The Conservative party's latest bright idea - scrapping the Future Homes Standard - has been dubbed a £1,000-a-year "new homes tax" by climate thinktank E3G. Because nothing says "helping homeowners" like making them pay more to heat their own living rooms.
The Future Homes Standard currently requires new builds to have low-carbon heating, like heat pumps and solar panels, instead of old-school gas boilers. Without it, E3G reckons owners will shell out at least £25,000 more in running costs over 25 years. That's a lot of money for the privilege of shivering in a drafty new-build.
James Dyson, a researcher at E3G (no relation to the vacuum guy, presumably), took to LinkedIn to explain: "The UK's shadow chancellor will announce today that the Conservative party would axe the Future Homes Standard if elected. This policy cuts energy bills and emissions in new build homes by requiring builders to fit new homes with heat pumps and solar panels instead of gas boilers. Heat pumps and solar panels offer dramatically lower running costs than homes fitted just with gas boilers, to the tune of around £1,000 a year in a 3-bed house."
The small additional upfront cost is quickly recovered by homeowners and protects them from price shocks on the volatile fossil fuel market, Dyson added. If the government builds all its promised 1.5 million new build homes to the Future Homes Standard, this will save bill payers around £35bn on their energy bills over 25 years, and stops 41m tonnes of dangerous carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere. Cutting this policy would be a disaster for first time buyers and businesses working in one of the fastest growing sectors in the UK economy.
Meanwhile, Downing Street insists RAF Fairford is secure after the US air force suddenly withdrew a dozen B-1 bombers from the Gloucestershire base amid security concerns about a possible threat from Iran. Because nothing says "secure" like pulling your planes out overnight.
The Green party, not to be outdone in the policy-shifting department, voted to end its opposition to nuclear power, dropping a commitment to phase out the technology. That's a major shift in energy policy - and a reminder that even the greens can change their minds.
In a twist that surprises absolutely no one, Labour is the most popular party among shoppers at Asda, Aldi, Tesco, and Waitrose, according to polling by More in Common. Reform UK leads with Lidl and Morrisons shoppers, while the Tories have the edge with M&S and Sainsbury's shoppers. Because nothing says political analysis like supermarket loyalty.
More in Common explains: "The Conservatives lead clearly among M&S shoppers and narrowly among Sainsbury's shoppers, but are behind on all other supermarkets. That reflects their voter coalition, which is older, wealthier and concentrated in the least deprived parts of the country."
The only generation where the Conservatives have a lead is the over 75s, at 40%. Their vote share is no higher than 20% with voters under the age of 60, and they're polling at just 11% with Gen Z. If you're on the right and earn over £40,000, you're more likely to vote Conservative; if you earn less, you're more likely to vote Reform. In the least deprived tenth of wards, the Conservatives won 36% of the councillors up for election in May. In the most deprived tenth, that falls to just 3%.
Two leading business organisations have welcomed Andrew Griffith's speech. John Foster, chief policy and campaigners officer at the CBI, said: "Andrew Griffith is right to put competitiveness and the conditions for private-sector growth at the heart of the economic debate. Businesses have been telling us consistently that the cumulative weight of tax, regulation, high energy costs and delays to major investment is making it harder to hire, invest and grow. So it is encouraging to see a number of issues the CBI has been pressing across the political spectrum reflected here - particularly tax simplification, reducing the regulatory burden, support for Heathrow expansion and a determination to accelerate new nuclear."
Kate Shoesmith, director of policy at the British Chambers of Commerce, added: "We welcome the shadow chancellor's pledge to cut taxes and give firms some breathing space on their future bills. This is central to allowing them to plan with confidence and unlock much needed investment in the UK economy."
But voters are more likely to oppose (45%) than support (38%) the Conservative plan to get rid of the cap that stops people earning more than £100,000 getting free childcare, according to polling by YouGov. So much for winning hearts and minds.
