Energy company leaflet still leaves us in the dark about power cuts - Susan Morrison

There was a leaflet on the mat. It was green, so I thought it was from wee Patrick Harvie pleading for my vote. I was about to responsibly recycle it when I took another look at the front and realised it was most definitely not the co-leader of the Greens.

'Scottish Power' sounds like something a superhero would have. An accent that can cut through steel perhaps

That is, unless Mr Harvie has taken to going to work in a safety harness, high vis, hard hat and ear protectors.

No, this green and glossy leaflet on notably unrecycled paper was a thoughtful missive telling us how to prepare for power cuts, from SPenergy Networks. They used to be called Scottish Power, but they’ve gone for the funky rebrand, which I think a bit of a shame.

“Scottish Power” sounds like something a superhero would have.

An accent that can cut through steel perhaps, or the ability to say “Oh really?” in an incredibly threatening manner.

SPenergy sounds like someone spluttering on a boiled sweetie.

It would seem that the lights may go out. Or Not.

Either way, we’d best prepare. I think I’d start by keeping this leaflet to hand. It can be hard to find loo roll in the dark, but you usually see this sort of shiny paper even in dim light.

Now, do not think they are not worried about us.

After all, we pay the wages, not to mention contributing handsomely to the £5.5 million bonus of the man who runs Iberdrola, the company who owns SPenergy.

So they’ve set up a helpful Priority Service, for us to register on. You can do this if you’re over 60, or depend on electricity or even, and I like this category, you “just feel you need a little extra help”.

Well, we’ve all been there.

Quite what that help will be when the lights go out is a bit on the vague side. The leaflet is at pains to tell you that being on the register doesn’t mean that SPenergy will get your power on any quicker, but it does mean that they will try to “proactively” contact you when they know there is a problem in your area, which you presumably will already know because you’ll be standing in the dark.

There’s a bit about “preparing for extreme events”. Scary.

This sounds more like a massive asteroid hitting the planet than the lights going out for an hour.

The sort of thing we’d send old-school Bruce Willis into space to sort out.

The language after that gets as mumbly as civil servants caught fiddling crime figures.

The blackouts might be on account of the “current energy landscape”, and then being a tad vague about exactly what that means.

Anyway, they go on to say, and I do believe I can sense an air of relief about this, they don’t have to explain it, cos it’s not them that makes the big switch-off decision.

The National Grid, that’s who’ll tell them to do it and then, well, SPenergy will just have to pull the lever or whatever.

Essentially what they’re saying is a big boy will tell them to do it and then they’ll run away. And hot foot it with a very hefty wodge of cash. Keith Anderson, the CEO of Scottish Power, trousered £1.15m in 2022.

Something tells me he doesn’t need a little extra help.