My blood was boiling when I read about 87 year old Barbara Bolton from Bury . She couldn't afford to heat her home and was admitted to hospital with hypothermia and pneumonia and died after a few days in hospital. With energy companies making their highest profits recorded . Disgusting. This government need to be held responsible too

British gas have always been A holes. My house doesn't have gas. 10 years after I brought it they decided to start sending me a bill for a standing charge. I called them to query why they were suddenly trying to bill me for something I didn't have. They claimed they were the registered provider for the house so were applying a charge for the upkeep of the pipework / meter to the house. I told them I was never going to pay them as I have No gas supply to the house. They sent an engineer to discount the meter to our house, who was surprised to find we didn't have one. Never did give them a penny.

They don't need to charge standing charges, it's just pure greed

I just discovered David's Wandering Turnip you tubes a week or so ago and have enjoyed all dozen or so of them I have watched so far, in particular this energy rip off one and the other one -where have all the banks gone and where has all the cash gone. Very impressive young man. This is the kind of young person we need as leaders. I live here in California in The US (Irish, Scots Irish, English great grandparents came to America early 20th century) and here we could use leaders like this young man. I am sure the same holds true in The UK and Ireland and elsewhere. David is youthful, bright, articulate, handsome and energetic with a non corporate attitude. The kind of leader that is needed in our countries, not the tired old duds like we have to choose from in The US, Biden or Trump, both inept imo and not for the working man. I'm a senior, retired teacher, so it is refreshing to see someone with that attitude of young people I remember from the 70s, unlike so many young people who seem to chase money and embrace corporate capitalism. Anyway, better get off my soap box.

My Dad would have called this 'Legalised Robbery'. Especially with the cost of energy having come down for the energy companies. He applied this phrase to other things as well.........Parking Fines, Standing Charges, Credit Card interest rates etc........and he was right !

I left the UK nearly 8 years ago and couldn't be happier. I came back last year to visit and couldn't believe the state of the place ..

Get rid if the smart meter

Biggest joke is why the hell do you have to pay VAT time people demanded that VAT be abolished .😠

Couldn't agree more. It's disgusting how much its costing. I'm struggling to put gas on. I'm a single mum with 2 boys. I'm on pre payment smart meters. I boil the kettle to do dishes. We use cold water to wash hands and I don't have the heating on and it's still costing a fortune

We moved 6 months ago to Charlestown from the other side of town. Our electric price was unbelievable. 6 months of fighting and we proved our “smart” meter doubled every unit we used! How many others could this happen to? We spent a lot of money to sort this and they never admitted responsibility

The only gas powered appliance in my apartment was my stove and they were charging over $17 a month even though I rarely turned it on. I bought an electric hotplate for $10 and had them disconnect my gas.

The problem here is that we have allowed energy providers to normalize a standing charge but what has also happened is that they have used prepayment to nickel and dime customers for even the most basic usage. it's become dangerous, it needs to be sorted out so ppl never pay more than £200 a year, per energy type. as that's what it's really worth.

I am all electric Dave, In Scotland, with pre payment, it is a nightmare. Feel free to rant about anything, it is your channel ! Keep it up dude

The standing charge is the biggest rip-off going. You can cut back all you like to save on your usage but they have you over a barrel with the standing charge. I heard on the radio the other day that wholesale prices are down 70% yet they are still talking about price increases in April when the current price cap ends. Absolute madness.

January I had a bill for £399 just for electric E - ON and I had to have the coal fire on, I now hardly use the cooker now, turn off all the heaters, I use my slow cooker and go to bed early to keep warm. It's 14th October my house is starting to feel cold, but I am going to hold off for as long as I can so I don't have to put the heating on. It will be living in a one-room situation in the end. Dreading the full effects of winter it is just miserable and I feel sorry for the elderly, I really do, The government has done sod all about it. Legal racketeering. Disgusting.

