Best Of

Does anyone remember what the Tories did at Blair's last PMQs? I think Badenoch was absolutely spot on to put the boot in.

At the end Dave and the Tories stood up and applauded Blair.

Sickening. (yes, I know today wasn't Starmer's last, and I'm sure there will be some nice words for him then, but the Tories are far too soft on Labour with this sort of thing).

To. be fair to Labour there was plenty of banter/generosity of spirit from Labour during the no confidence debate in November 1990 the day when Thatcher announced she wasn't standing in the second round.

Even Denis Skinner did a funny (suggesting Mrs T should become Governor of the European Central Bank.)

I have a fairly new colleague who lives on my route

He made a complaint about me to Royal Mail, as a customer last week

as a bit of banter, or for real?

For real

His delivery point is ten yards from his neighbour’s. There’s a door gate in between. He complained because I used it

He wanted me to reverse seventy yards up his drive, open and then close his heavy, slightly broken gate. Walk the rest of the way across his large garden, deliver walk back, open and close again, and then drive round to his neighbour, ten yards from his door

He claims to be scared that I’ll let his loose running dog escape, and it’ll be mauled by the neighbour’s dogs

What a prick

He’s also managed to miss the fact that free running dog means parcel box at the gate

I had to deliver a couple of bits to him today. I went through the rigmarole of his drive and gate. While lifting the gate (it’s a heavy five bar gate across the drive, not a pathway gate) I got my hand covered in whatever sort of bitumen they’d used to cover the gate

Unfortunately I met him in the garden. I gave him his parcels. He asked how I was. I said fine, and walked away. He followed and wanted to know why I wouldn’t talk to him

He shouted, trembling, at me that I was a very angry and entitled person. I shut the gate quite effectively while staring in his eyes. I then stared quite theatrically at the spaces either side of his gate

“What are you looking at?”

“Where are you going to put your parcel box?”

He got really angry then, I laughed

If he doesn't get a parcel box doesn't that mean he will have to pick up his post at the depot?

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/heat-mortality-monitoring-report-england-2025/heat-mortality-monitoring-report-england-2025

Note that they are talking about episodes where the mean temperature hit… 22 and a bit degrees

And they were noticing deaths in the statistics.

The conclusion that care homes should have air-con is astonishingly obvious

Everywhere should. The government should offer some kind of incentive for domestic houses to install solar panels + aircon as a package.

solar panels + heat pumps please

AC is an air-to-air heat pump.

Previously they only promoted air-to-water heat pumps as an alternative to gas boilers but they're not always suitable for retrofitting as a like-for-like replacement which has damaged their image. The good thing about AC is that it complements whatever else you've got instead of attempting to replace it.

A heat pump is just an AC unit with (a) a variable speed compressor, that can (b) run in reverse and therefore heat as well as cool.

In our flat in London, we put in air conditioning about three years ago. In retrospect, we should have gone with a heat pump. But I guess we were probably about a year too early.

I know I've said it before but our heat pump is keep the house really cool. It's currently 33.7 outside and 23.4 inside; it peaked at 35.7* outside and 24.2 inside.

(*That's an absolute record high for us, not for June but for any month. We've been recording for 16 years.)

They work for well insulated homes that have been designed for them.

Stick them in an average British semi and they'd be shit. The output isn't good enough. They don't heat hot enough fast enough in Winter, and provide enough hot water when you need it, and take ages to cool a house down in the Summer.

The rest is propaganda. They are expensive and a bit shit.

This is why no-one buys one.

That's not true at all. Just more deranged anti-wokism. I used to work in this area, designing heat pump systems for domestic homes. Any house built from 2010 onwards, which is a lot of houses, is suitable. Houses built earlier may be suitable, they may not be. It depends.

At today's energy price cap prices:

Gas 5.74p/kwh
Electric 24.67p/kwh

Gas combi boiler typically better than 92% efficiency.
Thus 1kw of gas boiler output approx 5.74 / 0. 92 = 6.24p
24.67 / 6.24 = 3.95 so for a Heat Pump to be cheaper than gas would require a system COP value greater than 3.95.

Google suggests that's just about achievable with a good system, but a lot of installs won't be getting past 3.0 in typical usage.

So the short answer is - most heat pumps are still more expensive to run than mains gas.

There are a couple side notes to this.

One is that lots of people install heat pumps and report substantial savings. Usually if you ask the pertinent questions, it becomes apparent that the heat pump install included a load of insulation - what is not realised is that the savings are usually all from the insulation.

The other is that if you are willing to go on a time of day/price shifting electric tariff, it's possible for your electricity to cost vastly less than the cap. The snag is that it either means loads of extra cap-ex on a battery, or you get well and truly shafted on the "on peak" electricity price (even if your heat pump only runs on off peak electric, other appliances on your house may be less obliging).

(in our climate, there is a strong anti-synergy with solar panels and heat pumps as solar output is usually dismal in the 3 months of the year you want the heating on) .

As an aside... the COP for air source heat pumps in the UK (where it's not's very cold outside most of the year) is probably 4+ over the year.

So, using the correct price level for natural gas, it's already cheaper than a gas fired combi boiler as far as fuel costs go. That said: given much higher capital costs, it's not worth it unless you want cooling too.

Servicing costs higher for gas too. I would always want a gas boiler serviced every year for safety; ASHPs don't really need servicing, although the suppliers will try to encourage you. It's a glorified fridge after all.

You’d probably want to service them to keep the manufacturer’s warranty though

Smart guy.


I'm not running for office. But if I were, these are some of the lessons I'd take away from what happened in NY yesterday.

1. Authenticity is measurable. Voters can smell a focus group from a mile away.

2. Endorsements from the current Democratic leadership now read like warnings. The establishment wing of the party is no longer a sword. It's a question mark.

3. Conviction beats caution. The candidates who said hard things about rent, about who pays for what, about Gaza, they won. The triangulators lost.

4. Cost of living is everything. Everything else is wallpaper.

5. The middle is not a strategy. It's an empty room. Voters reached past the establishment to grab someone who actually believes something.

6. Don't fear the base. Court it. The Democrats who ran from their own voters lost. The ones who ran toward them won.

7. If you want to lead a party you have to be willing to fight inside it. Mamdani didn't ask permission. He took the field.

The lesson under the lessons: the country is tired of being managed. People want to be led.

https://x.com/hunterbiden/status/2069797401078939851?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q