Centrica, the owner of British Gas, sits between a rock and a hard place. Every time it raises prices for its millions of domestic gas and electricity customers it risks a consumer backlash.

This January's price hike is the main driver for the loss of about 100,000 accounts. Another price rise will see thousands more head for the exit.


But unless it passes higher wholesale energy prices onto consumers its margins will take the hit.

It is perhaps not suprising that British Gas dared not spell out explicitly that price rises were just around the corner. But the stockmarket quickly cottoned on to what Centrica meant when it said it would take "the necessary action to deliver reasonable margins in the retail business."