Enough of the London Weighting – let look at energy bills

thenational.scot · Feb 22, 2026 · Collected from GDELT

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BEING in the south of England for a couple of days last week, I couldn’t help notice how much warmer it was than here in Scotland. True, I was slightly west of London and so it could have been all the hot air from Westminster being blown on that east wind but the serious point is that it is much warmer “down south”. Of course, Westminster has spent much of the past weeks discussing the appalling friendship of a now ex-member of the appalling House of Lords and the appalling leadership of another soon-to-be ex-prime minster. And that is instead of discussing the things that really matter to people. And it gave me an idea. The London Weighting allowance was set up to cover the supposedly higher cost of living in London in a time well before the digital age, but do all those businesses really need to be located in such a small area of the country nowadays? And with the figures suggesting that the cost of heating is much higher the further north you live, why should it be only London that has a weighting? My new system would balance out cost of energy, and particularly heating, but for everyone in the UK. An energy weighting! Based on how far north you live. We could simply start on the south coast of England, and the further north you live, an increasing allowance would be paid to compensate for colder weather. But that would incur more cost for the Government at a time when there is so much else to pay for so maybe it would be better to take the midpoint, which by latitude is roughly a line through Morpeth, and on that latitude they would get zero compensation. South of Morpeth, people would pay increasingly more tax but as you go north of Morpeth, you would get an increasing reduction in tax to compensate for the higher energy bills. Simple. And, Ed Miliband, very “worth it” if you live in Shetland. Because, Ed, the price cap is a cap on the rate, not on the total amount someone could have to pay to stay warm. Now, the more astute among you will realise that there are many more people living south of the latitude of Morpeth and so much more heating tax would be paid than would be needed to compensate those living north of the Morpeth latitude. Brilliant, that extra money could go to all the infrastructure costs that we are told are covered by our hugely increased bills. And that seems to me to be perfectly fair: those furthest from the source of the energy pay more. Isn’t that how it should be, unlike the current biased system which so often charges you more to consume and even to generate electricity the further you are from SE England? How mad is that! But it’s obviously never going to happen. The point here, though, is that while these people in Westminster are discussing the affairs of a small number of people, they are not discussing and fixing the issues that affect the many. The Believe in Scotland campaign on energy costs has shown us that Labour – and all other Unionist MSPs in Scotland, in fact – are not interested in actually dealing with this issue. They carry on from where the Tories left off in spending billions on cost overruns on, for me, stupidly expensive and seriously delayed nuclear power stations and pinning their hopes on the new mini nuclear stations which haven’t even been designed yet, let alone built, while the same money could have been spent on progressing the development of various forms of tidal energy, micro hydro, solar panels on every large rooftop and even more-so on insulating many homes to a standard that reduces the need for so much heating. We so need independence to get away from the crazy marginal pricing system in use and the extra money in our bills that pays for these nuclear power stations, and, let’s not forget, to get to a point where, crucially, Scotland can be earning money from exporting energy, either to other parts of these islands or to Europe via the North Sea ring when it is finally up and running. Now that is worth it!Rab Mungall Dunfermline “DO you know where I could get a copy of the Reform manifesto?” I asked the busy shop assistant, who the day before had enthused about Farage’s latest business venture, masquerading as a political party. “No idea,” came the reply. According to the latest poll, Reform are on course to come second in the Scottish parliamentary elections, so what have Reform UK got to offer Scotland? Here is what we can expect from Farage’s manifesto. He would abolish the Scottish Parliament, reintroduce prescription charges, privatise the National Health Service and end the return of free university education. Is any Scottish voter going to vote Reform knowingly? Farage has said that Scotland is spending English taxpayers’ money on free university education. Is he aware that Scotland gives £200 billion to the UK Treasury and has one-eighth of the population of the UK as a whole? Why did no-one challenge this? He also plans to build detention centres for