Attention homeowners and landlords! Brace yourselves for the next wave of eco-mania. Under new legislation that recently passed its third reading in the Commons, failure to meet Net Zero targets could cost you £15,000 in fines and up to a year in jail. Yes, you could find yourself behind bars for not fitting a heat pump. While the Energy Bill has mainly been discussed in the context of the government’s backtracking on onshore wind farms, little attention has been given to the provisions that criminalize non-compliance with energy efficiency regulations. Selling or renting a property will now require an energy performance certificate, and inspectors will have the power to order improvements or prevent the property from being sold or rented if the changes aren’t made. These improvements include installing heat pumps, loft insulation, double glazing, and “smart appliances.” The push for smart technology extends to meters, fridges, washing machines, and immersion heaters that are internet-connected, giving the government and energy companies the ability to monitor and cut off your electricity supply if they deem you’re using too much. These alarming developments are all documented in Hansard, the official parliamentary record. Shockingly, only a handful of MPs spoke out against the Energy Bill during its third reading, while the rest sat idly by or sought comfort in subsidized bars and restaurants. Some even believed the legislation didn’t go far enough. Brighton’s Green MP Caroline Lucas called for a complete ban on gas and oil exploration, claiming it would free us from dependence on Vladimir Putin. It’s worth noting that such proposals were strongly opposed and rightly defeated. However, the debate highlighted the extent to which our elected representatives have caved in to the Net Zero brigade. Out of a total of 650 MPs, only 19 voted against the bill, suggesting that the remaining 631 couldn’t be bothered or genuinely believe that criminalizing homeowners for failing to install heat pumps is justified in their quest to reduce global carbon emissions by a mere 1%. Is this what we expect from a so-called Conservative Party, which supposedly upholds individual liberty and promotes property ownership? We may have to turn to social media platforms like TikTok since it seems to be the only channel politicians care about these days. This recent episode of spinelessness within the Conservative Party is just another example of Chancellor Rishi Sunak performing yet another reverse ferret under pressure from his own backbenchers. Most recently, he reversed his stance on onshore wind farms, which he pledged to ban during his leadership campaign. All it took was a revolt by some virtue-signaling MPs who are likely eyeing their future career prospects after the Tories lose power next year. Their leader was Alok Sharma, the former minister for windmills, who famously shed tears in 2021 when his proposals for dragging the world back to the Stone Age were diluted at the COP26 summit. Maybe he deserves a visit from Nurse Ratched once she’s finished with Ed Miliband. I wonder if Sharma paid attention to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent comments during the G20 summit in Delhi. Modi made it clear that unless “emerging” nations like his own are bribed to decarbonize, India has no intention of shutting down existing coal-fired power plants or refraining from opening new ones. It seems Sunak is happy to strike trade deals with major international polluters while simultaneously imprisoning his own citizens for not installing heat pumps, which will have a negligible impact on global emissions. And if you thought the current situation with the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) was bad, prepare yourself for what’s to come. Keep your thermals handy, because you might just find yourself under arrest. Moving on to a completely unrelated story, an Iranian national attempting to cross the Atlantic to Britain in a giant hamster wheel has been apprehended 70 miles off the coast of Georgia. It seems he set off from Florida, likely fearing that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis would bus him to a Democrat-run sanctuary city like New York. Perhaps he thought he would have better luck in Britain, where he could expect a warm welcome and a four-star hotel stay without any deportation prospect. Remember when this column imagined migrants using lilos, jet skis, and inflatable swans to cross the English Channel, all humorously illustrated by Gary? Well, with the government spending £2 million annually on collecting abandoned dinghies along the Kent coast and attempting to disrupt the supply of these vessels from China and Turkey, how long before migrants start seeking alternative means of transportation? It could be back to the hamster wheel for all we know. Lastly, a recent survey reveals that the British are the laziest workers in Europe. No surprises there. On a scorching Wednesday, only 20% of civil servants showed up at the office, while the rest chose to “work from home” in pub gardens and parks. Meanwhile, sunbathers flocked to beaches, leaving their laptops behind.
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