Now three bedroom home sellers in England to be forced to pay for HIPs

The UK Government is now feeling confident enough to start forcing sellers of three bedroom homes to pay for Home Information Packs from September, practically indistinguishable in effect from a new tax on offering a property for sale.

There was not too much fuss from four bedroom homeowners and now Nu-Lab are picking off the three bedroom property owners, having first allowed the impression it may not happen - once any objections to that have died down it is likely to be the rest of the market.

What they call defeat in detail.

Nu-Lab were probably mindful of rumblings of discontent from trained inspectors who had been expecting to milk the market for big bucks and were complaining about the poor return they were getting on their training so far. Having a whole new class of 3 bedroom cash cows to milk should sweeten them up.

NU-Lab’s Communities Minister Baroness Andrews is trying to claim that:

"HIPs and EPCs can help families to save hundreds of pounds off their fuel bills, and cut a million tonnes of carbon a year,"

Yeah - and a pair of scissors will help you ‘cut your electricity bills in half’ too.

HIPs could only actually save a purchaser money if the purchaser pulls out of a sale because they think the bills are too expensive and a purchaser can find out exactly the same thing, at no cost to anyone, by just asking to see the bills.

The government funded and created tool the Energy Saving Trust, claims the average consumer (weasel word) could cut their fuel bills by (more weasel words) as much as £300 a year if they follow the recommendations in the EPCs.

One wonders how much it might cost the average consumer to actually follow those recommendations and how long it would actually take to recover the expense in fuel savings…

The Baroness went on to try to claim HIPs, “have the potential” –

Weasel words that mean they might not actually do it at all then, like ‘Up to’ in a diet ad, prefacing ‘6 inches off your waist’

- “to reduce the millions of pounds wasted by consumers when buying and selling a home, by increasing transparency and competition in a process that hasn't changed for a generation.”

What is it about Nu-Lab? If anything is over a few years old they seem to think it needs to be junked and replaced - including the democratic process.

The fact is of course that EPCs are EU imposed requirement largely as a result of pressure by the green lobby - but much of the political elite would prefer the citizen didn’t dwell on that, or even know it.

They also probably would prefer it if you didn’t dwell on the fact that the EU only requires their subject states to ensure they are carried out every 10 years.

So why have Nu-Lab gone so far over the top? So much further than the EU required?

Well, apart from the fact that it will add to the client population dependant on the state, energy assessors will be required to log details of the properties into a central database that will hold records for 20 years.

Now the Valuation Office Agency, which is responsible for council tax valuations, has apparently applied for access to that database.

So crafty old Gordon Brown is effectively actually charging home owning sheeple something between £400 and £600, at current estimates (expect them to rise soon), to fund Government compliance with an expensive EU requirement - and also supply all the information required to reassess their council tax bills.

And he can claim green credentials for doing it!

No matter what you think of his morals or the reliability of his promises you have got to admire the man’s, truly breath taking, devious cunning…

UK Police Chief calls for price controls, tax hikes - and increases in police powers

The government campaign, publicly spearheaded by NU-Lab’s John Grogan, to raise extra revenue on alcohol gathers pace and now they have got Nu-Labs ‘politicised policemen’ weighing in amongst others.

The Chief Constable of Cheshire, Peter Fahy, (surprise, surprise) wants yet more police powers to stop drinking in the street and is urging his political masters to increase taxation on alcohol and raise the legal drinking age to 21.

Jon Stoddart, the Chief Constable of Durham Police, is supporting his ‘suggestions’ as “sensible” and the Chief Constable Northumbria Mike Craik is also calling for hikes in taxation on alcohol.

Maybe if these highly paid (evidently ineffective when it comes to drunks) police managers actually bothered effectively enforcing the existing applicable laws in those locations where it may be needed, before demanding new ones they might have more credibility.

Chief Constable Fahy amply demonstrates his authoritarian anti free market tendencies by also demanding the Government set price controls on alcohol. Calling for a high minimum price to be set for alcohol that it will be illegal to reduce, or discount.

