Truss

Listening to Liz Truss yesterday, when being grilled by BBC local radio stations around the country, a recurring theme/phrase throughout was "It is all due to Putin's appalling war on Ukraine". This seemed to be part of her stock answers to questions about Kwasi Kwarteng's appalling "Financial Event" last Friday. (Note: he couldn't call it a budget as he had broken his own governments' rules on setting budgets which mandates that any budget statement can only be made after consultation with the Office for Budget Responsibility and publication of their view). She decided that rising inflation and sky rocketing energy costs were all a result of Russia and their actions re Ukraine. She is totally ignoring the fact that EU/UK/USA sanctions are hitting the EU & UK much harder than they are hitting Russia. Major energy consumers in Europe refused to pay for their gas in Rubles, a condition imposed by Russia as a quid pro quo for sanctions designed to hammer Russia economically. And fair enough; if I was a seller of a commodity, I would be quite within my rights to stipulate payment must be made in whatever currency I wanted. After various moves and counter-moves by both sides, Germany's access to the gas from Nord Stream 1 was cut off. Nord Stream 2 was not a viable alternative as the US had told Germany they must not commission that route or else Nord Stream 2 would be hit with sanctions. (And that was before Russia's invasion of Ukraine).

Anyway, back to Mrs Truss and her attempts to shift the blame for her own government's incompetence onto Russia's "appalling war on Ukraine". A review of wholesale gas prices shows wholesale gas price on December 21st 2021 was 451.68p per therm. On February 24th 2022 it was 321.05p per therm. February 24th was the day Russia invaded Ukraine, so a significant date. Yet the price on that day was 128.95 per therm, LOWER than the December 2021 price. By March 7th, the price spiked and reached a new high of 540.43p per therm and 2 weeks later, March 21st, it was 227.27p. Half of the previous December's figure! The following 5 months was a series of minor rises/falls around the 200p mark. The price began a steady rise throughout July, eventually reaching the December 2021 figure of 450p on August 18th. This was followed by a series of spikes, reaching 640.91p on August 26th. From then, until today, September 30th, there has been a series of falls and rises until the price reached 249.04 on September 29th. Today, there seems to have been another spike with the latest price (September 30th) showing 383.25p. But then, today is a day AFTER Truss was blaming all the financial woes of this country on Russia. Perhaps her comments caused the sudden spike in prices? Addendum: While writing this, the price has risen to 380p.