Compass seem to feel they are gaining momentum in their campaign for a windfall tax on energy companies, after asking a bunch of turkey's to vote for Christmas they strangely got the answer they wanted...an amazing way to spend the donations given to them on this issue. However as of today the parallels can now be drawn between compass and the government in which both bodies are happy to take money from those that think it's going to go towards something meaningful, but actually will only be used to prop up measures to serve personal and selfish gains.

The government has announced a £1bn social housing plan, along side a £600m stamp duty reduction. So that's £1.6bn the government is pumping in to making the middle classes even more comfortable with their investments, echo's of Northern Rock are already ringing in our ears surely over this attitude, saving those that probably shouldn't have bought a house in the first place, lending money for free to those that probably shouldn't be buying a house right now, and to funding social housing that should have been funded in the first place with such money.

To put this in perspective, £1.6bn is roughly 6% of the yearly profits of the energy companies in the UK. Would a windfall tax have asked for more than 6%? I suppose the question is immaterial now since the question is now very firmly why a government should be able to take money from big business when it obviously had the huge levels of money to reallocate for this vanity project to bring swing voters back on board with Labour. £1.6bn put in to some level of insulation initiative and in to social tariffs would have made a huge difference to vast swathes of those people that are in fuel poverty this year. This government has publicly stated that the luxury of owning a home is more important than the "luxury" of living in adequate warmth and light through the winter.

Could this now, please, be the end of this stupid windfall tax call? It's about time Compass realised that their political play has not worked and would never have worked given how loose and ill-formed their strategy was, and now to concentrate on asking questions about the priorities of this government along with the rest of us.