Ovo blasted for ‘cuddle pets to keep warm’ advice – but ministers haven’t put forward any better ideas

The energy firm has apologised, which is more than its customers can expect to get from their government as sky-high bills bite, writes James Moore

Ovo Energy apologised after suggesting customers cuddle pets for warmth (PA)

Did you think it was just Tory politicians who could come up with spectacularly stupid and insensitive public statements? Ovo Energy has proven otherwise. A link to a blog containing 10 energy-saving tips was sent to customers of SSE, which it now owns, ostensibly to help them keep warm in winter without turning the heating up.

Smart thinking at a time of sky-high bills? Among the tips reportedly in it: open the curtains to warm your home when it’s sunny. But the problem is that in winter it tends to be cold when it’s sunny, and warmer when there are clouds that keep the heat in.

You could also keep your oven open after cooking, just so long as there are no small children and pets around. Maybe eat ginger. Avoid chilli because it makes you sweat. But keep moving. Do a few star jumps. Which will also make you sweat, but hey ho.

The clincher, which everyone has picked up on, was so mind-bogglingly crass it makes your head ache. It also involves pets. And maybe loved ones. You could, it was suggested, have a cuddle with them to “help stay cosy”.

It’s not unusual, before this sort of thing gets puts together, for communications people to hold “brainstorming” meetings. Empty heads make the most noise, so the proverb goes, and they frequently rule the roost in the corporate comms world. The sharper tacks, who could save them from themselves, tend to keep their thoughts to themselves for fear of being labelled as overly negative and focus instead on polishing up their CVs.

But here’s what’s really awful. Ovo did at least try to offer some solutions to customers whose bills have heated up faster than a lorry-load of brand new boilers. Crass, insensitive and sometimes downright silly solutions (see: ginger, eating). But solutions none the less.

The government, by contrast, has sat on its backside wondering whether a rare positive from the Downing Street Partygate latest is that people mightn’t notice that it doesn’t have any better ideas.

Meetings have been held between ministers and energy companies. And then some more meetings have been held. And meetings have been held between ministers. And sometimes with MPs worried about their constituents’ bills. And with Ofgem, the energy regulator.

Various ideas have duly been floated in the media to gauge the reaction. The problem is that the simpler ones, such as cutting VAT on fuel or green levies, are poorly targeted and expensive and won’t actually reduce bills by very much. The more innovative ones that might – such as loaning energy companies money to be paid back when wholesale prices are lower – are really, really expensive and no one is quite sure how to make them work.

So the government is left scratching its head while indulging in the usual infighting and blame-shuffling and diversionary tactics. There’s nothing like a really knotty problem to encourage that at the expense of sound policymaking.

Meanwhile, the price of everything is rising at a rate we haven’t seen in years, and a new – probably much higher – energy price cap will be announced next month, which could come close to doubling bills while Britain’s legion of disadvantaged people are left huddling in the one room they can keep semi-warm. Maybe they’re cuddling if they got Ovo’s silly blog.

Silly it may be, but it’s more helpful than anything they’re likely to get from the offices of the ministers who are the heirs of the people who created the energy market mess and who should have seen this coming.

And Ovo did at least issue a rather a fulsome apology in the wake of its howler, which is also more than people can expect from ministers, especially those in the current government.