> Gas in the UK is expensive because of 1980's privitisation

Post privatization domestic gas production rose 900%. Increasing supply = cheaper prices. Prices were low and stable at the time compared to today:

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-...

This claim is the sort of dangerous ideological nonsense that is so common in Britain, and which has wrecked it. Literally every time socialist policies fail people come out of the woodwork to blame privatization, and yet invariably this made things better despite an often botched process. The American oil/gas industry is fully private and yet they have much cheaper energy: blaming Thatcher is dumb and not the answer.

Gas in the UK is expensive because successive British governments wanted to have nothing to do with it and did everything they could to crush the suppliers. They thought deliberately deindustrializing the country was moral and ethical, for "climate" reasons. So they:

• Imposed massive "windfall" taxes on the industry to the extent that nobody developed new sources

• Then imposed very high carbon prices on it

• Banned fracking

• Stopped issuing licenses for exploration

• Imposed price caps

• Chased all the industry that needed cheap energy away to Asia

• Shut down gas storage facilities, exposing Britain to the global spot price

• Didn't build other reliable energy sources like nuclear or coal

End result: high prices and shortages. There are graphs here that show how much of the British electricity price is artificially created by government:

https://davidturver.substack.com/p/why-is-my-energy-bill-so-...

Other countries didn't make all these mistakes together. And they were mistakes by the government. Really, can you even claim the British energy industry is private when the government takes 80%+ of its profits? Socialist policies always create shortages and high prices. Always.