The hysteria being whipped up by some of my colleagues in the press about the approach of Green Deal is comparable to the panic which might ensue if an alien invasion was imminent.
\nIn fact it\u2019s hard to imagine hacks at The Guardian getting this excited if little green men were landing in the car park. The Grauniad recently offered us \u2018Government\u2019s \u2018Green Deal\u2019 spurned by major retailers\u2019. Only two major retailers are signed up, screamed the article hysterically. That\u2019s pretty rich considering that Kingfisher, Europe\u2019s largest DIY outfit and owner of B&Q, was practically biting Ed Davey\u2019s hand off for early Green Deal Provider status, and other big retail names are also interested. Who did the Guardian hacks have in mind? Next? Argos? I bet Curry\u2019s will be in if DECC adds fridge-freezers to the product list!<\/p>\n
Before that the Guardian gave us \u2018Green Deal is too complicated for saving energy\u2019, and warned that pushy doorstep salespeople will shortly be storming our (presumably uninsulated) front doors. Think invading Poland and you\u2019ll get the idea. And a couple of days ago the \u2018ethical and green living\u2019 section gave us \u2018Will Green Deal help save me money?\u2019 (guess what their answer was!) which insisted that \u2018only two major energy providers have signed up\u2019. What is this thing they have about twos? Are they building Noah\u2019s Ark over there?<\/p>\n
The green business press isn\u2019t far behind. Several sites, including Greenwise Weekly, have recently featured scare stories about 1600 employees being sacked from the insulation industry because of the delay to the start of Green Deal. And so it goes on, with GD coming in for a barrage of bad press. I\u2019m not sure which has been more prominent in the last few months; the willingness of groups of business people to send out panic-stricken press releases, or the willingness of the business press to use them. It makes you proud to live in a country with free speech doesn\u2019t it!<\/p>\n
What is happening here is of course a well-known British syndrome, which we might usefully call \u2018the pre-Olympics effect\u2019. Remember that period before the London Olympics when the press daily forecast that everything was going to go wrong? Security was going to be a disaster! Special Olympic lanes would cause gridlock! Ticket sales were chaotic! London businesses would be deprived of custom and crash in their hundreds. OMG!<\/p>\n