed to give the health and social care services the funding they need.
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Long live Dame Viv
The great and good of music, film and fashion yesterday paid tribute to Dame Vivienne Westwood.
It was fitting that their outfits were as colourful as the life she led and the clothes she designed.