This financial year Hammersmith and Fulham Council estimates that its energy bill will be £3.548 million. That is an increase of £76,900 on 2013/14 when there was a Conservative Council and the energy bill was £3.472 million. That is despite all the talk of cuts, staff reduction and greater efficiency.

Windsor and Maidenhead Council achieved reductions in their energy bill by making their smart metering information public on their website in real time. The Conservatives planned to follow this example in H&F but Labour are not proceeding. “We do not at this stage make this data public,” the Council’s Strategic Finance Director tells me.

I was only two weeks ago at a Council meeting that the Labour councillors declared climate change “one of the greatest threats facing the world” and accepted the Council’s “duty” to “take actions to protect and improve the environment”. Since then we have had news of them spending £250,000 a year more on printing and slashing the tree planting programme.

They can table virtue signalling motions but their record on the environment is a disgrace.