Thanks to government policies lots of people in the Uk are facing huge rises in heating bills that they simply can’t afford to pay. Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, has said that there will be a £200 discount for some families. My question is this - given that it is for one year only and, crucially, that they will have to pay it back by paying an extra £40 a year for the next five years is it correct of him to call it a discount? I’d have called it a loan. (Incidentally there seems something remarkably cynical about making this year’s bills a bit lower by making the next five years bills higher just to try to gain a short term popularity boost for a deeply unpopular Prime Minister.)

This message has been edited. Last edited by: BobHale,

It probably has to do with this: https://www.crowdspring.com/marketing-psychology/

The UK isn't the only country to have soaring gas prices. Ours has almost doubled this year - and we can ill-afford it. Be cold or go broke.

Marketing Strategy, or, as it was known in my day, lying.

For quite a lot of families it comes down to heating or eating. Boris actually said that he understands how some families are finding things difficult. I'll bet he does. When he redecorated the apartment he lives in for free his wallpaper cost £840 per roll. Of course it was paid for by a Tory donor. He probably thinks that the heating cost increases can't be very bad if they are less than the cost of one roll. He has no more idea about ordinary peoples' lives than a jellyfish has about the dark side of the moon.

"Let them eat cake." Supposedly attributed to Marie Antoinette. Perhaps Boris will meet a similar fate.

I found out why it isn’t called a loan and this is one of the most deviously brilliant (not to mention probably illegal) sleights of hand I have ever seen. Pay attention, it’s complicated. First every eligible household gets it whether they want it or not. It’s paid directly to the energy companies to be deducted from bills. Some low income households are on paid metering and don’t get bills so they won’t get the “discount”. It’s not clear how the discount will be monitored to ensure that it is given to all the correct households. This is around five billion pounds given directly to the power companies. ALL households, including those that didn’t receive the “discount” will then pay a forty pound a year surcharge for five years giving the energy companies another five billion. And it can’t legally be called a loan because a loan has to have the written agreement of both the lender and the borrower and in this case no written agreement exists and you have to take it whether you want it or not. This scheme, being presented as a way to help people pay their energy bills will make people five billion pounds poorer and energy companies ten billion pounds richer. Breathtakingly brilliant.

Is this a fait accompli, or can it be stopped? Why haven't I seen it in The Guardian?

That remains to be seen. There are plenty of people opposing it but as to whether it can be stopped. Who knows? The obvious solutions of caps on price rises or windfall taxes on the energy companies used to offset rises (both adopted in various European countries) would of course affect shareholder profits so no Tory government would ever contemplate them.

It's here though in a very bare bones form with no analysis of what it actually means.

OK, thanks. Seems like a real mess. I wonder if the number of people stealing wood from protected forests to heat their houses will spike? Will peat become popular again?

Most houses now don’t have fireplaces where you could burn the wood anyway and the ones that do usually belong to the kind of people who would be just as happy to burn ten pound notes because a few hundred or a few thousand is pocket change to them.