THE unmitigated horror of the Truss premiership is now becoming clear.

The UK has its most right-wing government in history – a government which Scotland did not vote for and which looks set to run roughshod over the devolution settlement and impose its will on Scotland even in devolved areas.

We have fallen a long way down from the saccharine blandishments of Better Together in 2014 when Scotland was promised that it was a much loved and respected member of a partnership of equals.

Yesterday, we had the appointment of Suella Braverman as Home Secretary because Priti Patel was not cruel and right-wing enough. Braverman immediately promised that she would be even tougher on immigration. At this point, the only way to be tougher would be to send Royal Navy gunboats out to sink the dinghies crammed with desperate asylum seekers trying to cross the English Channel – something that you could not put past the consideration of this government of right-wing extremist ghouls.

Meanwhile, Jacob Rees-Mogg, with his history of sneering dismissal of environmental concerns, is now in charge of energy policy. Rees-Mogg continues to argue that renewable energy is too expensive even during a soaring cost of living crisis caused by Europe's over-reliance on gas. Wind generation is now one of the cheapest sources of electricity, but Rees-Mogg and his cronies still prefer fracking to wind farms.

Today, the new Prime Minister appeared at her first PMQs. Her delivery was, as we have come to expect, robotic and stilted, but the content was far worse. Truss confirmed that she will not impose a windfall tax on the energy giants which have been reaping billions in extra profits due to the high price of oil and gas.

This means that the energy price cap which has been widely touted – the details of which will be announced tomorrow – will be paid for by ordinary households and small businesses in the form of higher bills for decades to come, all in order to ensure that BP, Shell and Centrica can continue to rake in billions of pounds in unearned profit. It is estimated that the oil and gas companies will make excess profits of £170 billion due to high oil and gas prices on the international markets – a huge sum which could easily pay for a price cap, and still allow the energy companies to make a profit. 

The Conservatives are intending to use this cost of living crisis in order to take even more money from the pockets of the poor in order to put it into the bloated offshore bank accounts of the richest. It will be yet another huge transfer of public funds into private hands. 

Truss's announcement that the profiteering of the energy giants needed to be protected was met with cheers from Conservative MPs, who either didn't know or more likely didn't care how this would be perceived by low-income families struggling to make ends meet.

However, today's performance does not give much indication of how Truss will deal with questioning from the Opposition leaders. She is still able to deflect questions with "an announcement will be made shortly", and for the next week or two at least, Conservative backbenchers will whoop and cheer every monotone pronouncement as though they were teenage girls at a Beatles concert in the early 1960s.

Truss spoke about encouraging more drilling for oil and gas and increasing the UK's nuclear capacity as the route to ensure energy security, yet this will not help the energy supply in the short or medium term, and increased fossil fuel production will only exacerbate carbon emissions and make the climate crisis worse.

Nuclear is eye-wateringly expensive and new nuclear plants will take decades to come on stream. It was notable that Truss made no mention at all of boosting the renewable energy sector even though increasing the UK's wind power and solar electricity generation is the quickest and most cost-effective means of boosting domestic energy production in the medium and short term.

When ordinary working people need every penny they can get and millions are forced to choose between heating their homes or putting food on the table, Truss seems to think that now is the right time to protect Shell's excess profits and to give Amazon a tax cut.

The priority of this British Government while millions of people are staring catastrophe in the face is to protect the proceeds of corporate avarice. The greed of the wealthy few outweighs the desperate need of the many. That. Is. A. Disgrace. Truss, not the quantity of imported cheese we eat.

This piece is an extract from today’s REAL Scottish Politics newsletter, which is emailed out at 7pm every weekday with a round-up of the day's top stories and exclusive analysis from the Wee Ginger Dug.

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