How profitable are Britain’s biggest oil companies?

A slip of the tongue

George W. Bush condemned a political system where one man could wage a ‘brutal and unjustified invasion of Iraq’ before correcting himself and saying ‘Ukraine’. Some other Freudian slips by US politicians:

– In the 2012 US election Senator John McCain, who had been the Republican candidate four years earlier, made a speech in which he attempted to look forward to a Mitt Romney presidency, but somehow managed instead to say: ‘I am confident that with the leadership and the backing of the American people, President Obama will turn this country around.’

– At another event in the same election, Romney himself introduced his running mate, Paul Ryan, as ‘the next President of the United States’.

– As for Barack Obama, he made a speech on penal reform arguing that America must make sure it was not ‘incarcerating non-violent offenders in ways that renders them incapable of getting a job after they leave office’.

Oil profits

How profitable have Britain’s two largest oil companies been in recent years?

BP / Shell

2021 £11bn / £18.1bn

On turnover of: £128 bn / £213bn

2020 -£-17.2bn / -£19.9bn

2019 £6bn / £17.9bn

2018 £11.6bn / £27.7bn

2017 £4.9 bn / £15.2bn

Retail price peaks

The Consumer Prices Index reached 9% and the Retail Prices Index (RPI) 11.1%.
How does that compare with post-war peaks in RPI?

June 1948 9.7%

Jan 1952 13%

April 1956 7.3%

April 1958 4.9%

May 1962 5.7%

April 1965 5.6%

March 1969 6.3%

Aug 1971 10.3%

Aug 1975 26.9%

May 1980 21.9%

June 1989 8.3%

Sept 1990 10.9%

Cost of living misery

How is the cost of living impacting on our sense of wellbeing?

25% of adults report feeling lonely some or all of the time.

34% say they are suffering high levels of anxiety.

88% say the cost of living has risen over the past month.