When I bought the house in 1992 in which we're still living, the first thing I did was put insulation around all of the radiator pipes. A relatively small investment of 75,- Dutch guilders that turned out very profitable because the energy company had to pay me back more than 750,- Dutch guilders. In 1993 we installed double glazing everywhere. This was followed by insulation of the roof and under the floor. We checked the walls for insulation, they were fine. In 2010 we had 18 solar panels installed. Today I am paying € 100,- per month, only € 10,- more than what I payed the last three years. We produce more electricity than we need and we are well under 800 M3 gas per year. The 100,- per month are largely several kinds of tax and they make you pay VAT over all of the tax. In The Netherlands we also pay a percentage that is meant for maintenance of the energy infrastructure (your 'Standing charge' I presume?). And Dutch citizens pay a special tax that is payed to companies as a subsidy to encourage them to invest in sustainability. The people who pay this tax have NO acces to the subsidies they pay tax for. Still, having invested in the sustainability of my house prevented us from paying up to € 300,- to € 400,- per month.....

When you have your smart meter fitted, you have to ring them up afterwards to tell them you actually want to be charged for what you’re using, otherwise they still leave you on an estimate, despite you having the meter. That caught me out when I didn’t see any change in my bill for a couple of months.

Our electricity tariff has just doubled and there is just the two of us aged in our 60's in a small house!

I’m watching this video, sitting at home with a blanket around my legs and layers of jumpers on. You are right to highlight these extortionate charges. Money for nothing. Now that Government subsidies have come to an end, it will be even more difficult for pensioners to find the money just to keep alive. God sees and knows who the greedy people are and will bring them into judgement. The people responsible will not get away with their profiteering .

I'm so sorry for your trouble, it's galling to know how much they're charging you, when you hardly use your heat energy. This is truly evil, what is going on. Please hang in there, and keep posting.

I reckon Ted had the heating blasting away and having parties while you were away! 😂

Yes indeed. Have to keep a check on them every month to make sure they're not overcharging. They overcharged me several times. Estimating bills when I sent in meter readings. When you try to contact them on the phone it's the usual long wait to actually speak to a human being. Try and chat on their websites and you just get a robot.

The worst thing is wholesale gas prices have dropped lower than than they were before the big price hike in October. Yet the suppliers will not pass this onto any of the consumers. So they are blatantly keeping prices high to make extusionate profits from us all. And as for smart meters. I refuse to have one. They keep emailing me. Sending me letters phoning me and sending texts to book an installation. But they get told no or ignored. I see these as another form of tracing like you covered in your cashless vlog. Knowing when I'm in. What I'm using and when. It's too intrusive. They can also remotely disconnect your supply with the smart meter. This can affect non or late payments. So again as on a cashless society problems you raised The big corporations have taken control and Joe public is held to ransom. So be smart yourself. Cancel energy direct debits Refuse a smart meter as they are not mandatory. Do your own meter readings and only pay for what you use. And hold on to what little control you have left. Love this channel Great vlog. .

My friend has been going through this as a single mother.. Its so,so awful. The country is eroding faster and faster.

Don’t turn on the heating for an hour a day as it will be running flat out during that hour, it will warm the house up to well over outside temperature which will maximise heat loss. You would be better off on a thermostat keeping it just above freezing or at a low temperature which keeps temperature gradient to a minimum which also reduces heat loss. My electricity bill last year was zero as I’m off grid with solar panels but I have to economise in winter. Gas was £45 basically a gas bottle a year mainly for cooking in winter. Heating is foraged wood.

Speaking of train tickets to London. I took my wife last week and the cheapest return tickets were £286 not including the tube. So we drove down to Luton and back at a cost of £12,parked all day £9 and two return tickets with use of the tube all day in all areas £52. Bit of a difference compared to £286

We were paying 60-70 a month and were fixed. But, we moved house and had to end our fixed deal. Then we were at 300 or so a month over winter and that is with a brand new boiler and brand new windows and just 2 of us. There isnt much we could have cut back on without giving our pets hypothermia

Support from The Völve, Asatru shaman of Denmark and the lands of the North. I don't have gas but electric heating in my rural flat, here out by the coast. My electric bill was 6000 Danish kroner for three months (712 pounds), twice, this winter. Now it's down to 1750 (205) for three months. It has to do with Putin's war in Ukraine - but also greedy energy companies, charging extra for the 'transport of energy'. The press needs to focus on this issue. Cheers from The Völve

Makes you wonder, if they secretly charge a base rate hoping nobody will notice because you are expected to be using energy anyway.

Whatever you do. Do NOT let them install a "smart" meter in your home.

