Power for the people

Mr Hopkins urged MPs and party activists to break the Blairite chains and join the upsurge of opinion in favour of taking over profit-hungry gas and electricity giants.

Despite nationwide anger over soaring gas and electricity bills, many Labour MPs are keeping silent about their own growing sympathy for public ownership.

Labour leader Ed Miliband is simply demanding a tougher energy industry regulator to replace Ofgem, and is telling party activists to knock on doors advising people to switch to different energy suppliers.

But Mr Hopkins has put down a clear-cut parliamentary early day motion (EDM) demanding a National Energy Corporation to restore public ownership.

"I have decided to break the silence and raise my head above the parapet," he told the Morning Star.

"I will speak boldly and say what needs to be said.

"Since privatisation in the 1980s consumers and taxpayers have been ripped off.

"There is now great support for public ownership, and anti-privatisation feeling is running high.

"The Labour Party must stand up."

Battling Mr Hopkins was re-elected as Labour MP for Luton North at the last election with his majority surging by over 1,000 to 7,520.

Household energy costs have soared by over 150 per cent in the last eight years, with the average annual dual fuel bill reaching more than £1,300.

While bills soar, the TUC reported last week that British workers suffered a 4.5 per cent fall in real wages over the five years up to 2011.

Concern is growing among left MPs that Labour's policy review will duck the issue of public ownership when it is published later this year.

The review is headed by wobbly MP Jon Cruddas, who recently suggested that "managerialism" by the state was a problem that needed to be tackled.

Public ownership of the railways is another popular demand, spearheaded by RMT and other transport unions.

Miners' MP Ian Lavery is leading calls for public ownership of Britain's struggling coal industry, with large-scale investment to exploit the nation's huge reserves of coal.

Mr Hopkins's EDM 1160 complains that privatised energy companies, now over 50 per cent foreign-owned, "have not served the national interest or consumers well," with the country facing a potential energy crisis as a result.

Energy companies have exercised "a powerful and malign influence over government energy policy," it says.

They have focused on maximising profits "rather than investment in energy conservation and renewables."

A publicly-owned and publicly accountable National Energy Corporation could plan and serve Britain's vital long-term energy needs, and provide secure and well-paid employment for all energy sector workers, adds the motion.

Mr Hopkins tabled a supplementary EDM 1159 highlighting the fact that the energy company EDF is in fact publicly-owned - but by the French government.

Seasoned campaigners Jeremy Corbyn and Paul Flynn are the first two MPs to add their signatures to Mr Hopkins's motions.