Extremist parties are on the rise across Europe. The disaster of the French economy threatens to re-ignite the euro crisis. Russia is invading Ukraine. And what is the EU doing? Banning high-power vacuum cleaners.
Customers
have been thronging High Street stores, like Boxing Day crowds, snapping up the
last legal appliances that use more than 1,600 watts — the maximum power-limit
decreed by Eurocrats and national politicians (including our own).
But
it doesn’t stop there. Brussels is methodically working its way through our
homes, proscribing any household machines that are deemed to use too much
electricity. Televisions, dishwashers, tumble-dryers, toasters: all must now
conform to the new low-power rules.
School
sixth-formers used to debate whether the State had any place in the bedroom.
Well, never mind the bedroom: I want the Government out of my bloody kitchen.
The
last time we saw similar panic-buying was when the EU banned proper lightbulbs
in 2009. A kind of dual stockpiling followed: retailers amassed the
soon-to-be-outlawed incandescent bulbs, and consumers did the same.
Only
now, five years on, have we ploughed through both sets of reserves. As a
result, our rooms are lit by the strange light that comes from the low-quality
halogen or LED versions.
Of
course, the dimming of the lights may be useful when it comes to hiding the
muck that vacuum cleaners are meant to remove. Various consumer organisations,
including Which?, recommend the high-suction cleaners as the best way of
extracting dirt rather than pushing it around.
