The Queen is coming perilously close to joining millions of her subjects in “fuel poverty” as energy bills for four palaces and a draughty castle absorb a rising share of her income.
About 4m households in England have fallen into fuel poverty, a situation in which a homeowner must spend 10 per cent of their annual income to keep their abode acceptably warm. (FT)
Any poverty line which puts the Queen in poverty = a silly poverty line.
1 comment:
Not only that, but who decided that spending more than 10% on heating homes in a cold country is a bad thing? Maybe this reflects the real cost of these things? Indeed, given all the externalities in energy generation from fossil fuels electricity may be currently underpriced. How about an education poverty line? Middle-class parents in Britain scrimping and saving to send their brats to private school might find they have more in common than they thought with poor African farmers struggling to find the money to buy school uniforms for their kids.
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