EU plans to halve power of vacuum cleaners

Hot on the heels of the abortive attempt to ban olive oil in resealable bottle, the EU is now planning to ban 2,000 watt vacuum cleaners and introduce a limit of just 900 watts.

It doesn't take a genius to see that if you reduce the power of a vacuum cleaner's motor by more than half then it's not going to be as effective.  Just like many people have had to supplement their ceiling lights with lamps because energy saving bulbs aren't as good as the incandescent bulbs the EU has banned, many will use their vacuum cleaner more often because a 900 watt vacuum cleaner doesn't do as good a job at cleaning as a 2,000 watt cleaner which kicks the supposed energy saving "benefits" into touch.

Climate change targets are behind this of course - the EU reckons that they can reduce electricity consumption in 2.3m homes if they make their vacuum cleaners useless.  The irony, of course, is that we've just had the coldest spring for over 50 years and reports from the Met Office and IPCC confirm that there has been no global warming for two decades.