“Malevolent leaders” thousands of miles away with a grip on our energy bills. Perfect Halloween material, if only it were made up. Tomorrow’s Budget decides the future of the Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS), the government grant that knocks thousands off the cost of a heat pump. The BUS is one of the best-value industrial policies Britain has, and the clearest way to loosen that grip. In the @theipaper this morning, @g__j pointed to China’s boom in EV’s. In 2010, the government there gave people a hefty discount on electric cars and built the chargers to match. Early adopters drove costs down, and China now leads the world in EVs and batteries. The BUS is doing the same for heating. Before it, around 200,000 UK homes had a heat pump. Now it’s over 600,000. Heat pumps used to be for posh renovations. Now they’re going into ordinary homes, and data from every Octopus heat pump shows heating bills 20 to 40% lower than gas. That’s the BUS delivering exactly what it promised, making smarter, cleaner, (and generally better) energy tech cheaper for everyone. Every heat pump fitted makes the next one cheaper. And every home off gas is one less Putin can squeeze. The scariest thing this week would be stopping now.