UKOrganised labour fury with LabourLabour looks to be losing key union backers over its climate policies. The GMB’s Gary Smith warned that Mr Miliband’s crusade was putting a million jobs at risk. The Unite union disinvited the party’s Scottish leader Anas Sarwar, as well as the SNP’s Keith Swinney, from its annual policy conference. Heat pumps back on the agendaEnergy secretary Ed Miliband was rumoured to be looking at relaunching the Conservatives’ so-called “boiler tax”, a plan to force heat pumps upon unsuspecting homeowners. World-leading electricity pricesRather taking the gloss off Ed Miliband’s claims of “climate leadership”, UK manufacturers complained that industrial power prices in this country are now the highest in the world. Another blow at the rental marketEd Miliband pledged to stop landlords renting out properties that didn’t meet a minimum level of energy efficiency. Commentators noted that such a step would simply remove many properties from the market entirely, thus causing further chaos in an already hard-pressed sector. Taxpayer-funded energy bill support?Energy minister Miatta Fahnbulleh mused about the possibility of the taxpayer and energy companies (= consumers) funding cash payments to households in fuel poverty. A purchase by the Green Blob? Rachel Kyte, a former climate chief of the World Bank, was appointed UK climate envoy, a position previously axed by the Conservatives. Shortly afterwards, it was revealed that by remarkable coincidence she was also involved in Quadrature, a hedge fund that had donated several millions to Labour. There was much gnashing of teeth over Quadrature’s minor involvement in fossil fuels, and almost none over its vast involvement in the Green Blob.
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