I live on the isle of man. I'm not loaded, I'm a Postie. Electric board just announced 60% increase next month. So there's a thing going round to cancel your direct debit. If we all do it they're knackered. Nice one David👊👊

I have had my supplier chasing me for years to try and convince me to have a smart meter installed. I'm so glad now I never got round to it. Ironically I had it booked at one point, but they never showed up (long story). This was about 4 years ago. I made it a point to never give them the time of day since. Looks like these meters are very smart indeed. Smart enough to inflate your usage and assist with legal robbery. I have a couple of other properties again with no smart meters. I think I'll stay away from them for as long as I can legally.

Keep it up brother, love the topics you choose to discuss. Fighting the good fight

I'm lucky, fixed in december 2021 when everyone was saying not to, fixed til jan 2024. I also don't have a smart meter and won't be getting one anytime soon. I send readings every month and have my own spreadsheet with my usage and costs calculated. I don't trust the energy companies to not have my own records.

Just stumbled across your channel. Love the fact that you don't swear. Goes to show you can express annoyance etc without bad language. Subscribed. Ps I love chimneys and learned to dry stone wall in the 70s.

Greetings from Slovakia. Man, at these rates it makes sense to have solar panels to support consumption even at Your location with lower yearly yield compared to lower latitudes. I am so shocked about the status of Your beautiful country from the first person perspective You share with us. Cross my fingers that things get better!

I have to put £10 gas on daily and I'm sure it's running out more quickly like they are putting the cost up weekly, absolutely annoyed, I can't save up any money for anything like household items, clothes etc!

I despise what energy companies are doing in the UK recently with overcharging vastly more than other EU countries. After listening to my old mum's advice I decided to have a 1 month experiment and live like she does - no gas supply, just an electric heater set to 0.5kw and live mainly in one room, same as when I was a kid and she was a kid and her dad was a kid. Before the experiment, in December my energy bill was approx £180 for the month. Wearing a wooly hat and a jumper indoors, like many generations before us, brought a January bill of £35 plus £17 standing charge. It's not hardship, this is the UK, not Iceland. Fossil fuels are gold plated income and the value and the end user cost will increase exponentially in the decades to come. Even though there are many energy alternatives they don't make such an easy profit as simply digging energy out of the ground. I despair for future generations. Anyway - now spring is here please switch off your heating, wear a hat and a jumper if you are cold.

Found your channel last week and watched everything. You make fantastic content. Moved from England to Australia and we are getting the same sort of thing with our power. People having to fork out so much money for power even before they have used any of it. Its criminal.

Nice one mate, people do need to talk about this as together we can fight the sods; conniving thieving ... well, you know where the rest of my sentence was going! x

My grandma was paying £150ish last year and then this year in about january EDF sent the bill through of £690 so i looked back through it and was trying to work out where the £690 was spent, she was in her 90s and was slim so she does have the heating on. but as a chap who worked and studied for provision of energy and green energy NVQs i did some maths and worked out that what they were charging was outrageous and if it wasn't for me spotting the bill and having a look they would have continued. this was the second month they had charged that. Thankfully my grandad was a smart man and had set her up with a reasonable private pension that he had paid out of his own pocket before he passed away so she could just about afford to cover that for only the time period before i did the maths and changed her to a new provider using the accurate figures of what she had used the year before with EDF and a slight increase based on what they had quoted for the year ahead. Up until she passed away at the end of april this year she paid no more than £230 a month for both gas and electricity (and the heating was set higher than your average user) When i was trying to leave EDF they were saying stuff like "leaving now isn't the best thing to do with the uncertainty" but my question was what was it not best for because they gave no clear indication as to what the down side was for her, so my assumption is that it was only bad for their profits. I feel like those things that we use as an essential means of living such as heating, electricity and water should be either better regulated or nationalised and therfore profit the greater good and not those large pockets of the Big Wig energy CEOs and stakeholders. I appreciate your rant and 100% sympathise with what you're saying and you're right, those of us that have the money shouldn't be penalised but also those who can't afford it should also not be punihed because some of them are unable to work or stuck in a job that doesn't render them the funds to then live with even the heating on for an hour a day because they are living scared of large bills followed by late fees and maybe even baliffs and court charges when they fall into that sinking pit where once they could just about budget to keep themselves and thei familes warm and are now left with bills they can't pay all huddled up under blankets trying their best to stay alive, hoping that the time passes quick enough and they survive the night where they can send their children off to school to be warm and go to a friends house or work to take away their own chills. The world we live in is absolutely twisted at the minute and its crippling all but the ones causing these same proiblems.

