UK Power Networks, which provides electricity to the southeast and east of England, including London,has warned customers to prepare for blackouts, claiming that the #lockdown measures imposed over the #coronavirus have left the company short-staffed.
Now, with industrial energy use being drastically reduced during the lockdowns, even with increased home consumption, it is unlikely that there is any genuine inability to provide power.
So why is this happening? My first reaction was that it represented a kind of psychological tactic to habituate UK citizens to a kind of deprivation, which would then lower their quality of life expectations. In other words; like in a prison when inmates are deprived of various privileges, they become more docile and grateful when some of those privileges are restored, and are less hostile. This could be a strategy for managing the population during lockdown.
But then I discovered something interesting about UK Power Networks; it is 60% Chinese-owned. In fact, 24% of Britain’s electricity sector is Chinese-owned. So it is conceivable that the threat of blackouts may be some sort of power play (no pun intended).
Just a day before UK Power Networks’ customers were threatened with blackouts, it was reported that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was “furious” with China, accusing the state of lying about the number of #coronavirus cases in the country, and hinting that he may scrap a major deal with Huawei to oversee a new 5G network in the UK — a deal the United States opposed from the beginning.
Is China using its ability to shut off the lights in London as leverage against the government?
#CoronaCapitalism
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/coronavirus-update-lockdown-power-cuts-blackout-electricity-advice-a9437691.html
External Context سياق خارجي
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/coronavirus-update-lockdown-power-cuts-blackout-electricity-advice-a9437691.html