The announcement followed greedy and inflation busting increases from rivals Npower and EDF Energy, with the firms blaming high wholesale costs.

British Gas, owned by Windsor-based Centrica, said that it would make a loss this year without the price rise.

Consumer groups and the Unite trade union have criticised the move, saying it would make life harder for firms, the elderly and those on low incomes.

Again we see the fatcats and big greedy shareholders sticking their fingers in the gravy under the pretence that energy is linked to oil.

The Popular Alliance has another explanation, and that is of greed, bad government, and EU legislation that is unworkable, expensive and a total sham.

British Gas owner Centrica had warned consumers to expect higher gas and electricity bills as environmental costs mount in the battle against climate change.

But as we all know, last year it was a different excuse, they told us it was the cost of buying in bulk of 9 months supply, and before that the excuse was it was directly linked to oil prices.

Chief executive of British Gas, Sam Laidlaw said: "If we're going to get energy from renewables or other low carbon sources, then unfortunately it's more expensive." Ofgem said earlier this week that environmental costs had added £60 to the average electricity bill and £20 to the average gas bill.

We should point out that Ofgem is a useless toothless tiger that is swallowing these lies, and has done absolutely nothing about this ripoff for fear of getting into Browns bad book as the government stand to make a very healthy pot of money from the already overtaxed people of Britain.

Mr Laidlaw warned if the price of emitting carbon increased as he hopes, customers would bear some of that cost. British Gas is expected to follow nPower and EDF by increasing customer bills shortly to reflect higher wholesale prices.

The consumer price watchdog Energywatch said: "There are some significant increases in environmental costs coming, but recent rises (in consumer bills) go well beyond anything that can be explained by these costs."

Mr Laidlaw's warning came as he called for an end to a carbon trading scheme that hands billions of pounds in credits to the biggest polluters.

Under the current European Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), big carbon emitters such as coal-fired power stations are given carbon credits for free.

The scheme is designed to make companies pay for the carbon they produce, penalising polluters and making greener plants economic to build and run. It has been widely criticised because the "free" credits feed through into power prices, allowing generators to charge more and increase their profits.

Energy watchdog Ofgem estimates the average customer pays £31 a year to finance the scheme. Centrica, whose gas-fired power stations are cleaner than coal, is pushing for an end to free handouts as of 2013, when Phase Three of ETS begins. Mr Laidlaw wants credits to be auctioned.

He also wants the number of credits to be reduced over time as companies cut emissions, raising the price of emitting carbon still further and making projects such as offshore wind and nuclear power commercially viable.

Carbon permits trade at around €22 (£16.35) per tonne, but he said the price would have to rise to above €30 per tonne to achieve Europe's goal of a 20pc cut in emissions by 2020. He said: "For investment in clean coal, the price needs to be in the €40 a tonne range."

His comments come just days before the European Commission outlines changes that will be made in Phase Three. Centrica said it was "optimistic" the Commission would opt for an auction-based system.

The latest draft of proposals suggests 100pc of credits for companies in the power sector could be auctioned as of 2013. However, there may still be no auctions for other high-emitting industries such as steel production. The Association of Electricity Producers said it welcomed the auction process but had concerns about how it would be introduced.

UK power generations will reap a £9bn windfall from the credits, according to Ofgem. The watchdog had suggested the UK Government tap into this pool of money to help relieve poorer households.

But sources close to the Treasury said it was unlikely to tax the money. Instead, the Government too wants more credits to be auctioned and will press for reform when EU energy ministers meet next week.

And there we have it, The EU yet again is costing us money, the EU and its unelected, corrupt and fraudulent penpushers are piling on the financial misery to both business and domestic users, and if you think it is going to stop at some stage, think again, they have even more plans in the pipeline to cripple the UK as far as energy is concerned.

Remember France and Germany as well as Russia all have state and nationalised energy companies, the UK does not, and thanks to the greedy Conservatives in the 1980's, we were conned into thinking privatised utility industries would lead to more competition and cheaper prices, and Labour have continued to spout the same lie, where in fact, the big state owned energy companies of the EU are a cartel and there was never any chance of competition, nor will there be in the future when so much tax money can be fleeced from the UK into the French and German state owned businesses and ultimately into EU coffers.

As for Gordon Brown, he will tell you what his masters in the EU wish you to hear, and that is, its all part of climate change, when in fact, its going to be one of the biggest ripoff's in the history of this nation.

SCUM - Society Crumbling Under Mismanagement

Today, we see the sickening insult of MPs falling over themselves to be seen to condemn the viscous and needless murder of Gary Newlove who was kicked to death by the scum that has infested our society for many years.

Some are calling for an inquiry as to why a piece of dirt recently released on bail by the soft touch caring establishment was out and about on the streets getting drunk and terrorising the community with his low life cohorts.

I am sure the majority of law abiding people of this nation are asking themselves why bother with yet another inquiry on a senseless death, we have heard it all before and yet another costly new politically correct initiative will be introduced making sure the offenders human rights are maintained, a soft judge will ensure they are given every opportunity to reform, counselling, psychotherapists and money will be thrown at the problem, do gooders and excuse professionals will come crawling out from underneath their slimy rocks, and absolutely nothing will change.

