RICHARD ORD: Dishing the dirt on Liz Truss and my soon-to-be-frozen kids

Given the impending Chillageddon of winter and the energy crisis, it’s a pity the government has abandoned plans to advise people on how to keep warm and reduce bills.
He's got dirty dishes on the brain...He's got dirty dishes on the brain...
He's got dirty dishes on the brain...

It was particularly disappointing because I was looking forward to seeing just exactly what campaign details Business Secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg had signed off.

Keep warm by running errands for the rich, perhaps? Morning ice baths. I mean, everything would feel so much warmer after starting the day plunged into freezing water wouldn’t it?

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With his Dickensian aura, no doubt candles would feature heavily. Maybe he was urging families to huddle around candles to keep warm. ‘And,’ adding helpfully, ‘if it gets really cold, they could light them.’

‘And don’t forget to insulate your top hats!’ Thanks Jacob.

But, apparently, it was PM Liz Truss who blocked the go-ahead for what would have been a public information campaign costing £15m. And while that sounds like a lot of money, think again.

According to the European Banking Authority only 27 bankers in the UK earned more than £9m, and that was way back in 2019. Such a paltry amount the Tory government felt it vital to give them a leg up by scrapping the cap on bankers’ bonuses. Well, we don’t want them to starve do we?

Apparently though, the PM blocked the public information campaign on ideological grounds. She hates the thought of being a nanny state, banking on the British public to be sensible enough to sort things out for themselves.

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She clearly hasn’t met my kids. While my youngest, Isaac, 18, is tackling the cold student flat issue by spending the majority of his time in warm public bars, his brother, Bradley, 21, revealed his student flat boiler packed in.

‘It was a nightmare,’ he said. ‘We couldn’t do the dishes. They started piling up. We were using paper plates. There was no clean cutlery. We were going to takeaways and grabbing a load of plastic knives and forks to get us through the days. When they ran out, I found myself digging around in old cupboards for anything that could be used to shovel food.’

Apparently, this went on for days. ‘What did you do in the end?’ I asked.

‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I rang the landlord … and he got someone round to fix the boiler that day.’

Hmm, not sure even a nanny state can help these youngsters through Chillageddon. Unless it’s a nanny with a cattle prod…