Labour promised cheaper energy bills. So why are they still going up, Mr Miliband?

On a day when the never-ending parade of grim economic news resumed, energy watchdog Ofgem delivered the pièce de résistance: hiking the nation’s bills just as every authoritative forecast was predicting a fall.

Even Cornwall Insight – usually so uncannily accurate with its price-cap predictions that I sometimes wonder if Ofgem tweaks the figures just to stop those clever clogs in the South West being canonised for their precognitive powers – got it wrong. It is expected to have a 1 per cent fall in January.

It had good reason. Wholesale global energy prices, to which the nation is in hock, have fallen by 4 per cent. They’re supposed to be the silverback gorillas in the room, punching us in the mouth every time a new cap is set. Yet here they are calming down, and still prices are going up. What on earth is going on?

Ed Miliband, that’s what. At least partly.

When Ofgem juices its cap, it spins the figures as fast as a physicist’s favourite neutron star: “You’re not paying much more, honest,” is its stock response. This is disingenuous when energy prices have been sky-high ever since Vladimir Putin scratched his itchy trigger finger by bulldozing his way into Ukraine.

We’re all paying far too much, and a rise – even of just 0.2 per cent – still takes money from consumers already dealing with a cost of living crisis.

It’s not until the “notes to editors” that Ofgem even attempts an explanation, presumably because Miliband and his Department for Energy Security and Net Zero are none too pleased about being cast as the villains of the piece.

Editor’s note two spells it out: “The price cap change is driven by government policy costs and operating costs.” So, Miliband. Not him alone – some of the pain reflects the need to invest in and upgrade our energy infrastructure. Fail to do that and you end up in a god-awful mess. See the water industry – and your water bills – for proof of what happens when money isn’t spent on maintenance.

There’s also a little extra to fund the expanded Warm Home Discount, the cost of which the rest of us shoulder. I’m fine with that. Maybe that’s growing up in social housing talking, but heat-or-eat is not a choice anyone should face, especially on a day like today.

Still, government policy is lurking in the shadows like the monster under the bed. We’re all paying a levy for the new Sizewell C nuclear plant, and we’re also paying for the green transition.

Weaning ourselves off pricey, polluting fossil fuels is essential if we want stable and lower bills in future – not to mention giving our kids a liveable planet. But when we’re all freezing – and I’m writing this wearing a long-sleeved thermal vest, a T-shirt, my thickest Faroe Isles-style jumper and a woolly hat – it’s fair to ask the minister: when do we see the benefits?

People will revolt if they don’t get a good answer. And by revolt, I mean at the ballot box – handing victories to the populist yobbos itching to take over. They’re watching billpayers’ understandable fury very closely, and they’re not fans of green transitions.

Rachel Reeves appears to grasp the danger, even if Miliband does not. One tax she’s reportedly planning to cut is VAT on domestic fuel bills (currently 5 per cent).

But that may be a pyrrhic victory. It will have to be funded by tax rises elsewhere. Government borrowing has overshot expectations again, and Reeves has little headroom if she is serious about reducing debt.

Consumers do, in theory, have an escape route: switch deals. But fewer than a third bother, partly because it feels as if the market is rigged against us.

We’re asked to make tricky calls – whether to fix, whether to gamble on better deals later, how early-exit fees will punish us. Is it any wonder most people throw up their hands and say, “Fine, I’ll stick with the damn cap even if it is nasty”?

“Taking back control of our energy with homegrown clean power is the only way to get off the fossil-fuel rollercoaster and bring down bills for good,” tweeted Miliband. “The opponents of clean power would leave the UK exposed to higher prices for longer – this government won’t let that happen.”

Here’s the problem: Ofgem, the minister, his department and the rest live in well-paid bubbles. They are disconnected from the average consumer. And it shows.

Pious tweets won’t help when the bills land – bills Labour promised to cut. The energy secretary needs to deliver on that promise.