In the context of my post this morning on the need for pragmatic compassion in the face of the wave of poverty about to hit the UK as a result of energy and road fuel price increases, with knock-on impacts on food and other prices, this comment in Politico this morning is apposite:
The Times' Oli Wright and Emily Gosden say Sunak is planning to “tackle the energy bill crisis with cheap loans for heat pumps.” Forgive Playbook for going all Martin Lewis, but people may need a lot more help than that.
If that is really what Sunak is thinking heaven help us all.
Could he really miss the required mark that badly tomorrow? Time till tell.
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Is this a “let them eat cake” moment?
I fear so
Typical short sighted Tory thinking if true. It would be a policy aimed at homeowners. What about renters who have no choice in the matter? That’s about 5 million, many of the lowest earners, who will be left out. Even if the Tories forced such a policy on landlords, they would then probably get it back and more by putting up the rent. The average asking price for a house is now £350,000. Hardly anyone under the age of 40 can afford to buy. Tories will be looking after their homeowning voters at the expense of renters. Rich get richer, Tory looking after their own policies at work.
Heat pumps are excellent at reducing carbon emissions but will always cost more to run.
The ways to reduce heating costs are to improve insulation and/or decrease the ambient temperature requirement, before considering a heat pump.
This months in Energy in Buildings and Industry – eibi.co.uk – has an article showing that heat pumps cost much more to run than a boiler, in some cases 30% more. This is not well understood and needs urgent explanation – more so now that we are entering a time of huge rises in energy costs and all the resultant cost increases.
Sunak should be considering making it easier for homeowners to insulate and only then offer them a scheme to install a heat pump.
Many homeowners have accumulated huge capital appreciation way above average inflation and this should be used now rather than waiting for the ownership to eventually pass to the next generation or upon downsizing. Good government grants are the only way forward and giving 100% grants to be repaid on the eventual sale of the house would be the ideal way.
We need heat pumps, but the bang for buck is very clearly with better insulation. Until homes are sufficiently insulated, heat pumps are so much hot air. Sorry.
If Sunak launches into help mode, it may well induce panic – he may well be being advised against doing that.
So there is every chance that he will play it cool and pretend that everything is hunky-dory and play with stuff at the edges which makes the public think stuff is happening but where it’s effects are minimal. I’m sure there is some PR term for it.
The Tories have been in power so long that being able to blame others for the mess is not an option. Their problem is that if they are helpful it’s almost conceding that they are also the problem. We can expect more ‘inevitability politics’ as a result.
The further problem is the misguided voters who think that is how ‘good’ Government works.
If the public are fooled at all, it won’t be for long; it’s them this is happening to. Civil unrest seems inevitable.
Induce panic?? Isn’t panic the normal and sane reaction to the current state of affairs? I’ve been in a state of panic for weeks.