The national grid are the suppliers of gas and electricity to most homes within the UK. The so called suppliers charge you for use of the meter or the serial number of a meter. Fit your own meters, become the "supplier"and charge youreself the rate you deem acceptable. Come on people its time to wake up.

Do absolutely rant on about the charging for energy being made by the producers, but also recognise that it usually isn't your supplier/provider who is actually making much from this situation. They are capped as to how much profit they can make from their supplier operations. Those making the massive profits are the energy producers who are extracting gas and selling it to your supplier, who then have to sell it on to consumers and not make a loss on it (and go out of business, like many have). The other big problem is that the price of energy it fixed at the cost of the most expensive part of the supply going in to create our electricity supply, this is currently the same Gas (remember the "dash for gas") and that is very costly - but that system is a whole different complexity needing sorting.

I feel your pain lad The energy companies are ripping us all off big time. I am with EDF early April I re fixed for another two years. 2022 my direct debit was 126.00 per month, they have now put it up to 285.00 per month. I phoned them, that was a waste of time. My husband and I are both on the OLD state pension, husband has bad arthritis so we have to have the heating on. We are lucky that we do have some savings which we are having to dip into. Love Ted and your videos, try to stay positive lad.

My parents have lived in the same house for 40 years. It's a larger house tbh and obviously bills have gone up a lot over these years. for the last year they have had to pay an extra 500 a month. 6 grand a year. Extra. Double. Insane.

Now that ladies and gents is what you call a rant, Wandering turnip style.

Godd for you mate,it always seems to me that us Brits always pay the most than our European cousins.You need to be applauded for this

Funny when people get smart metres, there bills always go up !!! Lol 😆 🤣

Also, my water bill is ridiculous too.... me not mypartner admittedly shower as much, what with working from home more, yet bill has doubled. .. I even got paranoid someone had somehow got into my water supply cos it just doesn't make sense!! 😂😦😤

I saw a dead dear at the side of the road on Tuesday 23rd, on the road up from Heptenstall on the way you’d go to Widdop, but go past it and further up the road, someone had put it in a kind of ditch by a tree on the left, I thought it was a kangaroo at first, mum thought it was a tree branch, it’s the biggest animal I’ve seen dead 💔

Your dog is so cute. Almost distracts from the horrific story about profiteering

We feel your pain mate, we are screwed.... Standing charge alone fkn rip off..... The greedy bass could drop price and rake in less profits to help us out ... But no.... Screw them at coldest time of the year...... So fkn angry

Wo, straight from the heart. Same here, Austria.

I have fitted smart thermostats on my boiler and some radiators to ensure my heating is on only where and when I need it. They are set to pay for themselves in 2 years, but even if I only broke even within their lifespan I'd be happy as I'd rather give money to their manufacturer than to energy companies.

it's also effecting those of us who live on boats! The marina I was moored in last winter had electric meters for each berth, and you had to top up your electric card with credit to keep the meter running. No joke, i was spending £10 a day, A DAY, throughout October to January when I decided to leave the marina. That was just for keeping my batteries topped up, keeping my fridge freezer on, and using a blow heater for only a couple hours a day, and charging my laptop, as I had solar panels for my 12v lights and USB sockets, and a wood burner for my main source of heating. I don't understand how I was going through £10 a day for such basics. Adding about £300 p/m on top of an already expensive mooring fee. Still, it's slightly cheaper than renting a double room in London. The marina I'm in now is costing me less than £10 a week for the same electric usage. Tbf it is summer now, but my usage hasn't changed much as I'm still using my blow heater occasionally (it's not cold enough to warrant making a fire but still having nights where some heating is required).

They want people just stop using gas and electric, the price hike being the mechanism to do it.

Excellent chat about it all. Met a friend yesterday who has a flat and economy 10 night heating. I had heard of economy 7 but not 10 Too many different prices. The French protest with big bonfires in city centres, we should try that approach too

Natural gas prices are at a 20 year low, they did spike last year but right now it is at a 20 year low. The standing charges are the killer, it is money for nothing and it is high time people and there is 10s of millions of us Vs a dozen major players in the utility supply sector, stand up against these greedy corporations. That is the only way to solve this problem.

