If there is one thing that this news of a renewed push by Compass and it's supporters of the Windfall Tax shows, it's that Labour are indeed in desperate times. It's not really that they're pushing for a potentially market destabilising tax at the height of an economic crisis, nor that they're actually ignoring their original mantra and reasoning for pushing for a windfall tax by also ignoring that Brown and Darling has done their first and only good deal on long term energy saving measures paid for primarily by the energy companies. No, it's all about the language they're using.

Calling for a windfall tax to help working families, Mr Woodley said "lagging the lofts won't stop us lagging in the polls". - BBC

Indeed, this isn't about actually making people better off in the long term, goddamnit! This is purely about making sure our opinion poll points take a rise so we're not so close to becoming the third party!

Michael Meacher

Except that rising wholesale costs threaten to mean that the energy companies that would most bare the brunt of this tax would risk being left destitute by the Compass wishes for a £6bn profit grab and run. I've detailed this before but such an amount could be anything from 20-25% of the entire profits made from energy in the UK last year. That is to say last year, of course, given that £1.6bn is now getting tied up through more positive Government moves and that the economy is crumbling around us. Would Robin Hood have been happy to lead the charge towards a potential autocratic style monopoly of a body over the British people, I kind of got the idea from the stories that he was somewhat against taking power away from the people.

Of course maybe that is my doomsaying, I've only got the example of Lloyds TSB and HBOS to show as an example of how destabilising companies too much can lead to their collapse, along with the government happily relaxing competition law to better protect the public in the short term...

Michael Meacher said millions of pensioners and families faced "a stark choice" this winter of whether to pay for rising fuel bills or to feed themselves. - BBC

Indeed, and while the party stands up and defends policies that increase the tax burden disproportionately on the poor, and talk out potential legislation that could save them money because the proposer is in opposition, you have no right to say that money should come from people that are successful. Where does such an attitude end? Once you've milked the energy industry dry, who's next? Banks? Missed the boat on that one I'm afraid, but perhaps airlines? Wait...your taxation is already helping to put small companies out of business there so the well is pretty dry. Dang.

Of course all of this actually assumes something else...

Critics have said the £910m plan is flawed because energy firms will simply pass on the cost of funding new schemes onto fuel bills. - BBC

I love the idea that this plan reached by Darling and Brown is so bad because the costs will be passed on to the customers, potentially. What, you really think that a 20% windfall tax won't eventually find its way out of our pockets either? This is perhaps the biggest problem I have with these jumpy, panicky and knee-jerk Labour supporters.

They're hopping around crying out for this policy as if they're all drowning in the water and it's the only life raft in sight...for them it is everything, it's being pushed so fervently it is like it is the only hope left for the left. It ignores reality, it ignores that such a high tax will likely be passed on to us, and it ignores that half of their bloody wishes have been already satisfied by the £1.6bn deal. It's a short term measure, and they know it...if they can get an extra £250-£500 or so in to every household in "fuel poverty" this year then they know they have potentially gained enough voters to win the next election.

But what exactly does that matter if the year after that the rising costs through lack of intelligent planning and investment plunge another 500,000 homes in to fuel poverty...and the same again after that? People when asked about this windfall have said they'd rather have the money than the investment in loft lagging and double glazing. Perhaps, contrary to what I last wrote, the factor that will save this asinine policy is the public's short sightedness in the face of some cold hard cash.