Everything's gone green

Keen to emphasise what it hopes will be a vote-winning strategy, the government has ordered Civil Service mandarins to maul over forests of official paper in an effort to identify the latest pillar of public policy upon which they can pin their green credentials. The latest initiative to catch their eye is the much-maligned home information pack (HIP). Even before the blighted policy has given birth, civil servants have toyed with its DNA to introduce a commitment that will see each HIP include energy performance certificates (EPCs) with the property particulars. To cap it all, fines fo...