Cool Britannia

Barely four months after that nice Mr Huhne lectured energy consumers on their laziness, and only two days after Britain's Head Boy urged the energy cartel to write to its hostages so that prices won't have to be lowered, a report commissioned by the Government has warned of the dire consequences which may result from a casual attitude to shopping. By the end of the year, more than four million households, some of them quite possibly not yet on the Government's social cleansing agenda, are expected to be in fuel poverty. Thanks no doubt to the global economic situation, the pernicious legacy of New New Labour, or perhaps even the weather, somehow or other the Government has failed to make clear to the little people that they could be pulling themselves together, rejoicing in their market freedomisation and utility choicification, and joining the Big Society thingy to help Daveybloke and his chums help themselves. As a result, it is expected that almost three thousand people in the world's seventh biggest economy will, quite irresponsibly, die of cold.