Ofgem Wonders If Squeezing Monthly £65 Profit Out Of Customers, Then Raising Prices Might Be Something To Look Into

Those giraffes don't feed themselves, point out energy suppliers

Energy regulator Ofgem today announced that there might possibly be something not entirely scrupulous about the way in which, in the middle of a recession, energy companies have succeeded in yanking an average £90 net monthly profit out of each and every hard-pressed customer’s threadbare wallet in October, a 38% rise compared to the previous month’s modest mark-up of £65.

“By March 2011, by which time everyone will be either flat broke or frozen into an icicle, with a bit of luck we might be in a position to say whether companies are playing it straight with consumers,” yawned Ofgem chief executive Alistair Buchpasser sleepily, as he prepared for the regulator’s annual hibernation. "Greater transparency in the market is good for consumers, investors and for the energy industry as a whole. Right, time for bed. Wake us up in spring."

“We have nothing to hide,” commented Energy UK, the industry’s representative body, in a press release dropped in a Fabergé egg from its fabulously expensive flying island headquarters. “The gas our members supply is 100% transparent, just like the gas that Ofgem occasionally spouts – and, like Ofgem, electricity is a completely invisible force.”

“If there are any further questions,” they added, “We shall be dangling an unimaginably expensive length of rope, luxuriously woven from strands of the purest gold and platinum, for you to piss up as we float serenely by.”