People have taken to social media to criticise outgoing prime minister Boris Johnson for suggesting Brits buy a £20 kettle to save £10 in electricity bills over the next 12 months.
The viral clip is a tad harsh on Boris since the quote has been taken out of context. The PM was actually using an analogy as part of a wider point about the short term pain, long term gains of nuclear power.
(Nuclear power, Boris noted, always ‘looks – when you begin – relatively expensive to build and run’, but if Hinkley Point C nuclear power station in Somerset were running now, it would be cutting ‘our national fuel bills by £3 billion’.)
But don’t get it twisted: there have been some truly irksome tips for managing the cost of living crisis in UK households going around. Because yes, there are things you can do to save money on your energy bills, and yes there are lots of reasons for being more energy efficient and not leaving your charger in for five years straight. But no amount of charging your devices in the office can make up for the structural issues at play which mean energy bills could jump from (on average) £1,971/year to £5,386.
And to add insult to injury, the advice is often coming from quarters who... well, should maybe be getting on with governing or running profit-busting energy companies instead of telling us to use the air fryer.
The backlash to kettlegate yesterday shows how sick to the back teeth people are of such preaching. So, here are some of the standouts from the school of ‘it’s your problem, not ours’. Still, maybe there’s something in them …
Every little helps?
Tory MP George Eustice told Sky News in May that switching to supermarket own-brands – in old money, Sainbury’s basics – would help ‘contain and manage’ runaway household budgets. Or, as the Lib Dem’s Wendy Chamberlain eloquently put it, ‘He’s totally missed the point. Hard-up Brits have brought own brand foods for years. The problem is now that money is so tight they can’t afford to buy, full stop.’ Amen.
Do star jumps
In January, Britain’s third-biggest energy supplier apologised after it advised customers to keep their heating bills low by ‘having a cuddle with your pets’, eating ‘hearty bowls of porridge’ and ‘doing a few star jumps’. After a furious backlash to the email, which went out to customers of SSE, owned by Ovo, the supplier said it was ‘embarrassed by the advice’.
Fry hard
The key thing, boss of energy company Utilita Bill Bullen told Times Radio, is to look at the way that people cook. ‘Over 40 per cent of people are still using the oven and there are just cheaper appliances people can use, microwaves, slow cookers, and particularly air fryers.’ So, splash out on a shiny new air fryer. As big ideas go, we're not exactly cooking with gas, are we?
Flip reverse it
Try looking at it the other way around, suggested Tory MP Anthony Browne at a treasury committee meeting last week. ‘Do you think it’s better to increase disposable incomes or to reduce energy bills?’ he said. ‘The risk of reducing energy bills obviously is you encourage people to burn more energy.’ So, yes, really, soaring bills are doing you a favour? The logic is lost on us...
Wave goodbye to your bills
Unsurprisingly, Jennipher Marshall-Jenkinson, the president of the Microwave Association, says microwaves are the most cost-cutting appliances. She claims that using a microwave instead of a hob could cut a household’s energy bills by up to £5 a month, or as much as £60 a year. As Nigella Lawson would say, time to fire up the mee-cro-wah-vay.
Do everything at night
Here is the ‘exact time you should use four household appliances for cheapest energy bills’, roared The Sun this week. Helpful. The exact time, it turns out, is anywhere between 11pm and 8am, although the article admits even this may vary. If you have a ‘time of use tariffs’, or Economy 7 or 10 tariffs, you see, you’ll pay less money at nighttime for your kettle, washing or drying machine and dishwasher, when fewer people are using the national grid.
Get back to the office
The Daily Telegraph says that you WFH slackerscan save £28 a week by going into the office to save on heating, charging your devices there, heating your food there, making your two cups of tea or coffee a day there, heck, even showering there. Lucky you. ‘Thank goodness commuting to the office is free,’ tweeted commentator Sam Freeman. ‘Oh wait.’