I Will Not Be Installing a Smart Meter Come What May

Successor to the Sausage Sandwich

My very first article for TCW (The Conservative Woman) was way back in August 2021 and it was called ‘Take the jab and win a sausage sandwich’.

It was an attempt to highlight the absurd lengths different countries were going to to coax their reluctant populations into having an experimental injection.

When we look back, it seems incredible that people would be lining up to get this jab so that they could be given a chance to win a cow in India, a helping of pickled herrings in Holland and free pizzas and coffee in London. Not to mention free motor cycles in the Philippines and in that great bastion of freedom across the Atlantic, the USA, reduced prison sentences and free guns. The incentive of the title, the sausage sandwich, was given away in Romania. Sometimes, the only way to deal with the unbelievable is to laugh at the sheer stupidity and gullibility of people who would risk their life or long-term health for a piece of minced meat in a bun.

As most White Rose readers are now well aware, the lockdowns, the covid scams and the tremendously harmful injections that are killing and maiming countless numbers of people were just a prelude to the Great Reset, which aims to enslave and indeed reduce populations across the world.

In order to bring about this 4th Industrial Revolution, they are completely and utterly reliant on smart technology and the implementation of it so that it covers all walks of life.

One major area that affects every one of us is our absolute necessity to heat our homes. We are well into October now and most of us will be switching on our heating systems, at least those among us who can afford to. For some years there has been a big push to get every household fitted with smart meters to ‘make our lives easier’, cut our bills and to enable central control to take over any manual input that might be occasioned in supplying readings ourselves. Oh how handy it is to cede this onerous task to a benign company and to let them determine our use automatically. What could possibly be wrong with this? It goes without saying that these companies have our best interests at heart. The drive to get us onto smart meters is for our own health and welfare. Of course it’s just like the covid jabs; they were for our protection against a deadly disease. Aren’t we so fortunate to have a caring government looking out for us?

Enough of the sarcasm. The great news is that this time around, people in their millions are wise to the machinations of organisations that make a big play on doing things for OUR benefit. If the pressure is on to make changes in our lives, cynicism has taken root and folk now realise that big business and government do nothing unless it benefits them first and foremost. As a measure of their failure, the latest government figures show that after a decade of encouragement only 57 % of all meters were smart as at March 2023.

Furthermore people are not only cynical but are becoming aware of the negative aspects of these meters. They are not healthy, not green, not cost-saving, not safe, abrogate responsibility and are certainly not private.

Enter the Energy Bill: On September 5, 2023 the UK Parliament quietly approved a new bill that paves the way towards forcing British citizens to have smart meters installed in their homes.

This is serious stuff and one that should cause much alarm among those of us who value freedom and democracy. However, perhaps we can take heart at the reaction to the ULEZ scheme which must have conveyed to the government that there is a limit as to how far the British people will be pushed against their will.

And this is where the succession to the sausage sandwich comes in. On the basis that it is far better to convince and motivate people to do your bidding before you have to resort to forceful means (which with a spirited public may face unsurmountable resistance), Governments and companies resort to their age-old playbook; the freebie, or to put it another way, the sprat to catch a mackerel. The smart meter sprat is now beginning to dangle on the hook in the hope that many mackerel will take the bait.

Octopus Energy is now one of the biggest suppliers in the UK, after absorbing 1.5 million Bulb customers and 1.5 million Shell Energy customers.

They are introducing a system called Octoplus. With this scheme, customers can get access to free electricity at off-peak times and other incentives the company calls Octopoints, which purport to save their customers money and lead to a whole host of extra benefits including “exciting rewards” encompassing food and entertainment items, and even cinema tickets. One wonders if the company really do have their customers’ interests at heart, why they couldn’t just pledge to keep bills as low as possible for all concerned? But that’s not in their interest.

You know what’s coming next don’t you? This wonderful state of affairs is only available to those who sign up to a smart meter. Those who don’t will be ineligible for freebies and Octopoints and will have to wander, reward free, in that last wasteland of independent thought and perhaps higher bills which we call freedom.

Octoplus and Octopoints are this energy company’s answer to the sausage sandwich and the pickled herring, although it must be said that the rewards on offer would appear to be a tad more than a tasty morsel gobbled up in a few minutes. Nevertheless, because the take-up of smart meters has hitherto been low, a bigger incentive will be needed to tempt those doubters from their slumber of mistrust and doubt. Will they succeed? I have a rather naive confidence in human nature and firmly believe that whist some will succumb, the great majority will see this for what it is: a bribe to get customers just where they want them; lining up for the Great Reset. I didn’t take the jab and no amount of reward would have convinced me otherwise. Similarly, I will not be installing a smart meter come what may and if higher prices turn out to be the penalty for my independence, then so be it.