"The supply of alcohol should not be left to the market," he liberally remarked…

This man is actually rather scary. This is a precedent we should never allow to be established.

UK Government survey claims majority in favour of rubbish bin tax

Very few householders in the UK can be unaware of the State campaign to levy extra charges for rubbish collection. The Government wants to get local councils to impose new "incentive" charges on homes throwing out the most rubbish. There was talk of having chips fitted to rubbish bins to monitor how much rubbish was thrown out.

It is highly contentious and has met with much public resistance, including popular petitions.

Basically more stealth Taxation - brought to you by the Original Taxmeister himself the PM Gordon Broon, disguised as Green measures.

Imagine the surprise the other day when DEFRA released the results of a poll it had carried out purporting to show that 52% of the population were avid for the new tax to be introduced. How did the phrase those questions?

A DEFRA spokesman stated the ‘findings’ of the survey would be taken into consideration by ministers in waste disposal developing policy. You just bet they will. One wonders if they will give similar weight to petitions against the proposal, or surveys that might show less public enthusiasm…

Curious that a government department produces a survey that supports the Government line on such a contentious issue…

The police really do seem younger every day.

It used to be said you can tell you are getting older when the police start looking younger.

A teenager could be forgiven for worrying about advancing old age, based on the fact that a Police Force in the UK (Thames Valley) have decided to recruit two 16 year olds.

Granted they are community support officers, not actual police officers. Never-the-less the uniform is very similar - and no doubt intended to be, the less observant members of the general public are likely to take these youths of police officers.

One sees this sort of thing in fiction and now Thames Valley are apparently intent on creating their own version of the ‘Bow Street Irregulars’.

The Police ‘Union’, the Police Federation, pointed out that "These children are going to be put in a uniform the public believe to be of a police officer and be expected to take on responsibilities on the streets,"

Man does not live by caffeine alone.

A teenage girl in County Durham, in the UK made the mistake of knocking back seven double espressos - Wow!

She had to be rushed to hospital when she developed a fever and started hyperventilating.

It seems she was under the impression the coffees were single measures and overdosed on caffeine.

She said: ” I was having palpitations, my heart was beating so fast and I thought I was going into shock”

"My nerves were all over the place.”

HIPs Inspectors complain they have been hard done by

It seems that there is much perturbation on the Home Inspector Forum website. Inspectors are attacking the Government for failing to fully implement the scheme. They are bleating that they may face financial ruin if the delay in implementing HIPs (Home Information Packs) continues.

An inspector from Eastbourne, East Sussex, complained that if they could earn their training fees back they would count themselves lucky and get out of the business. Another felt they had wasted £4,000.

All true - and normally most of us would probably have considerable sympathy for anyone who had suffered as a result of State incompetence.

In this case though – sympathy somewhat lacking.

We are all acutely aware that when this EU inspired stupidity was first mooted it looked like it would be a licence to print money for the so-called inspectors and a convienient means for the State to spy on households, for tax raising purposes.

The people who ‘trained’ up to be inspectors clearly did so in that belief - and they must have known they would be milking people selling their homes, thanks to yet more pointless state forced unnatural regulation in the honest lawful exchange of property between individuals.

So to hear these inspectors complain that their parasitic careers may now be still born and that their ‘investment’ in training may have been wasted is not exactly guaranteed to elicit sympathy.

From the point of view of a homeowner it looks more like natural justice.

Let’s hope it puts off any likeminded individuals who might hope to profit from honest citizens by participating in some future state oppression of the populace.

Finally a ‘main stream’ UK party making vaguely libertarian noises

Finally the Tories are making some vaguely libertarian noises about reducing red tape and subjecting bloated Whitehall empires to annual rounds of ‘deregulation’.

It remains to be seen if such a thing could ever actually really happen.

