If you read Willis’ excellent essay on energy poverty, you might think countries like Britain would be keen to address this terrible burden on the poor. Think again; the reality is British and European politicians just don’t seem to care.

Guest essay by Eric Worrall

Tax raid on your lifestyle! Boris Johnson is considering a new carbon tax that could see the price of mince rise 40% to more than £5, four pints of milk by 21% to £1.32 and push up cost of gas heating

• Downing Street asks all departments for plans for a carbon-pricing scheme 
• One of the policies mooted is a carbon tax on high-impact food such as beef
• Could add up to £1.80 on a steak, £1.50 on lamb chops and 20p on milk
• Farmers believe there is a ‘heavy bias against meat’ in climate change debate

By MARTIN ROBINSON, CHIEF REPORTER FOR MAILONLINE

Tax raid on your lifestyle! Boris Johnson is considering a new carbon tax that could see the price of mince rise 40% to more than £5, four pints of milk by 21% to £1.32 and push up cost of gas heating

• Downing Street asks all departments for plans for a carbon-pricing scheme 
• One of the policies mooted is a carbon tax on high-impact food such as beef
• Could add up to £1.80 on a steak, £1.50 on lamb chops and 20p on milk
• Farmers believe there is a ‘heavy bias against meat’ in climate change debate

By MARTIN ROBINSON, CHIEF REPORTER FOR MAILONLINE

PUBLISHED: 20:23 AEDT, 4 February 2021 | UPDATED: 02:57 AEDT, 5 February 2021

Families are facing a tax on their lifestyles as Boris Johnson ponders new carbon taxes and charges for Britain that would see higher prices on meat and cheese at the supermarket and on gas for their hobs and boilers at home.

The Prime Minister has ordered Whitehall departments to look at how much greenhouse gas emissions produced by different sectors of the economy cost society.

At present, only airlines and power generators are charged for their emissions, but ministers want to extend the ‘polluter pays’ principle to all sectors. This could lead to a hike in prices for goods such as beef, lamb and cheese, or more heavily polluting forms of heating such as gas.

No costs have been mooted by Whitehall, but recent studies by a team at Oxford University have calculated that surcharges of 40 per cent on beef, 25 per cent on oils, 20 per cent on milk, 15 per cent on lamb and 10 per cent on chicken would reduce emissions and reduce consumption in the way the PM wants.

…

Four pints of milk would go from £1.09 to £1.32, four lamb chops up to £7.50 from £6, six chicken breasts up 50p per pack to £5.50 while a whole chicken would increase in price by 28p to £3.78; Eggs would rise 5p to 94p and sugar would increase by a penny to 66p. 

…

Read more: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9222559/Boris-Johnson-ponders-tax-drive-price-meat-cheese.html

The Irish potato famine, the mass starvation of Irish people in the mid 1800s, was caused as much by the cruel indifference of arrogant British politicians as by crop failure.

British politicians could have intervened and saved lives, and to be fair then prime minister Robert Peel attempted to intervene, but the interventionists were defeated by conceited politicians who refused to compromise their free market ideals, even in the face of an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe. By the time politicians realised what they had done, it was too late.

Could something similar happen again? Fuel poverty is already a serious problem in Britain. According to the government’s own figures, as of 2018 10.7% of households make difficult daily decisions in winter about whether to heat their homes or put food on the table.

In human terms, this means millions of ordinary Britons are living on the edge, risking hypothermia, starvation, and serious long term health complications in their annual struggle to survive Britain’s cold winters. Occasionally some of them starve to death. A third of people admitted to hospital in Britain are malnourished or judged to be at risk of malnutrition.

Boris Johnson’s plan to force up the price of affordable energy rich foods like meat, milk, eggs and cheese, and to drive up the price of home heating, could push a lot of those poor people over the brink, and trigger an even worse hunger crisis.

In my opinion this cruel sacrifice of ordinary people’s welfare on the altar of carbon virtue signalling is an unconscionable betrayal of the millions of ordinary Britons who supported Boris Johnson’s Conservatives in the last general election, because they believed Johnson’s assurances that the Conservatives would make their lives better.

Related