As my energy bills TRIPLE, Rishi Sunak's response is pathetic

The letter from my energy supplier was emotionless and matter of fact. My monthly direct debit was increasing by 200%. From April I’ll be paying THREE TIMES what I’ve been paying this year. I knew a rise was coming, of course. How could I not, given the warnings which have been growing in urgency in the media for months.

I knew rises of 54% were on the cards. Like everyone else I’m vaguely aware of the reasons, although I’d be hard pushed to recite them. Something to do with the rising price of oil, maybe caused in part by Covid. Brexit’s in there too, of course, just as it’s responsible for a litany of problems since the UK Government insisted we leave Europe against our wishes.

But here was the proof that everything was about to go to hell, and it would be much, much worse than we thought. I’m one of the lucky ones. I thankfully won’t be one of the 1.3 million people predicted to be forced into absolute poverty by the storm clouds bringing in their wake the worst plunge in living standards since the 1950s. But finally the scale of the disaster is becoming clear to us all.

Well not quite us all. Rishi Sunak seems to regard it as a mild annoyance that can be solved by a tiny reduction in the sky-high cost of petrol; a problem afflicting those poor people he occasionally reads about in newspapers but never actually meets.

His package of what he laughably describes as support measures falls so far short of what is needed that it seems to have been beamed down from another planet. I spent yesterday morning listening to political pundits and personal finance experts pour over the details to work out who will benefit by how much from the slew of figures published in a bid to obscure the true facts.

The cut in fuel tax will be worth anything between £1 and £3 – depending on which “expert” you listen to – every time you fill up the tank. That’s not much to write home about by anyone’s standards. Worse, though ... many people have been reporting that petrol prices have actually risen rather than fallen since the Chancellor’s announcement. Ah, say the experts, that’s because prices were going to rise in any case and the fuel tax cut means the rise is not as high as it would otherwise have been.

READ MORE: 'Stark contrast' between UK and Scottish Governments made clear by poverty action, charities say

Then there’s the rise in the income level at which National Insurance becomes payable. There’s a downside here too. Although fewer people will pay National Insurance, those who will pay will pay more. No matter how much you scrutinise this mountain of figures you can’t avoid the single truth: these measures will do nothing to seriously help those in desperate need.

Compare those paltry offerings to the billions of public money poured into the coffers of banks whose incompetence and twisting of the rules pushed them to the very brink of disaster. There were no patronising lectures then about the need to keep down national debt and practice “responsible government” for the long-term good. It was simply inconceivable that banks be allowed to fail, or even that those in charge of decades of idiocy be held accountable.

But when those facing disaster are those people who have shown courage and humanity in pulling together to keep us all safe from the scourge of Covid – those people who have lost loved one and mourned alone while those in power at Westminster have partied and danced on their graves, those people who have pulled together to help friends and neighbours, who have isolated to curb the spread of a deadly virus, who have stood and clapped in solidarity with those in the frontline of a battle for our lives – the Government sits on its hands and says this pathetic response is the best it can do.

It’s not just the banks who benefit from the UK Government’s skewed sense of priorities. Look at how it treats oil companies who rack up enormous amounts of profit in the North Sea.

Shell and BP have not paid any corporation tax on oil and gas production in the North Sea for the last three years, according to figures released last year.

The oil giants are benefitting from billions in tax breaks and reliefs for oil and gas production. The Observer reported last year that annual “payments to governments” reports showed the companies claimed tax reliefs of nearly £400 million.

The Westminster government rushed to the aid of big banks and big business but leaves the desperately poor to fend for themselves. For proof, look at the way Rishi Sunak refused to increase benefits or to scrap a cut in Universal Credit despite the fast-approaching crisis.

The response to the huge increases in the cost-of-living is yet another sign that the inequalities at the heart of the British system of government cannot be sorted by mere tweaks around the edges, or even by the relatively small changes of emphasis which have followed by changes in the political colour of governments.

The radical transformation in governments to place the needs of those in poverty ahead of the greed of businesses who worship at the altar of profit will never happen all by itself. It needs a galvanising change to force a reappraisal of how we want to live. A change like independence for Scotland.

That in itself, of course, won’t necessarily being about the more equal and more just society we want to create but it will certainly give us the opportunity to make it a reality. A continuation of the Union will not.

So we should be aware that when those who stand to gain most from the survival of the status quo begin once more to moan that “this is not the time” that there will never be a time that they will consider the debate about our independence appropriate.

READ MORE: Claim Putin would welcome Scottish independence referendum 'smacks of desperation'

The most recent argument being deployed to derail the momentum for a second independence referendum to be held before the end of 2023 is that it will somehow play into the hands of Russian president Vladimir Putin.

A front-page article in The Herald earlier this week quoted Dr Jonathan Eyal, an associate director of the Royal United Services Institute in London saying Putin would be “delighted” if a second independence referendum was held next year as it would divert the UK’s attention from his actions in Ukraine.

There is, of course, no evidence for such a claim. If the last few weeks have taught us anything it is the futility of listening to experts who claim to have an insight into Putin’s mind.

The truth is that no-one can know what the Russian president thinks of Scottish independence or if indeed he thinks of it at all. No-one can know if his unfortunate misadventures in Ukraine may be over – one way or another – in weeks or if they will continue for longer.

It’s not the first time Putin has been dragged into the Scottish independence issue. When I was editor of the Sunday Herald in 2014 we reported that then-prime minister David Cameron had sought the backing of the Russian president in his battle against independence and one of his aides had warned the Kremlin that a Yes vote in 2014 could “send shockwaves across the whole of Europe”.

The Unionist side obviously saw Putin as a valuable ally in 2014. Now that he is sending shockwaves of his own across Europe they obviously see it would be better for their cause if the Russian president was a supporter of independence.

The truth is that opponents of independence will use any argument at any time to discredit the case for Scotland standing on its own, separate from the corruption of a UK Government only too willing to help Russian oligarchs to syphon off their money while mouthing platitudes about their horrific behaviour of their boss.

Using the inhumanity of the war against Ukraine as another argument against Scottish independence serves only to underline the urgency for us to stake our own place in the world and properly organise our own contribution to addressing the desperate need for humanitarian aid.