Calling out the energy giants is now a moral, not political, matter

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The profit excesses gathered today by many of the current fossil fuel producers are obscene (Getty Images)

When in the spring of 1962, some 10 US steel companies decided to breach a negotiated cap and raise their prices by six dollars a tonne, the president, John F Kennedy, decided to publicly call out their bosses, telling them that their “pursuit of power and profit” was a “wholly irresponsible defiance of the public interest”. Eventually, they backed down.

The profit excesses being witnessed today in the UK by many of the current fossil fuel producers, notably Shell and Centrica, look far more obscene against the context of ever-widening poverty as families face the prospect monthly energy bills of up to £50 by January, when excess deaths from malnutrition and cold could reach third world levels.

With our utility regulatory system “broken” and nationalisation ruled out by both major parties, the question of what to do, or who to call out, to avert the coming disaster is no longer a political but a moral question.