I needed a stiff drink after opening my latest gas bill. "We have had to increase our tariffs..." - they're not wrong. Cold showers for me from now on!

can someone explain to me how come those energy companies make such huge profits and "have to" raise their tariffs? they only "have to" because otherwise they would just make millions instead of billions, right?

they have no choice because otherwise their shareholders would not become richer on our costs.

I know. British Gas posted record profits for last year: presumably by bleeding the likes of me dry

Yeah it really annoys me that these companies make such huge profits then somehow manage to make out that they are victims so that they 'need' to increase prices. Of course all businesses want to make a profit, but there is profit and then there is greed. Electricity and gas are things that we all need/use and in my opinion they just take advantage of that fact as they know that if they increase prices by 5% we just have to grin and bear it.

Yup. Blame the Thatcher era! That's why the Post Office is going down the pan too: Leicester no longer even has a main post office, because it didn't make enough profit - what happened to public service?