I was hoping that after Starmer's conference speech the previous Labour policy of being "Reform-lite" would be binned.

And it has been.

But I didn't expect it to be replaced with a policy of being "Reform-plus".

So he wants state intervention into what people eat at Christmas?!?

It's the Nanny State gone mad

Lol. A person's recall of technology is the equivalent of tree rings for humans.

Although I'm a data visualisation nerd & love doing graphs this isn't my work. It's all from the app that is used to change the heat pump settings.

All way better than back in the day when I did energy management - back then it was Unix systems, floppy disks, MS-DOS, Lotus 123 and modems

For the full picture here is the energy use and energy costs for the same day for the whole house (not just the heat pump)

And that is the full geek journey.

Ok if you want to go on a geek journey you're gonna get data & a graph

Look at red circled bit at top. Shows COP, energy used & heat out

Graph shows half hourly elec use of heat pump & heat out. Now no use between 1600-1900. Peak at end is hot water being heated at cheap rate

Is that geek enough?

Also now we are on a multi rate tariff, we use the timer delay on the dishwasher & washing machine to make use of cheap elec.

So a side effect of having a heat pump is running costs of appliances are cheaper due to new tariff. Hopefully that offsets extra cost between 1600-1900

What it does mean is we avoid big energy use between 1600 and 1900.

Before we had the heat pump ours was single rate too, at a similar price. After the heat pump we switched to the Octopus Cosy tariff (designed for heat pumps)

On a related point, you need a well insulated house for a heat pump to be effective. Fortunately we do so when we use cheap rate elec the house keeps the heat for a long time.

Also COP is better at lower flow temperature than a boiler, so we'll insulated house helps with that too.

We've just had a heat pump installed (would not have done it without the £7k grant). Works great.

As a former energy manager I'm nerdily interested in this and I've been monitoring it closely. Running cheaper than gas boiler so far.

Did you factor in the Coefficient of Performance (COP) for the heat pump, and the use of cheap rate electricity?

Gas is typically 6.5 p/kWh
Cheap rate elec typically 14.5 p/kWh
COP is typically 3.5 so you get 3.5 kWh of heat out for every kWh of elec

I wouldn't say Forest Focus is the best Forest podcast in the business, but it is in the top one.

I agree.

Also message testing shouldn't about the numbers telling you what your policies should be. Policies come from your values. Message testing is about working out the best way to to communicate your policies.

Policies drive the message not the other way around.

Who said that was his secret sauce? I think you are projecting something that suits your narrative.

For me his secret sauce had three ingredients:
* authenticity
* engaging communication style
* hope

Message testing isn't in opposition to this.

Agent Lairmore is done with his testimony. Prosecution asked further about the condiments and he said there was mustard on his uniform and an onion hanging on his radio antenna. Don’t think defense was going for a pun when she called him a “seasoned officer,” but you never know…