Monthly electricity bill for a family of four in Thailand is around 1,500 baht. That’s 35 quid.

The news on the radio said the energy price cap was not going to rise in April as the wholesale price of gas is lower. That's good I thought, but then came the bad news. The £400 everyone got over the last 6 months ended this month. it was £60 off everyone's monthly amount, so next month, although the cap will not rise, it will be £60 extra more per month. I had been paying just £40 month a year ago, then Avro went bust, so I got put with Octopus, and the bill was £125 month for about 5 months, for the last 6 months, it was £68 month, but this will no doubt be back at more than £120 month from now on. Luckily I don't use much energy, and my thermostat is set at 14c. I feel sorry for elderly people who live in homes they have lived in for decades, and will not have turned their heating down enough, and through habit, lack of smart meter etc, have used loads of gas over the winter, as their bills will be massive.

I’m writing this in January 2024. My energy bill is surprisingly cheap (compared to yours). I rent an old cottage with single glazed windows and it’s all electric. The house is freezing and our storage heaters 1 cost £5 a day to have on and 2 are rubbish. Fortunately we have a wood burner so we don’t ever put the heating on, I use about £70 worth of logs a month and around £10 of coal. No gas bill. Our electric is around £60-£80 a month depending how long we’re at home. However when people come round our house they usually can’t believe how cold it is, the living room gets very warm with wood burner but the rest of the house you can genuinely see your breath. We use an electric blanket at night to stop us freezing

What pisses me of the most is these companies are bragging about record profits and we suffer there is only so much people will take then the shit will hit the fan

Get rid of the smart meter. Prices change instantly with them automatically.Daily even.NEVER have a smart meter.

Take a thermal camera and inspect your property. I cut kWhs used by 20% by replacing window and door seals, and improving insulation above my bathroom which cost me £30

I used to work for Scottish Power and left as I got disilusioned to how they treat their customers. You can ring BG every month and change your tariff if you want. Not many people know that.

I’m living in Sweden and am on a fixed rate at the moment, but my son had his heating on and for December his bill was nearly £1000 and he doesn’t earn much. He’s had to turn everything off 🫣 - total nightmare. Sweden is apparently the worst for energy costs in Europe even though we don5 use gas and have loads of wind and hydroelectric power. Doesn’t make any sense, does it! Love seeing your videos - I love it all round Hebden. Used to walk my little dog round there loads before I emigrated and I miss it!

Standing charges and also the prices are ridiculous. Question why were the energy companies allowed to raise standing charges?

Another instance where we are being screwed. The gas and oil wholesale prices are not that high...Profiteering because they can..They go up so quickly but don't come down quickly

I live in London but have a house in Italy. Same there. I only use my Italian home for holidays.. still the bills are crazy even though it says I have used 0

I quite agree with you. The thing is that because of the standing charges for utility (gas elec water) it does not push us to consume less because of the irreducible cost of it. I did some ball park calculation on the effect of changing your bulb to led, all these kind of changes in our home. Not worth that much at the end !

That's the problem with so called smart meters, you pay more with those, there is no obligation to have one fall stop.

You m8 are a great speaker and ambassador for the ordinary people 👍🙏

It's ridiculous. My energy bill is a very similar amount to yours. I am disabled and am home all the time and I can't afford to have my home warm. The smart meter is a joke, it says I spent £178 last month, yet the bill they emailled me for last month was £208. My standing charge and unit rate are very similar to yours as well. I've lost my rag on the phone to them a few times now and even stated once that it would be cheaper to disconnect the supplies and get a generator and watch a bag of coal burn in my living room, at least I'd be warm..

58 p a day to have electricity connected to my house or in other words 211.20 a year!

Corbyn wanted to nationalise them all again. We need coal fired power stations, and coal mines reopened. Now they're all foreign owned, including the trains.

You are doing legitimate journalism. You should do a video on the trees that are dying everywhere...on which they will blame "climate change"...but it's not that killing them. Some soil samples would solve the mystery...especially the aluminium levels.

I work full time, never put the fire or heating on. Sit in the living room in a sleeping bag to keep warm. We must be the envy of the world

Putin warned the west a long time ago that spot pricing energy/putting energy to auction would cause these problems. He wanted to stick with 3 year contracts to keep stability and of course the west didn’t want that because that meant stability for Russia, the west want regime change in Russia and we are all having to pay for that, even if it fails or backfires which it most definitely is.

