Subscribe to this blog's feedA cautionary tale of our times. The tabling this week of a Commons Early Day Motion supporting the Look Smart campaign in favour of smart energy metering should have been accompanied by a publicity stunt.
The plan was to ram home the message that dumb old meters have had their day. Primed to take part were Energywatch chief executive Allan Asher, his counterpart at the Energy Retail Association, Duncan Sedgwick, and the editor of this august organ, Steve Hobson.
All three were due to take a sledgehammer to a pile of old gas meters on the patch of grass opposite Westminster where most of the TV crews set up shop to do live political interviews.
MPs, peers and representatives of the great and the good had been invited along to witness the ritual slaughter, and to put pressure on energy minister Malcolm Wicks to persuade him to ditch the distraction of electricity display devices and back the campaign to move as quickly as possible to smart meters.
But the stunt never materialised. So what went wrong? Well, it seems the bureaucrats who now have to vet any demonstration within half a mile of the Mother of Parliaments refused to give the green light to the event.
Safety reasons were given as the grounds for the refusal. The concern wasn’t the risk that those smashing up meters might drop a sledgehammer on their foot.
Oh no. The reason for the
ban was the fear that passing motorists would be so intrigued by the carefully choreographed demo that they might have had an accident.
The great man kids you not. The last time Disconnector can recall anything being so interesting that it caused (male) drivers to crash their cars was back in 1994 when they were distracted by Eva Herzigova’s assets on the famous “Hello Boys” Wonderbra posters.
Hard to credit that the sight of men in suits smashing gas meters would have the, erm, same effect.
