The Great British Shakedown: How the System Really Works

What a bloody insult. What a slap in the face. While millions of Britons huddle under blankets, unable to afford heating their homes, our energy giants are quite literally lighting cigars with proverbial £50 notes. The same companies that plead poverty when asked to fix leaking pipes or clean up rivers are somehow managing to shower their shareholders with record dividends. Funny how that works, isn’t it?

Let me paint you a picture of modern Britain that would make Dickens blush. The UK now pays more for its energy than any other developed nation—not because we’re unlucky, but because we’re being systematically fleeced in broad daylight. BP, that supposed “British” company, posted a staggering $27.7bn profit in 2022, while Shell broke its 115-year record with $39.9bn. Even in 2023, with all the hand-wringing about “challenging market conditions,” they managed to rake in $13.8bn and $28.2bn respectively.

Let’s put this grotesque feast of profits in perspective and these are just a few of the companies at the trough:

• BP: £27.7 billion in 2022, their highest ever. Even their “down year” in 2023 netted £13.8 billion
• Shell: A historic £39.9 billion in 2022, the fattest profit margin in their 115-year existence
• National Grid: £2.05 billion in just six months, a 14% jump over last year’s record
• Thames Water: Pumping raw sewage into our rivers while their foreign owners pocket £78 billion in dividends
• HSBC: Quarterly profits up 10% to £6.6 billion while your mortgage payments skyrocket
• Supermarkets: Tesco alone expecting £2.9 billion in profit while claiming they can’t absorb basic wage increases

Welcome to Britain’s rigged economy, where every crisis is someone’s golden opportunity. This isn’t a cost-of-living crisis—it’s a cost-of-greed crisis, engineered by an oligarchy that profits whether you sink or swim.

Our energy giants claim they only make a fraction of their profits in the UK. That’s precisely the problem. They exploit our resources, leverage our infrastructure, and then shift the profits offshore faster than you can say “tax haven.” Meanwhile, British pensioners choose between heating and eating.

And oh, let’s wade into the sewage-filled waters of our privatised water companies, shall we? Since 1989, they’ve paid out £78bn in dividends while accumulating £60bn in debt. Thames Water, that poster child of corporate incompetence, now needs £19.8 billion to fix their own deliberate neglect—and guess who’ll pay? Not the overseas pension funds and sovereign wealth funds that own it. You will, through higher bills.

The banking sector? Don’t get me started. HSBC’s quarterly profits jumped 10% to $8.5bn, while Britain’s biggest mortgage lender posted £1.6bn in profits for just three months. All while homeowners struggle with mortgage payments that have skyrocketed thanks to interest rates that would make a loan shark blush.

Even your weekly shop has become a masterclass in corporate profiteering. Sainsbury’s pre-tax profits up 4.7%. Tesco forecasting £2.9 billion for 2024/25. They’ll blame inflation, supply chains, or the phase of the moon—anything but admit they’re squeezing every last penny from desperate families.

Let’s strip away the corporate buzzwords and call this what it is: organised plunder masquerading as market forces. This isn’t some unfortunate market anomaly—it’s a meticulously designed system where the house always wins. The so-called ‘cost of living crisis’ isn’t a crisis for everyone. For these corporate giants, it’s simply business as usual: privatise the profits, socialise the losses, and call it the free market.

If you’re pinning your hopes on Sir Keir Starmer to save us, I’ve got a bridge to sell you. His inner circle reads like a Who’s Who of corporate lobbying, with clients ranging from arms manufacturers to private healthcare companies. The Labour Party’s donor list tells you everything you need to know about whose interests they’ll really serve.

Look at the corporate boards of these profit-gorged behemoths. They’re stuffed with familiar faces—ex-ministers, former MPs, retired civil servants who once “regulated” these very industries. Tony Blair at JPMorgan, George Osborne at Blackrock, Lord Peter Mandelson at Deutsche Bank, former chancellor Sajid Javid hired as a senior adviser to JP Morgan while still an MP.—it’s not a revolving door anymore, it’s a golden escalator to wealth and influence.

Right now, Starmer’s right hand man Lord Mandelson not only whispers in the Prime Minister’s ear, but he also owns a lobbying company that has Centrica on his client list. while Amber Rudd sits on the board of British Gas…Another profiteering company whose profits leapted from £72m to £751m in a year.

Then of course we have our latest snout in the troff, lobbyist Jim Murphy, a former Labour minister still closely connected to the Labour Party. Murphy’s firm facilitated a nearly $1 million transfer to a U.S. nonprofit running a major pro-Ukraine war ad campaign. It’s easy, keep the wars going, keep the profits flowing…

His company client list includes fossil fuel companies, and arms companies that supply both Israel and Ukraine. The Premier League, another Arden client, also cosies up to Labour despite its opposition to the Party’s proposed football regulator. While Labour pitches regulation as “giving the game back to the people,” the Premier League’s lobbying says otherwise. Clubs and the league have spent over £100,000 on gifts for Labour politicians, including £4,000 in Taylor Swift tickets for Starmer.

In the face of such perks, Labour’s claim to regulate the Premier League for public interest looks a little off-side before the ball is even kicked.

This isn’t old-school corruption with a brown envelope—it’s far more sophisticated. It’s legalised looting, wrapped in the respectable veneer of “post-political careers.” Until we weld shut this revolving door between Westminster and corporate boardrooms, until we ban politicians from selling their public service to the highest bidder, nothing will change.

Because in today’s Britain, we don’t have a government and opposition—we have a placement service for future corporate directors. And no one bites the hand that promises to feed them caviar in retirement.

The system isn’t broken. It’s working exactly as designed—transferring wealth from the many to the few, crisis after crisis, year after year. Welcome to modern Britain, where the house always wins, and you’re not the house.