It should be considered a massive and laughable government failure for energy bills to have become enough of a concern to warrant a front-page article on nation

It should be considered a massive and laughable government failure for energy bills to have become enough of a concern to warrant a front-page article on national news. These "tips" are good, but target the wrong market. Those who have the resources and/or knowledge to implement them are either already doing it, live in a well-insulated property, or make enough to not care about the bill in practice. Those who are actually affected badly by the recent energy crisis have neither the resources to implement these, nor will it make enough of a difference to their situation anyway. The main problem here is that the government has completely failed its citizens by letting the situation get to a state where a significant proportion of the population is considered to be in "fuel poverty". Blaming the Russia/Ukraine war is a convenient scapegoat but isn't the answer either. Being forever dependent on foreign energy is a major failure for the government, and even now, I'm not seeing anything being done about it. Most short-term energy subsidies won't address the problem (they may solve this problem, but won't prepare us for the next crisis - not to mention that personal energy subsidies do little when you still have to pay businesses' energy prices in the form of increased costs of goods). There solutions IMO would be: * massive subsidies on insulation. UK building standards are shocking by European standards, but the good thing about it is that incremental improvements are both possible (no need to demolish the building) and don't require scarce materials so no supply chain concerns there, merely money concerns the government can subsidize * solar subsidies, and actually making feed-in tariffs competitive to encourage people to invest in it. This would reduce our energy dependency during the day (which conveniently is when the demand is the highest). Government borrowing for the above points makes sense because it can and will be paid back down the line (solar lasts 10+ years and efficiency decreases gradually, so you'll get something out of it even 30 years later), unlike stupidly subsidizing people's energy bills without addressing the root cause which will be a one-off expense with no expected return.