The Spectator

Is it getting cheaper to install a heat pump?

iStock 
issue 23 March 2024

Popularity polling

Vladimir Putin won the Russian presidential election with 87.3% of the vote. But he doesn’t appear to be quite the world’s most popular leader. Some others who have won commanding election victories:

– Robert Mugabe won 61.9% of the vote in the 2013 Zimbabwean election.

– Alexander Lukashenko won 81% in Belarus’s 2020 presidential election.

– Ilham Aliyev won 94% of the vote in last month’s election in Azerbaijan.

– Bashar al-Assad won 95% of the vote in Syria in 2021.

– Kim Jong-Un was elected with 100% of the vote on a 100% turnout in the Mount Paektu District in the North Korean elections in 2014. Across the country the Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland won 100% of the vote on a turnout of 99.9%.

Hotting up

Are the installation costs of heat pumps falling? Average cost adjusted for inflation.

2019 £10,328

2020 £11,592

2021 £12,041

2022 £13,396

2023 £11,287

Source: National Audit Office

Road runners

The M25 was closed either side of junction 10 with the A3 for an entire weekend to allow reconstruction works – the first such closure during daytime in the motorway’s 40-year history.

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