BP has announced a huge profits bonanza. The massive corporation saw a massive 138% increase in its profits for the first three months of the year. Meanwhile, the situation for the poorest people in the UK continues to worsen. Yet a Tory minister has again ruled out hitting the likes of BP where it hurts.
BP: laughing all the way to the bank
BBC News reported on BP’s profits. It noted that:
The energy giant reported an underlying profit of $6.2bn (£4.9bn) compared to $2.6bn in the same period last year – ahead of expectations.
BP said the increase was due in part to “exceptional oil and gas trading”.
The rise is an increase of 138%. It comes after BP made $12.8bn (£9.5bn) profit in 2021 – not dissimilar to Shell’s $19bn profit. As author and researcher Christine Berry tweeted:
$6.2bn is around £5bn, or roughly £75 for every single person in the country. That's how much profit BP has made in just *three months*. Meanwhile the government claims it can't afford to support people more with the cost of living. Absolutely scandalous. https://t.co/ffnL3QiEEf
— Christine Berry (@oeufling) May 3, 2022
Indeed – and the government was still claiming this on Tuesday 3 May.
The government: ‘what crisis?’
Dan Walker interviewed international trade minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan on BBC Breakfast. She disagreed with a so-called “windfall tax” – where the government would hit energy companies with a one-off financial sting:
Dan Walker: Do you oppose a windfall tax
Anne-Marie Trevelyan: Yes
DW: Our viewers will be tearing their hair out at that.. BP made their highest underlying profit in a decade… & people will be listening to you while making the choice between heating & eating#BBCBreakfast pic.twitter.com/yUatZgXctV
— Haggis_UK
(@Haggis_UK) May 3, 2022
So, while BP continues to rake it in, the Tory government sits on its hands. Meanwhile, the poorest people are already facing an even bleaker winter.
BP and the government: waging class war
As The Canary previously reported, think tank the Resolution Foundation has said that 62%, or nearly two-thirds, of the poorest households are under what it calls “fuel stress” right now – the new term for fuel poverty. It’s forecasting that come October, when another energy price rise hits, this figure will rise to 80%:
But as the Resolution Foundation’s Jonathan Marshall wrote, it’s not the same for everyone:
four in five of the poorest families face fuel stress this October, compared with just one in 50 of the richest
All this is without soaring food prices, a real-terms social security cut of £10bn and inaction from the government.
What do you call it when corporations like BP rake it in and the government stands idly by? It’s class war, not a cost of living crisis – and as each day passes, the situation only gets worse.
Featured image via Global Panorama – Flickr, resized to 770×403 under licence CC BY-SA 2.0, LBC – YouTube and The Canary
By Steve Topple
This post was originally published on The Canary.