There is much we do not know about the government’s new plans to help people out with their energy bills.
We do not know how much they will cost. We do not have a clear sense of how they will be financed or paid for. We do not know precisely how the scheme will work in Northern Ireland or, for that matter, the unit costs at which gas and electricity are to be capped.
But here are a few things we do know.
The first is that this will be a momentous fiscal intervention – perhaps the single most expensive tax or spend policy in peacetime history.
The second is that while this is certainly a big and unconventional move, it is not dissimilar from interventions we’re seeing across much of Europe. We are all in the same boat, or rather similar boats in a tempestuous sea.
Simply put, now that we can no longer rely on Russian gas supply, there is much less energy around in Europe these days. That is pushing up prices to levels which would crash all of our economies and send…
