I'm curious

 If someone could help me out here that would be great. 

The entire UK is currently experiencing a "Cost Of Living Crisis" yes? 

Primarily, this is due to the massively increased cost of gas/electricity, industries that are required for living in 2022 (can we say 2023 yet? It's like ... two weeks away). A person cannot live without gas and/or electricity. It is illegal to use open flame inside a residential property, which is the only way one could cook or heat their home without those utilities. Even if one could sit in the dark without refrigerated food in the summer, or use the frigid air inside their home in the winter to keep their food cold, wrapped in rags and blankets against the frost, it would be impossible to cook anything without heat. And that's before we get to the part where we live in Scotland, so there is only seven hours of daylight in January. So there you would be, in the dark, starving.

And these utilities are not, as one would expect, public utilities controlled by the government, despite their necessity for living. And there can be no possible way that having your citizens being alive is not a priority for any civilised government. Even if only for selfish reasons. After all, dead people can't pay taxes.

So we are currently witnessing something that is affecting literally every living resident of the entire union, from the poorest to the richest, negatively. And there is the actual risk of death to the most vulnerable. That is not hyperbole. The desperately poor and the elderly and the infirm will die this winter when their power is cut, or they will die from health complications related to cold and malnutrition and overwork trying to solve this insoluble problem. Or they will lose their homes due to spiralling debt and be left in the streets to freeze. 

Countries with nationalised utilities have seen increases as low as 5%. The UK keeps using its little guerilla math to make our jumps seem smaller (12%, then 54% in April, then 80% in October, but they don't mention that that's compounded, so if you were paying £100 it would be £112  but then 54% on that, not on the original £100, so £175 in April, then 80% on that, so £315 by October, etc, so the real increase is actually 215% or more, as I'm sure your electric bill will reflect).

And the argument as to why this should be allowed to occur is that the utility companies are privatised, and the government cannot interfere with the operations of private companies. The companies have no moral obligation to the citizens and the government has no control over how these companies choose to operate their business. It would be a violation of their rights as capitalist entities, which apparently outweigh the rights of actual living human beings to see inside their own homes or not freeze to death.

And yet, if I recall correctly, for a period of twenty four months between April 2020 and March 2022 the UK government absolutely and unilaterally told almost every private business in the UK exactly what they were allowed to do and how, at great detriment to their profits, their workflow, their livelihoods, and their sovereign rights to pursue capital, did they not?

I myself, owner of two small restaurants, was told I had to close completely, and then that I could only do takeaway despite being set up to do sit-in dining, and then how many people were allowed inside my space, what kind of perspex and sanitiser I had to have on hand, how many employees could work there at any given time, etc. I had to provide masks and gloves, refuse service to non-compliant customers, close at random intervals for indeterminate periods of time while wages were still due and stock spoiled, and watch while my very hard-earned savings dwindled away to nothing. A shifting, impossible to navigate series of hoops and demands, the violation of which would result in my shops being closed by the government and being fined for violating the rules. 

I'm not sure if any of you remember, but the whole fucking city of Glasgow was shut except for grocery stores and petrol stations for quite a while there. Airlines were not allowed to operate. The taxi industry basically collapsed. Grants and furlough were not remotely enough to save hundreds and thousands of businesses across the UK who could not survive closure nor operating at half-capacity. Last time I checked that was the government telling private businesses what they could or could not do because there was a risk to the safety and health of the citizenry.

So I'm just wondering how it is that suddenly the government, when faced with a similar but even more acute crisis, which unlike COVID will actually affect 100% of the population, and also carries the risk of death for the most vulnerable among us, is suddenly unable to issue a single command to the utility companies or tell them specifically what they can or cannot do.

Either you can or you can't. And since we all know that you absolutely can, why would you not do it right now, before the holidays, at the coldest, shittiest time of the year, for the good of the people you are supposed to represent?

Every single one of these companies is on track to make record profits this year. RECORD profits. I know I bring this up all the time but Shell alone will make more in profit in 2022 than the entire £37 billion bailout package for ALL of the entire UK's poorest families. And that's just Shell. And that £37 billion is doing absolutely fuck all when these companies just quadruple their rates to overcompensate unnecessarily. So again, why could the UK government tell every restaurant, nightclub, retail outlet, office, airline, etc how to run their business even if it crippled them, but can't do the same for the ones that are right now causing absolute chaos and misery across every sector of the population?

I'm sorry, I keep saying "can't" when I'm asking why they won't. The precedent has already been well set. Two years worth of precedent, and we are technically still in the second year for another two weeks so it's not like you need to dig up some historians from their dusty libraries to explain how it worked back in the Victorian era. It was THIS YEAR. So what's the issue? 

Why won't they stop them, and why are they still in charge? Blatantly ignoring the basic needs and the lives of their constituents to help their pals make some money at the people's expense should immediately eliminate any mandate they think they have.

So if someone could explain it to me that would be great, because I just can't seem to make it make sense.