unwanted visitors. Without migrants, the NHS would soon be chronically short of labour. Why did no-one challenge this? Farage is the “Architect of Brexit” and so potential voters are electing him on the basis of his disaster. His popularity is based on scapegoating. All our problems have a direct correlation with immigration, migration or asylum seekers, they say. For Scottish voters, immigration policy is reserved to Westminster. Scotland has no control who comes here. In Scotland, the culture is “no matter where you’re from, everybody’s local”. Until now. Counter their argument by asking who the biggest group of migrants are. Poles, Africans, South Asians? They will be surprised when your reply is: 700,000 English people! A look at Farage’s ancestry shows that he is undoubtedly Huguenot, that is French “protestant”, who were persecuted by the Roman Church. It is widely accepted that his ancestors fled France for the English coast. Farage was born in Kent, so his ancestors did not migrate very far. His ancestors, in other words, were asylum seekers! Had it not been for the kindness of the good people of Kent, his ancestors would literally have been dead in the water. It is interesting to note that Reform supporters voted against the Conservatives in the last UK election, now Reform resembles a nursing home for ex-Tories! Malcolm Offord, leader of Reform in Scotland, helped scupper the deposit return scheme as a Scotland Office minister under Alister Jack, warning that it might cause extra work for firms – but he was a major shareholder in a whisky company that would be affected! It was stated that Reform are a business masquerading as a political party. Reports have been received that Farage received a cheque for £9 million from a sympathetic and (very rich) donor! The Reform story is one of hypocrisy, corruption and the gullibility of Scots voters once dubbed the most politically aware in Europe, thanks to Hardie, McLean, Gallagher and Maxton. Reform will cause untold damage to a progressive Scotland.WJ Graham East Kilbride THE most economic damage to our country in the last decade has been done by Brexit – no ifs, no buts, the impact on our economy has been staggering and quite frankly breathtaking. So, we need to ask ourselves: who was responsible for promoting Brexit? Well, it was none other than the leader of Reform UK, Nigel Farage MP. Hot on the heels of Brexit were the 14 years of austerity handed out by the Conservatives, a time when the rich got richer and the poor got poorer – something that is still with us today under Labour. With this record in mind and all the baggage, how on earth are recent opinion polls for the Holyrood election in May indicating Reform UK could become the main opposition in Scotland? Mr Farage has just appointed a shadow cabinet from ex-members of the Conservative Party who inflicted so much damage on the economy. Are we seriously wanting more of the same? Perhaps we need to take stock and ask ourselves some questions. Questions like, are Mr Farage and Reform a one-trick pony, peddling the same message over and over again? And what about Reform’s plan to scrap the Equality Act? Could we expect Reform to address climate change when they have effectively binned global warming, and do we seriously believe Reform will not endeavour to make the rich richer while hanging the vulnerable, the sick and disabled out to dry? And under Reform, would our Parliament have a future? Scotland, in well over half a century, has not voted for right-wing parties and I have faith in Scotland’s voters to continue this practice, sending a clear message to Reform: your far right-wing politics are not welcome in our socially just Scotland.Catriona C Clark Falkirk I WATCHED the first episode of “The Tony Blair Story” on Channel 4. I’m also well over halfway through Nicola Sturgeon’s book, Frankly. Believe it or not, these are totally interlinked in my consciousness. If you are well baffled, please bear with me. I’ll explain. I’m now 65 years old and of a generation of Scots that loathed Maggie Thatcher’s Tory government with a passion. That damned wuman just seemed to go on and on and on back in the day, inflicting relentless pain on us Scots and other unfortunate communities throughout the UK! I used that term deliberately because she said herself, the day she announced the date of the 1987 General Election, that she intended “to go on and on and on”. Anyway, she did eventually resign in 1990 but those bloody Tories were elected yet again, under the leadership of John Major, in 1992. You can therefore just imagine the undiluted joy of loads of us Scots and millions of others in the UK when Tony Blair’s Labour won a landslide victory in May 1997, finally kicking those vile Tories out of power after 18 long, tortuous years. I was definitely one of them. I was on holiday in the Yorkshire Dales at the time. The day after the election, I had climbed a hill and sat there at the top looking at a beautiful view of the Dales on a sunny, balmy day. When I thought of the election result,