Given the heavy trailing of the Energy Bill, only the most hard-bitten of cynics would accuse Decc of deliberately timing its final publication to coincide with the Leveson report and the mass distraction of the media. Nevertheless, it was convenient. If nothing else, it meant that barely any news outlets picked up on David Cameron's highly unusual intervention in the workings of Decc. It emerged on Thursday, somewhere between the Energy Bill and Leveson, that the prime minister had blocked the appointment of David Kennedy, chief executive of the Committee on Climate Change, who had been recommended (apparently unanimously) by the appointment panel for the top mandarin job at Decc.