Energy price cap

Some business stories are useful economic signals, some are not. For example, I’m not building any hopes on news that Ferrari sales are up 15 per cent thanks to buyers demanding ‘cashmere and corduroy’ interiors. Indicative of greater realism among the very rich is the statistic that superyacht sales are down by a third following a spectacular two-year boom. And far more worrying are other maritime bulletins, one from the Danish shipping giant AP Moller-Mærsk, the other from the fiefdom of the Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing. Maersk has downgraded its forecast for global container demand this year to a fall of 1 to 4 per cent, on the basis

In principle, the UK’s energy price cap is supposed to provide a buffer for consumers who might otherwise see their energy bills go through the roof. But governments can’t control international energy prices: a lesson that has been learned the hard way over the past six months, as dozens of energy companies have gone bust, unable to raise prices for customers to reflect increasing wholesale costs. Meanwhile the cap has not stopped bills from skyrocketing: Ofgem’s last price cap went up by 54 per cent, taking the total cost for an average household to just under £2,000 per year. Still, if there were any silver lining to this distortive policy