We are led by donkey's and fleeced by profiteers

V Brooker, Wallington, Surrey

We should embrace the joys of allowing our vital services to be multicultural.

Mr Brown has shown us time and again how we benefit from allowing foreign entities to own our gas and electricity companies.

The very thought that foreign companies are cheating British consumers leaves me cold.

hirry ewal, exeter, england

I surely hope that this is a wake up call to all those in Government that sitting on your hands not wanting to take difficult decision is a sure way for disaster.
This is a result of the dash for Gas of the 1990s & no plan to build new power stations to replace the ageing fleet.

Alistair, Leicestershire,

MarkS Leeds - the fact that your electricity prices doubled probably means that you were on a very cheap business contract for the past few years that has just expired. So 2 tips a) check what's happened in the world of enegy in that time and b) read your contract properly regarding notice!

John Smith, Warrington, Cheshire

Matt, true enough it was not the current government who privatised the electricity industry, but it was the current government who permitted, if not encouraged, the sell out of the British owned private companies in the interests of "European integration" aka abject surrender .

D.L. Stehens, York, England

This has now become a matter of national security.

Chip, London,

Back to the horse and cart, oil lamps and candles. We are told to expect higher prices for food and energy, is that to allow these industries to make enermous profits.Just changing parties in goverment won,t make this go away, its up to the electorate to make sure that the goverment listens.

David, Helsinki, Finland

Private companies failing to sell is not in their best interests. It's daft to say foreigners don't care whether the lights are kept on, I promise you they do are about money, and the two are synonymous - no lights, no profit. The CEGBs used the buy-out pricing system as well, that's not the problem

Jane, Nottingham,

This Government decommissioned Nuclear power stations costing Billions. So reliance on fossil fuels (oil,gas, coal) wouldn't be a risky strategy: Come On. 10 yrs on, suddenly Nuclear Power does have role, billions wasted and more billions to spend catching up. Knee jerk politics costing us every way

Athar, London, UK

There is something very very wrong with the energy market - and I'm not talking about oil.

There appears to be a cartel operating. nPower has just
doubled our electricity price but of course did not tell us until AFTER the 90 day notice period to change suppliers had passed.

It stinks.

MarkS, Leeds,

Remember California when the electricity suppliers were privatised. Expensive secondary generators purchased by the geek companies. Whole area at the mercy of the new owners. Sounds like Britain, now at the mercy of German companies who own EON and PowerGen.

JANE FLEMING, Whittlesey, UK

We should Renationalise the basics of life we can not live without, power and water should be owned by Britain and operated by the government otherwise we are just giving our resources away to the other countries.

joe, Edinburgh, Scotland

Some unrealistic posts (the Tories won't change the regime, renationalise? : that's barking! and Giles infers more than the piece states). Think about whose interest would it be to leak this information? The market players perhaps who profit from the current regime? All is never as it seems.

Occam, Solihull, UK

Nationalisation is not the key - global experience will show you that. The fact that prices reach this high is the signal for more investment - you destroy those signals and you destroy any chance of proper investment. Best plan: privatise the world wide oil industry to lower oil prices.

robert arbon, London,

The nationalised Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB), which integrated both generation and grid distribution, had a statutory duty to "keep the lights on" - the private companies don't! After nearly 20 years since privatisation the whole system is falling apart - surprised? Not at all!!!!!

Tony, Bristol,

0.5Mil homes is not a lot of power and peak units do cost a LOT more to operate than baseload facilities... end result... so what?! National Grid is just the balancer/operator and owner of the system, if it can't afford the cost then it should pass the cost on to those causing the failure beyond FM

Giles, London, UK

The market must have high prices during short term shortages as this is currently the only incentive to build new fast response plant. There is no capacity payment. By 2015 Grain, Littlebrook and Fawley will close (LCPD) and greater wind power plus larger nuclear units will require more reserves.

Steve A, Solihull,

I remember that when Gas, Electric and Water was owned by the state there was a general feeling of it belonging to us, the people. Now it's private they don't.

I pay a water rate and since privatisation I have NEVER saved a drop of water because I pay the same either way.

Dave Kinsley, Derby, UK

Why didn't the National Grid buy power when it was offered at less than half the price that E.ON was seeking? seems their failure to act quickly in a fast paced market ending up costing over £375 per megawatt hour.

Giles, Singapore, Singapore

Renationalise, renationalise, renationalise.The three 'R's which government has got to learn.

Paulus, London , UK

I really don't think you can blame the Labour government for the power industry being in private, foreign hands as they weren't the ones who sold it off with promises of greater competition, more choice and lower prices for consumers. Can someone remind me who did that?

Matt, Nottingham,

That's the free energy market for you. Opportunist behaviour is quite likely when the customer has no other options. We need to develop those options now, and forget the Labour doctrine of do nothing and hope it will all work out OK.

colin, Shrewsbury UK,

One thing that can be truly laid at the door of the Labour Government is its complete and utter failure over the last 10 years to plan energy security. There has been a window of opportunity to plan for the future which has been missed and now Britain is almost completely in the hands of foreigners.

John, Manchester,

11 years of Labour government,and how many nuclear power stations have been built, to replace antique stations? Yep : zero. Incompetence is not the word. We are hostage to imported fuel,rising costs,strikes and sell-outs to other nations. Crisis? What crisis? as Callaghan was reputed to have said.

David, Oxford,