David Cameron’s nudge team was one of the more evil things he did in power. Now Miliband wants to use them.
The Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) has received a £100,000 contract from the Government as Ministers aim to deliver an extra 300,000 home upgrades this year.
Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, plans to scrap noise restrictions on heat pumps and lift the limit on their size in a push to expand their use.
The team was launched in 2010 under Lord Cameron’s administration in an effort to design policy interventions informed by human behaviour and has widely been viewed as a success in Whitehall.
A success? A nasty little Stasi-like unit that tries to gaslight the population is a success only if you are the kind of warped individual who thinks that manipulative behaviour is a good thing rather than the vile one that most normal people recognise it for.
I don’t see it working, though. These white elephants are hideously expensive and unsuitable for many of the properties in this country. I won’t be fitting one no matter how much they try to nudge me. But, then, I am immune to their nudges, and none of them has ever changed my behaviour unless you regard firming my resolve to resist, a change.
However, Simon Ruda, a behavioural scientist who co-founded the unit, suggested in 2022 that scare tactics had been misused during Covid lockdowns to ensure the public complied with the rules.
Well, duh!
Speaking to the man servicing my boiler recently, he said that he’d spent the last 20 years removing hot water tanks from houses and installing combi boilers. But heat pumps apparently don’t provide enough heat for hot water for baths, showers etc. so if you fit a heat pump you’ll need to reinstall a hot water tank as well as replacing all of your radiators. Can’t see them catching on, no matter how much people are ‘nudged’. Besides, if I know I’m being nudged, my natural reaction is to resist.
Here in New Zealand, most houses are heated by either heat pumps or log burners. Central heating is for offices and the like. Also a lot of the houses are of an open plan design and the heat pups are blowing warm air rather than heating radiators. It never gets really cold in my part of the country, minus temperatures are not that common. It is nice to be able to use the pump as an air conditioner in the summer.
Because pumps are so common, prices are not too high in relative terms, certainly no where near the ones I have seen mentioned in the British press.
Knowing how my pump can sometimes struggle to cope occasionally, I doubt that many smaller units would cope with a real British winter.
Heat pumps that blow warm air rather than heating radiators would seem to make far more sense. Even if the house wasn’t of an open plan design, the warm air could be passed through ducting. As Brian says, you would then need a seperate hot water system but there are already showers that heat up just enough water as you are using it.
So cunt pumps will rapidly become milk float 2.0?
I imagine warehouses will soon be filling up with more unwanted and unsalable “green” scrap, another totally unnecessary waste of resources.
“Nudge” a deeply sinister pseudo-stasi as you point out, but what would £100k actually buy? Given the rates these otherwise unemployable parasites charge, maybe a couple of narcissistic powerpoint whores for about about 6 months!
But then £100k will buy prime minister these days. A couple of naricisstic powerpoint whores would do a lot less damage though.
Nudge units work because most people are unable to critically think about things. They believe politicians for a start – you’d be amazed how many Leftists still harp on about Maggie and everything being her fault!
Like the Stasi, the majority supported the lock downs and actively dobbed in their neighbours who didn’t toe the line.