Scribbling back in March on the “green deal” plan to create more jobs than there are people to fill them (or something similarly deluded), I suggested that those jobs would not last very long at all without some form of compulsion :

Not a very long lived green economy in my view but convenently long enough to employ 100,000 people until just after the next election of course!

All with (in my view) rather generous assumptions on take up rates unless it becomes a legal requirement which I would not put past them at all.

Well, it didn’t take too long for The Great Huhne to give us just that in the form of fines for private landlords who don’t make energy efficiency improvements :

He said a new ‘green deal’ would significantly cut emissions from the country’s building stock. The new measures will mean households can take out loans of up to £10,000 from the local supermarket to carry out energy efficiency measures on their homes, like double glazing windows or solid wall insulation.

The legislation had been criticised for not being tough enough on the private sector but in a shock move, Mr Huhne said landlords that refuse to upgrade homes to at least a certain rating of energy efficiency will face a penalty.

This means landlords will have to insulate cavity walls and even install micro-generation in future.

The punishment, to come in from 2018, has not been decided but is likely to be fines.

“The Government has made it clear that renting out dangerously cold and draughty homes is unacceptable – landlords will have to improve their properties or face prosecution,” said Mr Huhne.

So much for the concept of private property and cutting red tape for business.

The next step from here has to be every householder being forced to take one of the “green deal” loans to keep propping up the green (deal) army commanded by the yellow emperor himself.

And I though Labour were a bunch of authoritarian nannying cunts!