Utility Week

Community Cummings is much given to writing meandering blogs about the dastardliness of the British establishment and he makes no bones about his mission to revo- lutionise the way government makes decisions and the way civil servants execute the wishes of their masters – or rather the way they don't. He is looking to recruit a load of maths whizzes, physics grads and so•ware nerds to balance what he considers to be the army of humanities graduates who infest the corridors of Whitehall. In his latest stream of con- sciousness blog post, Cummings explains: "I don't want confident public school bluffers. I want people who are much brighter than me who can work in an extreme environment. If you play office politics, you will be discov- ered and immediately binned." Which, ironically enough, means that one graduate who most definitely need not apply for any job with Cummings is one Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, known to all his chums since Eton simply as Boris. Credit report It's not just energy companies here in Blighty who are bedev- illed by that particular class of scoundrel, the "won't pays". Some people just don't see why they have to pay for a utility service like electricity if they can get away without doing so, and Disconnector Publishing director, Utilities: Ellen Bennett, t: 01342 332084, e: ellenbennett@fav-house.com; Content director: Jane Gray, janegray@fav-house.com, t: 01342 333004; Editor: Suzanne Heneghan, t: 01342 332106, e: suzanneheneghan@fav-house.com Digital editor: James Wallin, 01342 332015, jameswallin@fav-house.com; Intelligence editor: Denise Chevin, 01342 332087, denisechevin@fav-house.com Energy correspondent: Tom Grimwood, t: 01342 332061, e: tomgrimwood@fav-house.com; Policy correspondent: David Blackman, e: davidblackman@ fav-house.com; Reporter: Adam John, t: 01342 332069, e: adamjohn@fav-house.com; Water correspondent: Ruth Williams, e: ruthwilliams@fav-house.com, t: 01342 332069 Production editor: Paul Newton, t: 01342 332085, e: paulnewton@fav-house.com; Business development manager: Ben Hammond, e: benhammond@fav-house.com. t: 01342 332116; Business development executive: Sarah Wood, e: sarahwood@fav-house.com. t: 01342 332117 Conference sponsorship manager: Sophie Abbott, t: 01342 332062, e: sophieabbott@fav-house.com; General enquiries: 01342 332000; Membership enquiries: Peter Bissell, t: 01342 332057, e: peterbissell@fav-house.com. 2,500 Average circulation Jan–Dec 2018 Membership subscriptions: UK £950+VAT per year. Contact Jo Nikiforov on: 01342 332077 Utility Week is a member of the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO), the regulator of the UK's magazine and newspaper industry. We abide by the Editors' Code of Practice and are committed to upholding the highest standards of journalism. If you think we have not met those standards and want to make a complaint, please contact the Editor. If we are unable to resolve your complaint, or if you want more information about IPSO or the Editors' Code, contact IPSO on 0300 123 2220 or visit www.ipso.co.uk. it appears, and whether it turns out he was right or wrong – even in his own eyes – very much depends on what he hoped to accomplish. And, of course, on the con- sequences, which at the time of writing consists of blood- curdling threats from Iran to kill Americans (par for the course) and corresponding threats from the prez that he would order the levelling of historic cultural sites in Iran (a novel threat from a Western leader). Meanwhile, over on the other side of the world (from us, that is, not America), Australia is literally on fire, with worse fire storms predicted in the coming weeks as temperatures get even hotter, before devastating floods arrive to torment the survivors. Disconnector looks back fondly to the good old days when all we had to worry about was Brexit. Happy New Year! People are strange Strange times call for strange people, and since these are indisputably very strange times indeed, it should not really come as a surprise that Dominic Cum- mings – the architect behind the successful Vote Leave campaign and now Boris Johnson's top adviser – has placed an official job advert looking to recruit "super-talented weirdos". Fury and fire We're barely a week into the new year (and a new decade) and it's already turning out to be a corker. In a development li•ed straight from Game of Thrones – where they periodically kill off a major character when you least expect it – US president Donald Trump ordered the military-industrial complex to focus its attention on one Qassem Soleimani, a top Iranian general, war hero and all-round bad guy. Which they duly did, and killed Soleimani with a drone strike while he was strolling around Iraq. If Donald's intention was to ensure he got back in the head- lines, then mission accom- plished. There's nothing like kicking off World War Three to grab people's attention. It has to be noted, though, that most of the coverage has been vary- ing degrees of negative. That Soleimani was a senior figure behind various shadowy Islamic groups causing trouble all over the Middle East is in little doubt. That was pretty much his job description and he'd been in the gun sights of at least two previous Ameri- can presidents, both of whom decided against pulling the trigger because it would not accomplish much. That equation yielded a different answer to Mr Trump, UTILITY WEEK | 10TH - 16TH JANUARY 2020 | 31 leave the rest of us to pick up the bill, which we do one way or another. It's a problem worldwide, it would seem, and in at least one state in northern India – Haryana – they have come up with a novel, if somewhat bru- tal, way of enforcing payment: your kids won't be allowed to sit their exams if you don't cough up for the leccy bill. Giving an off-the-cuff interview to a local TV station, Haryana cabinet minister Ranjit Singh Chautala said the kids of those who haven't paid electricity bills will not be able to sit in competitive exams. He justified the move thus: "The government can pro- vide electricity on 'no loss-no profit', but at least pay some of the bill." Given the o•en parlous state of electricity supplies in India, it can't be argued that the authorities don't need funds to invest in infrastructure and plant, but even so, visiting the sins of the fathers on the sons seems too extreme a policy to find any traction here. Besides – though Discon- nector does not want to gener- alise – among the families that typically dodge paying their electricity bills in the UK, it's a job getting the parents to send their kids to school in the first place. Stopping them from tak- ing their finals is probably not much of a sanction.

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