The joys of price fixing - Sark to rejoin the Dark Ages

Of course prices should be fair and reasonable. Quite how you go about it matters though, as Sark is just finding out. For an attempt to do this means that the island’s electricity supplier - and thus the water system - is going to close down.

At the centre of the row is David Gordon-Brown, the boss of the island’s sole electricity provider, who says that a controversial ban by the island’s government, preventing him from charging more than 52p per kilowatt hour, has forced his company to rack up unsustainable losses and leaves him with no choice but to switch off the lights.

The law for price fixing. The electricity company. The price controller.

Price fixing is terribly attractive to everyone as numerous examples around the world show. There’s also a basic truism to understand. If you set the price of something below the cost of production then that thing ceases to be produced. There are no exceptions to this.

Set the price of electricity upon Sark below the cost of providing electricity to Sark and there will be no electricity upon Sark.

Reality’s a right pain, isn’t it?