Prospect, a union representing many workers at the Environment Agency and Natural England, criticised the Tory proposal to scrap both quangos. General secretary Mike Clancy said: "It is ridiculous for the Conservatives to blame environmental regulators for the housing crisis, especially when its own MPs are often among the most vociferous opponents of new housing developments. The reality is that Conservative budget cuts have left these regulators struggling to perform their vital functions with 'lack of resources' the most common reason for planning delays. The solution is to restore their funding to adequate levels, not scrap vital safeguards, as both the Corry and Fingleton reviews recommended. This announcement is further proof that the politics of deregulation are a dead end, offering no solution to the challenges this country faces while putting safety and the environment at risk."
Polling expert Luke Tryl told shadow cabinet ministers that Kemi Badenoch has broken through but the Conservative party as a whole has not. People who have seen clips of Badenoch in PMQs have a 20-points higher opinion of her than those who have not, and the Conservatives were doing a lot better with women than men. However, the conundrum for the Tories is how to convert voters who like Badenoch into Conservative backers - as only a third of those who like her would support the Tories at the moment. Tryl also described a demographic split, saying they "held the M&S vote" but had "lost the Waitrose vote" to more liberal-left parties.
Listening to the challenging news at the More in Common fringe at Conservative party conference were shadow cabinet ministers Chris Philp, Nick Timothy, and Victoria Atkins. Party chairman Kevin Hollinrake acknowledged the Tories had lost trust and said he does not believe Andy Burnham will call an election soon when it "doesn't look winnable". "People do trust Kemi but they don't trust us," he said. But he took cheer from the fact the Tories were "the least hated political party in the country", which could be good for tactical voting. Philp, the shadow home secretary, said Burnham was impressive on one level but disappointing on another as he was "not addressing problems today" and had "retreated to his comfort zone" on the EU and electoral reform. Ruth Davidson, the former Scottish Tory leader, said one of the best things about Badenoch was that she had rejected the idea of "uniting the right" and there was a dividend to be won from tactical voters on the right and left who might support the Tories to keep another party out.
The Campaign to Protect Rural England also criticised the Tory plans to scrap many building regulations. Chief executive Roger Mortlock said: "Although the shadow chancellor is right that new homes can cost too much and take too long to build, his plans put at risk important protections for the countryside that we know the public value. Scrapping the Future Homes Standard means more solar panels on green fields, not on new roofs. It isn't 'anti-aspirational' to want homes that are warm, cheap to run and built in the right places, and decades of experience show big developers won't deliver them without government intervention. We welcome a simpler infrastructure levy that gives local communities real power over where the money goes. But cutting red tape is no silver bullet. If it were, the new 800,000 homes that already have planning permission would already be housing young families."
In his speech, Griffith said: "The time is coming when Britain decides it's had enough of mortgaging its future, where hard work triumphs, where people will no longer be used as cash machines for the benefit of others, while their own hopes and dreams slip from their grasp… When the story of Britain's next economic comeback is written, it will be a Conservative story. Every generation has its destiny. This is ours."
Griffith says he wants young people to feel hope: "What those speeches and banners in Liverpool last week failed to understand. Labour thinks hope is something you can hand out, like a type of food stamp. But hope is something people find for themselves when they believe their lives are getting better, that they have more choices, more freedom. A society that cannot offer hope to its young people has little hope for its own future. As parent of lockdown generation children myself, I feel this strongly. I sometimes see the uncertainty in the eyes of that generation, their worries whether things will really be OK. Too many are already voting with their feet. Last year, an average of 350 young people left Britain to live elsewhere every single day, the equivalent of a jumbo jet, taking with it their hopes, dreams and ambitions. Because, like all young people down the generations, they are looking for better jobs, a better life because they see other societies offering hope, while Britain under Labour offers more of the same. Many Labour MPs spend their time talking about safe and legal routes for asylum seekers to come here. Well, what about safe and legal routes for our own young people to get a job, buy a home, have a good life? Does that not count? What kind of government is so passive in the face of its young people leaving? And what kind of future would it be where grandparents must travel across continents just to spend time with their grandchildren?"
Vivien Lichtenstein, head of the Jewish Greens, has said she may leave the party after it voted to adopt a policy that equates Zionism with racism and calls for Israel to be replaced by a single Palestinian state. Because nothing says "big tent" like alienating your own members.