We all live under the money makers with billions in profit that we pay them, I solve it by a small wood burner I use in winter, saving gas use heat and some cooking, I bought a small camping fridge and keeping the main fridge, freezer, on lowest setting over winter, with solar lights lasting two to three days lights up all rooms with out using mains, I sympathise with you mate but it's turning us all back to burning candles like the twentys, my advice is change your providers like I did, my gas and elec at moment is a month dd, 83, quid, she'll company, but that's about to change in August.

I like the ranting. Its like me every day now.

Don’t pay it ever

I am elderly living in California and my utilities are insanely high too! I had to stop using my fridge and and furnace. I use down blankets and a small electric oil radiator, living area 55F-60F or lower. I do not know what I’m going to do in summer which is insanely hot here 95F-115F Crazy high costs for utilities is exactly why sooooo many people here are living in their vans and other vehicles on state and government land.

Thanks BROTHER.

Where I live in Spain energy prices have reduced, considerably, because the government has taken control and capped the prices. For a 10euro refundable deposit we get free suburban rail travel. The deposit is returned if you do 16 journeys in 3 months. This is paid for by a tax on the energy companies. We have a government that is doing what it is supposed to do, look after the people. It's up to the English to ensure their government does the same. -

When I was living in the UK in the 90's, I had a one bedroom flat, and my electric was less than 30 quid a month and gas was even lower.. Today living in Florida, my electric is around $300 a month - it's been very hot so AC is on most of the time. We are all electric, no gas.

Your rant is good. I had been trying to understand what the huge increase in power cost were about in England. They seem crazy compared with our costs.

i must say. your seriously above your game!!! you just need the right nerve to hit, the right news report to touch, and i think u may make a difference. you have the voice to speak to everyone!

Time well spent bringing this topic to us all. Many people are having a hard time paying their bills. Trouble ahead for the power companies when Many people can't afford to pay. Specially the pensioners and lower income households. How about trying to get someone in government to answer for this situation that they have put pensioners in. It's a disgrace that pensioners don't get more help with their energy bills.

I was VERY wrong when I suggested Utilita as being a good choice, they were but not now. Around the 2nd of March we had a smart meter put in, the electric fixing won't connect via whatever they use & We haven't had gas central heating for almost 2 weeks now & with -7C & snow, We have a £600 Gas bill which we can't pay because it's either pay gas or electric but not both, ALL of our food now comes from the foodbank. My Husband is autistic & I have long term heart & lung health problems which utilita know about but STILL insist on us paying the gas bill.

As I understand it (I don’t understand it, but I do my best), the standing charge increased to claw back the lost income from the energy companies that went bust in 2021 with big energy debts.

Gas companies have got their own men in the regulator. Its the regulator put in place by the government which decides things like standing charges. Things like that mean the poor are subsidising the rich.

Like petrol prices are dar too high for the price of oil not being at a high level

Thank you so much . Do not worry about a rant. We need to rant .

Cancelled my direct debits and told my utility companies how much i was prepared to pay. In a nutshell, i informed them that they could accept my offer or i would change supplier. Both companies backed down and i pay by standing order from now on

Hi Again David Almost forgot to say ? What we Really & Truly need Around & In this World is an Open Forum For Debate ! Where we Share such Opinions As Yours ! I Hope You Have Opened Up a Great Can of Worms ! & Kickstarted ‘ TRUE FORUM DEBATE ‘ Nice One Dude !

my dear old dad used to say you want to put your point across to politicians an govs.......PROTEST fight the powers that be 😡😤🤬😈✊

I love all your genuine honest straight Videos, keep it up!👍

British Gas are a total rip off. I was with them at my last place, I had no choice because it had a pay as you go meter in and I was renting. I've just bought my own house in December last year and now I'm with Utilities Warehouse and I'm saving a fortune.

This is what happens when companies are sold off and only operate for profit for the share holders. Gas, electric , phones , water and railways.

Never ever get a smart meter. I won’t have one I stopped my direct debit and just pay them monthly online and gets a good one I send my own readings in and I’ve never had a meter reader out in years and I only pay £40 a month never ever have a smart meter and I don’t pay any more