Oh absolutely - I agree entirely that a windfall tax isn't the answer. A body such as Ofgem quibbling their pricing policy and telling them they can't constantly plunder their long suffering and generally captive customer base to preserve the artificial and unsustainable rising profits their cloud-cuckoo land inhabiting share holders demand just because they didn't cater for this inevitability, might be. And if they have to let those profits slide, or their shareholders lose out, then so be it. Even if it loses them their business. Christ knows no other industry would get away with such blatent mismanagement and profiteering.

Just as no financial institution can be excused to not forseeing the stock market issues that they've experienced, no energy company can be excused for not making provision for the day that oil prices would go through the roof.