Needless to say the Socialists in the form of Nu-Lab’s John Hutton are trying to talk it up as a lurch to the right and a fatal mistake. Well they would wouldn’t they, it is one of their areas of weakness.

Now whist it is clear Nu-Lab love regulation for regulation’s sake and would really prefer that citizens had to ask their permission (and preferably have to pay to do so) to do anything - why is reducing regulation suddenly ‘right wing’? Given that Broon has been making noises claiming to be about to do exactly that for ages.

Presumably the response would be an Orwellian it means what we say it means.

Could it be that this is the first sign of sense from Dave the Chameleon’s ‘the party formerly known as the Conservatives’ and it is actually worrying the Broon party machine?

After all with all this talk of the 'Broon bounce' and a big Nu-Lab lead in the polls, Broon must be cursing that he may find it difficult to take advantage of the chance of a snap election, with the “don’t mention the EU Constitutional referendum” albatross hanging round his neck.

Despite the lack of political comment in this direction - A snap election could turn into a referendum and maybe a judgement on previous Nu-Lab manifesto lies. Uncomfortable for Broon

Homeowner arrested after burglar falls to his death

A 56 year old homeowner in Manchester woke up to find a 43 year old intruder in his 4th floor flat, after some sort of confrontation the intruder fell 40 feet from a window. He suffered severe head injuries and later died in hospital. An occupational hazard you might be forgiven for thinking.

Needless to say the police arrested the householder and have now released him on bail, no doubt after fingerprinting him and taking a DNA sample. He could now face questioning on suspicion of murder.

The CPS (Criminal Protection Service Crown Prosecution Service) and ACPO (the Association of Chief Police Officers) have said that any householder can use reasonable force to protect themselves or others, or to carry out an arrest or to prevent crime.

Why was it necessary to arrest the householder? The police could hardly claim they didn’t know where he lived and one would have thought the aggrieved householder would have been willing enough to make a statement, or they would have within most people’s memory…

It used to be that the police had some care about arresting apparently law abiding citizens attempting to thwart a crime.

It used to be that the police made some attempt to catch burglars and prevent burglaries themselves. Sadly, since they have had to jump through hoops to meet ridiculous ill conceived state targets and political initiatives, it begins to seem as if they find it so much easier to find reasons to arrest the non criminal ‘community’ and improve Nu-Lab’s dubious crime statistics and inflate the DNA database.

A local voiced what many people will be wondering:

"If the guy who fell out of the window was breaking into the property then why was the homeowner arrested?"

Why indeed…

Gore alleges anti climate change conspiracy

Al Gore is alleging there is a global conspiracy against him and the so-called ‘scientific consensus’ on anthropocentric global warming.

He claimed, at a forum in Singapore, that the Exxon Mobil Corp, together with other unnamed ‘carbon polluters’, are waging a secret campaign to dispute the theory.

He went on to claim that "In actuality, there is very little disagreement." and alleges that "the deniers” (the infra green luddites just love that term) ”offered a bounty of $10,000 for each article disputing the consensus that people could crank out and get published somewhere,". "They're trying to manipulate opinion and they are taking us for fools,", he bleated.

Get real!

I suspect it’s Mr Gore who is doing his level best trying to manipulate public opinion, there is ultimately probably a lot more money and power at stake for his side and him personally than for anyone else - and that when all is said and done he and his cronies will turn out to have been taking people for fools.

Has he listened to himself? I know he is probably preaching to the converted and that the faithful will not like to question his assertions - but he sounds just a little like a conspiracy theorist, not too far from the Islamist claims that the CIA and MOSSAD blew up the twin towers, or that the CIA, or some other US government agency, have a captured flying saucer tucked away at a secret base.

To really hook the suckers in with this one he needs to work the CIA into it, at least, big business is good, but it still needs a little something extra to really get the conspiracy nuts going…

Now what are my chances of getting $10K for this?

Zero, Zip, Zilch, Nil, None, Nought, Nowt - if I had to guess...