The streets will still be controlled by the yobs, the terrorists and criminals.  The government will spout they have introduced X,Y and Z initiatives and try to tell us that crime is down, violence is down and that everything is hunky dory.

It does not take rocket science to work out all these multi culti politically correct soft and woolly initiatives have failed big time and have cost us dearly in innocent lives and wrecked families not to mention the massive amounts of our money.

The Conservatives were the first to allow the nation become a soft touch followed by Labour who have bent over backwards to appease every minority group while the majority suffer the consequences.

The police have become a uniformed tax collecting force, they are powerless to stop crime, they are afraid of the thousands of no go areas, they are told not to upset communities, they spend 7 out of 8 hours filling in meaningless paperwork, they now have cheap untrained and useless PCSO's who wont jump into rivers to save lives, and worst of all, their chief constables are so afraid of their political masters that they instruct their officers to bump up crime detection records by arresting and wasting time on arresting people who put a garden gnome in the wrong place or have gollywogs displayed in shops.

The government encourages this sort of useless policing and also ensure thousands of criminals are released from prison early to commit further offences.They will not deport foreign criminals and bleat the “human rights” act has been enforced by a soft touch judge.

There can only be one conclusion for the death of Gary Newlove and the many others like him, and that is YOUR politician, he or she has not had the guts nor the will to represent you and demand the scrapping of the human rights act, the changes in the law for life to mean life, removing the soft judges, removing and instant deportation of foreign criminals, making the police do their jobs and get out into the no go areas, making them work for a full eight hours out on the streets, removing useless chief constables and making it known in no uncertain terms that all forces must practice zero tolerance.

Finally, the politicians have ensured hotel style accomodation in our prisons instead of making prisons a very uncomfortable place to live in with no hotel room lifestyles, no colour televisions, anyone caught smuggling drugs into prison gets a prison sentence equal to the sentence of the person it was destined for, and last but not least, make them work hard all day from 6 am to 6pm breaking rocks or some other back strengthening labour, and just maybe, it may convince some of these lowlife scum bags that we are getting serious, and if that does not work, then maybe the death penalty needs to be re-evaluated as to its effectiveness in deterring the pond life.

This is a personal view of a party member and may not represent what is contained within our policies, however, I am sure we all agree on one thing, and that is something must be done, and tough action is now required to stop this shameful disregard for our safety by the inept government.

Related story may be found HERE

Unfortunately we have another worrying blog on the EU, it seems its impossible to write anything on domestic issues without involving the EU due to 85% of all decisions and laws affecting the UK being made by the unelected corrupt and criminal establishment in Brussels

However, this news snippet may just rattle the useless and incompetent Gordon Brown into rethinking his position on a referendum if the stories of the turbulent relationship between Blair and Brown are correct.

It could be very embarrassing for Brown if his former master were to take this unelected position, what do you think?, The Popular Alliance always had a sneaky feeling that Blair would end up as President after selling the British people out and breaking a Labour manifesto pledge.

Former UK prime minister Tony Blair appeared to launch a bid to become president of the European Union in a speech on Saturday (12 January) in Paris by setting out his vision for the 27-nation bloc.

Addressing members of French president Nicolas Sarkozy's centre-right UMP party, Mr Blair, of the UK's centre-left Labour Party, said that member states could achieve more if they worked together.

"Europe is not a question of left or right, but a question of the future or the past, of strength or weakness," said Mr Blair, who works as a Middle East envoy since leaving Downing Street in June last year.

"Terrorism, security, immigration, organised crime, energy, the environment, science, biotechnology and higher education. In all these areas, and others, we are much stronger and able to deliver what our citizens expect from us as individual nations if we are part of a strong and united Europe," he said, according to Reuters.

Mr Blair attended the UMP conference at the invitation of Mr Sarkozy, who first mentioned him and Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker as possible candidates for president of the European Council, representing member states at EU leader level, in October.

Negotiations on who should hold the new two-and-a-half-year post are expected to begin in the second half of this year, when France takes over the helm of the EU.

The European president post - expected to be a very high-profile job - is part of the new EU treaty, which still has to be ratified by the majority of member states.

At the Saturday meeting, Mr Sarkozy did not say outright that he thought Mr Blair should be appointed to the post, but praised him as one of "Europe's greats."

"When we appoint this president of the European Union, I want us to set the bar high and not aim for the lowest common denominator," said the French president.

But while Mr Blair appears to have the French government in his corner, he remains a highly controversial figure for others.

The leader of the opposition French socialists, Francois Hollande, said Mr Blair's support for the US-led invasion of Iraq makes him unsuitable for the post.

"[Blair] has evident qualities and had successes in his country but the position he took on the invasion of Iraq means he cannot be the next president of Europe," Mr Hollande told France's Radio J over the weekend.

Similarly, he is remembered in Brussels for having failed to deliver on Europe. He was greeted with open arms when he came to power in 1997, seen as a fresh face and pro-Europe after years of Conservative and generally more eurosceptic government.

But his years in office became mired in the Iraq affair, which proved highly divisive in Europe, and he did not move forward on major EU questions such as the country's membership of the euro, while keeping the country at arm's length from Europe on questions of foreign policy and justice and home affairs.