461. Another £25 electric

Everyone’s benefits have been cut, and everyone we support has a prepay meter in their flat. They’re always the most expensive tariffs, and the flats are usually heated by old and inefficient heaters, as well as having electric cookers, ie no gas, so everyone’s always in arrears and always having to budget electricity, which is a foreign concept to most people who’ll be reading this. Electricity is one of those things you take for granted, and just pay for. But when you have to buy it in advance, it’s a different experience. It becomes finite, very, you have to budget it, make decisions according to how much of it you have left, and when you’ll be able to get some more. It’s so fundamental to existence, all heating, cooking, entertainment, charging a phone, lights, everything. Dependent on this one resource that you have to buy in small, metered amounts, that you can just about afford. Or sometimes can’t afford. I once had an idea for an electricity tariff, whereby people could pay extra, say £10 a month, and for every 5 people on that tariff someone on low income could get £50 credit every month. This is about the same thing, ultimately.

£25 from collective fund.