Today's Observer highlights a story about the Conservative's upcoming report on "Quality of Life" which includes measures to be outlined to "burnish their green credentials". Amongst the measures highlighted is that a future Tory government will ban the provision of "standby buttons" on things such as TVs:

Ban the standby button, say Tories

Conservatives target plasma TVs in radical report on how to tackle global warming

Nicholas Watt, political editor
Sunday September 9, 2007
The Observer

Television sets and other domestic appliances will be fitted with special devices to switch off standby power as part of a radical plan to cut wasteful use of electricity, a special Conservative report will recommend this week.

Now, I know these policy review groups have been going on since sometime shortly after BC ("Beginning of Cameron") but I thought I had heard something like this previously. So taking a quick look around I found this...

July 12, 2006
TV standby buttons will be outlawed

By Lewis Smith and Mark Henderson

THE Government is to outlaw standby switches on televisions and video and DVD players to cut the amount of electricity wasted in the home. etc, etc...

It's not by any means a record time-lapse between original announcement by someone else and the Tories deciding to brand the policy as their own, but thirteen months is really quite impressive. I know it's difficult keeping an eye on what's going on in the big bad world out there, but if you hope to run the country one day, it's quite an important skill I'd have thought.