Ofgem chief executive Andrew Wright purports to believe that bringing in slightly less Byzantine tariffs will help restore consumer confidence.

He really should get out more often. Too many meetings with government ministers and private energy company managers have addled his brain.

When two or three working-class people gather together and the conversation edges its way to energy prices, it is common knowledge that privateers milk domestic consumers by every means possible.

Caroline Flint's allegation that the "big six" energy companies choose to pay inflated prices for electricity to their own supplier companies will confirm many people's suspicions.

Energy UK, the mouthpiece of the gas and electricity cartel, challenges the Labour shadow energy secretary's charge, emitting the usual verbal blizzard.

But consumers will concur with Flint's reference to the "same old excuses."

Privateers are shameless, as are their supposed watchdogs and the orthodox politicians who support the ongoing looting by private firms of the energy utilities built up over generations in the public sector.

Ofgem boss Wright must believe that his audience came up on the down train if he expects anyone to take seriously his suggestion that this latest cosmetic tariff change could actually lead to prices falling.

It will be a cold day in hell when the private energy cabal allows that to happen.

"Profits are not an entitlement, they should be earned by companies competing keenly to offer consumers the lowest prices and the best service," he adds, indicating that he paid attention during his GCSE economics coursework.

But academic lessons illustrating how perfect markets operate in the consumer's interest have nothing to do with energy supply and other privatised natural monopolies in 21st century Britain.

Complex tariffs are not an unfortunate development within the energy market. They are essential to supposedly competitive arrangements.

If consumers had no difficulty in identifying the outfit offering the cheapest gas and electricity, they would all transfer to it, driving its rivals out of business.

Tariff obfuscation is integral to the system of bemusing consumers, offering apparent savings for particular patterns of consumption and opportunities to switch suppliers as part of the Sisyphian task of getting their hands on an affordable energy tariff.

While this sideshow plays on, applauded by media, politicians and energy industry worthies, private ownership is taken as a given.

As with the railways, where the trade unions, passengers and taxpayers are united in support of renationalisation, the parliamentary parties turn their backs on public opinion, which is firmly in favour of taking these natural monopolies back into public ownership.

Rail passengers are expected to leap for joy that the average fare increase for 2014 is the smallest for four years.

We can expect something similar next year, given the expected general election, but the fact remains that every single year for a decade has seen rises that dwarf any increase in workers' pay.

The superiority of public ownership has been established beyond doubt on the rail network, where the state-owned Directly Operated Railways has outperformed private train-operating companies that ran away from their responsibilities.

Government insistence on backing private ownership over public reflects an ideological commitment to the right of rich people to profit from public services.

Unfortunately, that commitment is shared by the parliamentary opposition, which refuses to countenance any alternative to the privatisation model that makes a minority richer and impoverishes the majority.