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Gordon Brown has attacked Conservative proposals for taxes on air travel.

His attack came as the first Climate Change Bill was published, introducing legally-binding reductions in harmful greenhouse gas emissions.

The Chancellor said householders could play a key role in reducing carbon emissions through energy-saving measures - but he said he would not be "penalising" the holidaymaker.

He told GMTV: "I am not going to penalise the holidaymaker and I am not going to penalise people who have got to travel for all sorts of reasons on domestic flights. I don't think the Conservative proposals are properly costed or thought-out and I think people will be very angry about that."

Mr Brown outlined plans on Monday to provide additional support for home insulation and an end to wasteful devices such as old-fashioned lightbulbs and standby functions on electrical goods.

Asked about annual targets for carbon emissions, Mr Brown said on Tuesday: "Just like in the Budget we set for the public finances targets over a number of years, we will set a five-year target for carbon emissions.

"You can't do it over a year, because you don't know - one year you will have very bad weather, another year you will have really good weather.

"Of course, that makes a difference to the use of energy. But if you do it over a period of time, you can get a realistic target that can be met."

The 'banning standby' issue is an ignorant proposal and a complete non-starter. If the twattish civil servants who proposed this actually knew what they were talking about then they would (a) know that most of the figures for stand-by power consumption are grossly overexaggerated, and (b) many electrical devices consume huge amounts of power from a cold startup - often a lot more than if they had been left idling for several hours.

If they continue to ignore these facts and legislation follows then the electrical and electronic industry will simply turn their back on the UK, and grey imports of new products that we will be denied will flourish.

Not to mention that devices on standby give up virtually 100% of energy consumed as heat, and in around 3/4 of cases do so into a HEATED environment so SAVING the same amount in central heating energy.

It's literally 100% isn't it? All the light/sound/movement produced is coverted to heat once it interacts with the environment. So in any heated room the deciding factors for energy used are the desired temperature and effectiveness of insulation.

Anyone know how to dim one of these low energy bulbs with a rheostat or triac wall dimmer switch? Or will I have to ditch all my dimmer switches?

I'm so confused, I just dont know what to do for the best!