A chance encounter in the gents

"Sometimes the most important meetings occur in the most inauspicious places." Not my words but those of the new Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Ed Miliband (below), when we bumped into each other in the toilet in his department.

In the few minutes available to me I reminded him that I was waiting for a response from him to my plan for insulating solid wall buildings which make up two thirds of Camden's housing stock, and I asked for help to address a key problem with new schools built using Private Finance Initiative (PFI) - the PFI contractors don't have to take into account energy and water bills over the lifetime of the building so they have no incentive to make the buildings as energy efficient as possible.

I think it's fair to say the new Energy and Climate Change Secretary won't forget the encounter!