Skip to content

They’re losing their heads here

Possibly they should therefore lose their heads:

Property owners who fail to comply with new energy efficiency rules could face prison under government plans that have sparked a backlash from Tory MPs.

Ministers want to grant themselves powers to create new criminal offences and increase civil penalties as part of efforts to hit net zero targets. Under the proposals, people who fall foul of regulations to reduce their energy consumption could face up to a year in prison and fines of up to £15,000.

Criminal offences for energy regulations? Entirely lost the plot.

23 thoughts on “They’re losing their heads here”

  1. It’ll get worse. Because climate change has been made into an existential threat. The whole point of “climate emergency” was to act as a wedge to ensure the door remains open for this sort of legislation.

    The more hard line of the climate nutters have been saying the ‘crisis’ can only be dealt with by an authoritarian state like China. It’s the socialists wet dream brought to life.

    Because, in an emergency we all have to make sacrifices…

  2. EPCs are a fecking joke. It’s bad enough with non-residential buildings currently having to be rated a minimum E. The next increase to C in 2027 will see a significant proportion of the country’s industrial buildings unlettable (unless you jump through the hoops of the 7 year payback calculations). Many of the new EPC assessors will make the old dodgy MOT practices look amateurish. Also suppliers of aircon, boilers (to replace anything oil-fired), windows, lighting etc etc will increasingly find themselves in the unusual position of being asked to supply wildly excessive quotes for the landlord to plug into his calculations and thereby avoid having to do anything.

  3. The only thing that surprises me here is they didn’t wait till they passed the baton back to Labour.

    But there seems to be a satanic urgency about our political managers now.

    If they don’t get me with speech laws, they’ll get me with this.

  4. Prepare your arsehole to receive a dose of the poshest nouveau riche smoke you’ve ever had blown up there:

    Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, a former energy secretary, said the proposed use of statutory instruments to create new offences was unacceptable, adding: “Criminal offences are an exceptional use of the state’s power and therefore require the fullest constitutional scrutiny.

    “The whole Bill is about piling costs onto consumers. It’s as if Uxbridge and the vote against Ulez had never taken place.”

    Indeed, you useless little fleck of dried jism, it’s exactly as if Uxbridge and the vote against Ulez, and the 30 million other votes we cast in 2019, had never taken place.

    Whilst such statutory instruments do have to be approved by the Commons, they are typically nodded through and not a single one has failed to pass in the last 35 years.

    Much like our asylum and immigration “system”, it’s an open door to allow creatures such as “Grant Shapps” to abuse the British public.

  5. For “Ministers” read “Civil Servants”. Ministers have to worry about being thrown out at the next election so don’t want to cause a riot.

  6. ‘Because, in an emergency we all have to make sacrifices…’

    And I’ll sacrifice YOU!!!

    PS. Channelling my inner Green, I’d argue for using the drongos as long pig to make the sausages last a bit longer.

  7. I plead guilty to two counts of unlicensed air condition m’lord but the halogen light was the subcontractor fobbing me off I swear.

  8. Methinks the “success” of the Cowrona experiments in subdueing an entire country into faux-imprisonment has made some people … Overly Ambitious ….

  9. “It’s as if Uxbridge and the vote against Ulez had never taken place.”

    It’s the opposite. It’s precisely because the Uxbridge result did happen that the threat of imprisonment is now on the table.

  10. Well, here it comes. If someone had predicted this last week, he’d have been dismissed as a mad swivel-eyed conspiracy theorist.

  11. Bloke in North Dorset

    The AfD is on the rise in Germany, in Saxony they’re clear leaders for the upcoming Landtag elections.

    We’re seeing a rise in Reform and as Net Zero and policies like this bite further they or another party will come to the fore here, and for the same reason as the AfD in Germany and the BNP and UKIP in our recent past: When the main parties stop listening voters will find someone who will.

    Its not the voters becoming fascists, its the elite not even pretending to listen or even bothering to make their case.

    The left wing writer and former blogger Ben Cobley was recently lamenting on Twitter/X that we don’t hear great speeches anymore and he has a point. The great and good have given up trying to make their case, they just pass laws. They learnt that trick while we were in the EU, relying on scapegoating the EU for their laziness, and don’t seem inclined to change their ways.

  12. “When the main parties stop listening voters will find someone who will”

    Reports coming out of Germany suggest that the ruling party is threatening to ban the AfD, so don’t get your hopes up…

  13. Martin Near The M25

    Maybe they could have a Heatfinder General going around making sure people weren’t huddling around contraband candles. “I didn’t expect the Sunak Inquisition”, they’ll say as they’re carted off.

  14. Bloke in North Dorset

    Dave Ward,

    The bit of a German Twitter I follow think it will be difficult and counterproductive, even if it can be shown to be legal. The law referred to in the constitution was meant to be about blocking the way Hitler came to power.

    Admittedly that bit I follow is mainly around an Econ prof who would be at home on here, but he does link to others.

  15. the next increase to C in 2027 will see a significant proportion of the country’s industrial buildings unlettable

    Savills estimates that 185m sq ft of retail space is already unlettable under the current EPC rules and that forcing offices to be ‘B’ or better by 2030 mean 1 billion sq ft of office space will need to be ‘upgraded’.

    we don’t hear great speeches anymore and he has a point. The great and good have given up trying to make their case, they just pass laws. Very good point. The last decent speech I heard was from Farage. Then he fucked up by trusting the Tories.

    @Denis – with the bongo bongo land lawfare underway in Yankistan, now is not the time to be mocking the wogs this side of the pond, or even the wogs in bongo bongo land.

  16. Bloke in North Dorset

    Dave Ward,

    It is, but is it more worrying than the subject of this thread?

    I suspect that in both cases a kite was being flown. I haven’t seen anything in Germany since the original stories and I’ll bet this one disappears for a while as they asses the results.

  17. The law referred to in the constitution was meant to be about blocking the way Hitler came to power.
    Wot, having people vote for you and becoming the largest grouping in Parliament?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *