Met Office claim that public did not want seasonal forecasts is a sham

This follows on from the previous post – where it was shown that the Met Office seasonal forecast that isn’t a forecast, really is a forecast.

Readers will be familiar with the Met Office’s explanation for supposedly not issuing public seasonal forecasts.  Whenever the Met Office are asked why they do not provide a public seasonal forecast (in name, anyway) their response is typically that:

“We withdrew from making public our forecasts for the season because the public said they didn’t want them.”

Somehow that did not seem to ring quite right.  It seemed appropriate to find out more about how the Met Office arrived at this conclusion, so Autonomous Mind submitted a Freedom of Information request (using an alias as shown on the attached FOI response) asking:

1. When the consultation exercise was conducted – or as appropriate – How many communications were received from the public requesting an end to seasonal forecasts
2. The questions that were asked of the public during the consultation
3. The total number of responses from the public collected during the consultation
4. The number of responses FOR withdrawing the seasonal forecasts and the number AGAINST withdrawing them
5. The name(s) of the Met Office executive(s) who made the decision to withdraw seasonal forecasts following the consultation exercise
6. The minutes of the meeting at which the decision was taken (dealt with in the previous post)

Not all of the information has been supplied in the way requested.  However the information that has been released is quite revealing and exposes shenanigans behind the scenes that are worthy of public note.  What is clear is that the Met Office’s claim that the public did not want seasonal forecasts relied almost exclusively upon:

• unsolicited comments made online rather than responses to pointed questions dealing with the point in a relevant manner
• customer comment – which cannot in any way be considered to be public feedback; and
• trend research into public trust in the Met Office, which has no place being included in assessing whether seasonal forecasts are wanted by the public.

It is important to note the Met Office was unable able to furnish me with details of the number of communications received from the public requesting an end to seasonal forecasts. For all we know, no one has written to the Met Office asking the department to cease the issue of seasonal forecasts to the public.

So what is the Met Office’s solid basis for the decision to give the impression that the public does not want seasonal forecasts?

16 people.

That’s all.  The Met Office conducted two focus group exercises in February 2009 consisting of eight persons each, male and female, between the ages 25-60.  These were apparently in free form discussion format.  But it does not seem this exercise was taken seriously.  The Met Office was unable able to furnish me with the number of response FOR withdrawing seasonal forecasts and the number AGAINST withdrawing them as the information was not gathered during the focus groups.

This means the Met Office has made a decision yet possesses no quantatative or qualitative information on which to assess how that decision was determined.  Ludicrously in the response the Met Office describe these two discussions involving a total of just 16 people as a:

representative sample, [that] reflect the feelings of this segment of the population

If, as a corporate communications professional, I was tasked by a client to conduct a roundtable exercise to glean information from the public that would be used as the basis for a Board level decision about the way the organisation conducts an activity, and I submitted what the Met Office cites as evidence of public sentiment to be used as the basis for a decision, I would expect to be summarily fired.

But then, it looks almost certain this whole thing has been contrived.  The Met Office Board was not at any time acting in response to public sentiment, it was purusing its own agenda in reputation management.  It wanted something to cite as justification for supposedly scrapping public seasonal forecasts and this ‘go-through-the-motions’ exercise provided it.  When John Hirst presented his proposal to the Met Office Board there was no mention at all of this being done at the behest of the public, or any evidence in support of it, as we can see from the Minutes below:

The long and short of all this – both this post and the previous one – is that the Met Office seems to have manufactured questionable cover for its decision to supposedly withdraw public seasonal forecasts that does not stand up to scrutiny.  The seasonal forecasts remain, they have simply been renamed and relocated as per Hirst’s initiative.  And, if and when a seasonal forecast turns out to be inaccurate the Met Office has constructed this narrative to provide itself with deniability before and after the event, as we saw this winter.

This is a farcical and unacceptable state of affairs which badly fails the taxpaying public.  Process at the Met Office lack integrity and its lack of honesty has already been exposed in previous posts. Root and branch reform of the Met Office executive is required now as the public can have no confidence in the ethical management of the department.

There’s spin and there’s Met Office spin

Wigan Council are not happy with the Met Office.  Council Officers are complaining that they were left in the dark by their weather forecast contractor about impending icy conditions and therefore did not grit roads in the borough.  As a result public transport services were affected and a number of road accidents occurred.

‘This year we awarded the contract to the Met Office. The council officer correctly acted in not treating the roads network from the information he had been provided with.

“When the weather starts to change from the forecast, we would expect a Met Office forecaster to ring us up and inform us of the pending changes, but this did not happen.”

It seems knowing what weather can be expected but not telling people is getting to be a bit of a habit for the Met Office.  As a result senior managers from the Met Office have been asked to attend the next Greater Manchester winter maintenance group meeting to discuss their level of service.

Despite this adverse publicity the department is happily spinning that no complaints have been received, all is well and they will be attending the meeting as they ‘are keen to work with our customers and make sure they receive accurate and good advice from us’.  Somehow I doubt this story will appear on this Met Office webpage.

NationalGrid – Not one of Met Office’s ‘intelligent’ customers?

According to a piece by the BBC’s Martin Rosenbaum in December last year, the UK Met Office puts probabilistic seasonal data on the scientific pages of its website where, in the words of a Met Office board paper, such figures can be ‘more targeted towards users who appreciate their value and limitations’, (i.e. not members of the public).

Rosenbaum goes on to add that:

As another document put it, ‘Intelligent’ customers (such as the Cabinet Office) find probabilistic forecasts helpful in planning their resource deployment.

Based on this and the information published in a document on NationalGrid’s website – as shared by Joe Public guest posting on Subrosa – we can only conclude that the NationalGrid is not one of the Met Office’s so called ‘intelligent’ customers…

It seems NationalGrid find probabilistic forecasts helpful in planning their supply of gas to the nation.  So it seems more than curious that the operator of this country’s gas network was not let in on the secret forecast that was withheld from the public.  Again it is pertinent to ask just why the Met Office issues these forecasts (that they claim are not actually forecasts) at all.

If NationalGrid – with its national strategic interest in seasonal forecasts – is not one, just who are these ‘users who appreciate their value and limitations’?  Perhaps that is yet another question the Met Office can answer.  In the meantime we await their formal response to the FOI we have submitted to them and the Cabinet Office.

No one saw this one coming, did they?

Talks between Iran and six world powers in Istanbul have ended in failure after Iran refused to discuss its nuclear programme, according to European Voice.  Imagine my shock.  The piece goes on to explain that:

Diplomats suspect that Iran is primarily interested in the talks as a way of gaining time for its nuclear programme, which most governments believe serves military purposes.

They know it. We know it. The Iranians know we all know it. Yet still the charade continues with no effective consequence.  The region risks becoming increasingly destabilised as Iran’s theocrats press ahead with their lust to acquire the bomb.  The threat to Israel grows, Iran’s neighbours becoming more nervous and those powers with the capability of putting an end to Iran’s ambitions trapse back and forth between ‘talks’ as Tehran run rings around them.

In years to come it is a fair bet people will be examining the whys and wherefores of a major conflict in the Middle East and asking why the powers that could have dealt with things back in 2010 or earlier failed to act and allowed things to develop into something far more destructive than it would have been.

How does a convicted embezzler become head of a water company?

One would think that a vital quality for any person running a company – particularly one in the public sector – is honesty. Which is why it defies belief that the former head of Northern Ireland Water, Laurence MacKenzie, was ever appointed to his job at NIW and his previous role as head of Northern Ireland Electricity, having stolen £2,000 while working as a teller at the Bank of Scotland nearly 30 years ago.

It seems that once you have become part of the executive in-crowd the normal standards of competence and probity are dispensed with. The rules of the game are different for members of the club once your friends in high places start to clear grease from the pole to let you climb ever higher.

Small wonder that so many public bodies exhibit falling standards and are tainted by executive incompetence.

Update: Subrosa has more local background from Scotland where the theft took place.

Wind power lhuhnacy writ large

Energy generation and security is a serious subject. Clearly it is too serious to be trusted to politicians like Chris ‘lhuhnatic’ Huhne as this short segment from a post on EU Referendum shows.

When the coal fired power stations are closed because they are ‘dirty’ and emit CO2 that feeds the plants and vegetation needed to sustain life, where is the power going to come from when the wind doesn’t blow? Perhaps we could line up the politicians and the warmists and let them talk nonsense to force the wind turbines to move:

On the other front, Huhne’s wet dream about wind power is looking more and more absurd. At the time of writing, electricity generation reports had coal-fired power stations taking a thrashing, delivering 43 percent of available power, with wind contributing a farcical 0.1 percent, a trivial 44MW out of an installed, metered capacity of 2,430MW. The man’s ideas about wind taking up the slack are totally unrealistic. Actually, they are barking mad.

Or perhaps the gas fired power stations will pick up the slack? But how likely is that when just yesterday National Grid was issuing a Gas Balancing Alert due to record demand? The spin defies belief. If, as National Grid say, high gas storage levels and a healthy and diverse supply pool meant the system was operating as it should, leaving supply and demand balanced, why was the balancing alert issued? Even when the gas is there, will we be able to afford it as demand increases?

As UK wholesale spot gas prices jumped to a two-year high on near record demand, up one-third on a normal December, consumers will have to cope with a big increase in their heating bills over the next few months, as the utility companies seek to pass on the rise in domestic bills.

Meanwhile several hundred years’ worth of coal stays in the ground within our nation’s borders. Available, secure, reliable and effective. But thanks to the EU and our quisling bastards in Westminster we are being bled dry to pay over the odds for wind powered generating capability that delivers only a fraction of its potential and delivers nothing when the wind is calm; and paying even more for back up generating capability powered by a fuel that is rising dramatically in price due to demand competition.

We seem to be entering a new politician driven post-intelligence era.

Germany locks up its money box

Germany’s point blank refusal to increase the size of the European Union’s safety net for bailing out less prudent Eurozone members will be causing a flap around Europe today.

It is clear Angela Merkel is coming under increasing domestic pressure not to give away Germany’s hard earned reserves and act as a piggy bank for Eurozone members that refuse to live within their means. What is really interesting is that Germany has also again rejected the idea of the creation of a joint sovereign bond, or “E-bond” for the Eurozone. As Merkel put it:

“The treaty does not in our firm view allow any euro bonds, so no uniform interest rate,”

You can be sure work is already underway in Brussels to devise a solution that sidesteps Germany’s objection and allows for the creation of an E-bond. It would be positioned the next logical step in the development of a Europe-wide currency. This is how the ‘colleagues’ work. The rules they put in place are discovered to hamper the project of ever closer union and centralising power, so they are ignored or circumvented to overcome objections from any members whose interest isn’t served by a new export of power.

Most concerned of all today will be Portugal and Spain, who will be relying on German money to shore up their faltering economies in the event of a bail out. They will have already been smarting at the interest rate Ireland is being forced to pay for its bail out, but now there will be question marks about the availability of sufficent cash to execute a rescue as the total sum borrowed always exceeds the worst case estimate of the amount required. We will soon find the prospect of those countries defaulting on their debts has just increased, with knock on impacts for international borrowing. The trade in credit default swaps will really take off now.

The next question of relevance to us in the UK is how much more money we will need to borrow to give to Eurozone members. After all, the Cameron coalition has already shown our national interests always come second to those in other countries. Hang on to your wallets!

It’s getting warmer in… Mongolia

Following on from my last posting… Is it any surprise that the prediction of Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia, who said in 2000 that within a few years winter snowfall will become “a very rare and exciting event” has been replaced with claims that global warming actually leads to more snow rather than less?

Perhaps nature’s stubborn refusal to align with computer models has led to this change in tune. Perhaps also it is inconvenient stories like this one from China that caused such severe embarrassment a new narrative had to be constructed in a desperate and ultimately futile attempt to save face:

A continuing snowstorm has disrupted the lives of more than 52,800 people in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region over the past week. Snow storms has hit four towns in Xing’an Prefecture, a pasture region about 1,500 km northeast of the regional capital, Hohhot, since last Saturday. Snow has accumulated up to 30 cm deep in most parts of the region and a meter in some areas. The snow was 40 days earlier than its usual arrival time and was the heaviest in 30 years. About 2 million heads of livestock have been affected by the storm. (Xinhua/Ren Junchuan)

After spending hundreds of millions of our tax pounds on research grants and funding the scientific wizards have done nothing except reverse their own predictions while doggedly maintaining makind is warming the planet. An enquiring mind may consider this to be rather suspect.

The falling standards at the Telegraph

Readers of the Telegraph will already be well aware of the organ’s dumbing down in content. But anyone looking at this story today will be wondering if editing standards can get any worse… The story title is fine, as you can see in the screenshot below, but how many errors can you spot in the sub headline?

Harman again exposes Labour’s spiteful underbelly

One can excuse people who make disparaging remarks about others for whom they have real antipathy – provided the comments relate to the essence of the person’s character, integrity, honesty, ability or similar quality. After all I did just that about David Cameron yesterday.

But one cannot excuse those who engage in namecalling and abusive comments relating to someone’s personal identity or physical attributes. Such actions are the preserve of the mean spirited and the vicious.

Perhaps it is no surprise that Labour’s deputy leader, Harriet Harman, has engaged in such spiteful abuse by describing Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, a ‘ginger rodent’. What has Alexander’s physical attributes got to do with his politics or ability? Attack the man for being deceitful if he is, attack him for being incompetent if he is, but leave his ethnicity, skin colour, hair colour and the things he has no control over out of it.

There is a particularly nasty streak among many of Harman’s fellow travellers in the Labour movement. They have a habit of using a person’s identity or physical characteristics as a key element in the attacks they construct. It tells us a great deal about how their minds work and the depth of the contempt they have for people who deign to disagree with them. Is that really the kind of person we want as part of this country’s supposed leadership?

Joe Bastardi calls out NASA on 2001 Arctic Sea Ice prediction

Expert meterologist Joe Bastardi uses his Accuweather.com European weather blog this week to remind people about NASA’s global warming narrative and its predictions for Arctic Sea Ice cover, made in 2001.

In doing so Bastardi does what the media is failing to do, look back at what we were told was going to happen due to global warming/climate change/global climate disruption and compare with current observations visible to everyone. As Bastardi explains:

Yet here we have people plainly saying in 2001 that by this past summer and in summers before, the Arctic would be free enough for ice to be able to have shipping go through there. How can one ignore the forecasts made, that busted horribly? That would be like me saying last year would be a top 10 warm winter in the United Kingdom, which it plainly was not.

Bastardi points out that the increase in Southern Hemisphere (Antarctic) sea ice is roughly equivalent to the decrease in Northern Hemispheric (Arctic) ice. In terms of the earth as a whole there has not really been a change. Climate varies in different of the world. He rightly argues what we have seen is something that is cyclical in nature. He then goes on to pose a thought provoking question:

Is common sense that big a threat that people refuse to acknowledge the dire forecasts of only 10 years ago, by a major player in this debate, so that other ideas simply appealing for the chance to prove their point, are dismissed, while no one in the mainstream questions the fact that you can’t freely ship through the Arctic in the summer, no matter how much we want to quibble about where the ice stands now?

Perhaps that question should be answered by the likes of Al Gore, George Monbiot and their fellow global warming/climate change/global climate disruption travellers in the political and media claque. But you can be sure the silence will be deafening.

When Bastardi issues his challenge to journalists ‘that are fair-minded’ to look into that 2001 forecast and do what they are supposed to do… namely get to the bottom of the story, he could not have been talking about Louise Gray of the Telegraph or Roger Harrabin at the BBC. They are not journalists, they are mere propagandists pursuing an agenda.

How is Theresa May a government minister?

Writing in that bastion of denialist socialist propaganda, Mrs Andrew Marr (Jackie Ashley, not the mother of the Marr lovechild, Alice Miles) laments the lack of women in government. Ashley argues that the government has so few women in it that it’s no surprise their interests are absent from debates about the cuts:

There are just four women cabinet ministers. One is very junior, and comes from the Lords. One is Welsh secretary. As home secretary, Theresa May has some clout, but not on economic issues. Ditto Caroline Spelman at environment.

Anyone listening to the Today programme this morning would be forgiven for wondering how on earth Theresa May is in the Cabinet at all.  Her interview with John Humphrys in the 8.10am slot was a complete and utter car crash. Listeners have rarely heard a Minister of the Crown so completely out of their depth, waffling pitifully and repeating the answers to previous questions when clearly having no grasp of their brief.

May said that cyber-attacks on vital computer networks present a ‘new and growing threat’ to the security of the United Kingdom. Not only is the threat far from ‘new’, she was incapable of articulating why cyber attacks are as serious a threat to the country as terrorism and therefore warranting serious attention in the government’s National Security Strategy. At least GCHQ was capable of explaining the nature of the cyber threat last week, while the Home Secretary was doubtless asleep at her desk.

All Theresa May is good for is insulting grassroots Conservatives by tagging them as the ‘nasty party’, signing up to every passing EU law and order power grab and acting as a clothes horse to provide the useless political media with column inches on parliamentarian fashion.

Britain’s slow self destruction – Binyam Mohamed allowed to live in UK

Former Guantanamo Bay detainee Binyam Mohamed, a cause célèbre of the BBC because of his story of torture under interrogation, has been granted permanent residency in Britain.

Despite possessing a story about his movements so full of holes a colander is watertight in comparison, and despite trying to return to Britain (where he was already seeking asylum) from an extended trip to the heroin and jihadist training capital of the world (Afghanistan and Pakistan) supposedly in order to get off drugs (stop laughing a the back) he attempted to use a forged passport (although allowed into Britain with his own). Now despite this questionable activity this Ethiopian Islamist has been granted permission to remain permanently in the UK.

But for a tiny molecule of common sense from a judge, we would not even know about this decision as Binyam Mohamed’s legally aided team of lawyers sought an injunction to keep the decision secret from the British public.

What kind of insane desire to self destruct leads a country to give people, who offer nothing but a threat to its citizens, the right to live among them?

Committing a criminal act as serious as using a false passport to enter Britain should have instantly excluded Binyam Mohamed’s existing asylum claim. It raises serious questions about what his intentions were, something that has never been explained. With Afghanistan already being in a state of sustained conflict in 2o02, Mohamed’s reasoning for going there in the first place doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. The media focus on his claims of UK complicity in his alleged torture while in US custody has ensured Mohamed’s own actions have largely been ignored.

In just about every civilised country the first responsibility and priority of a government is the protection of its citizens. In Britain the protection of the citizenry comes some way down the priority list. Instead in Britain the slavish adherence to nonsensical human rights laws and the pervasive influence of the sopping wet liberal bleeding heart guilt mongers, who feel they must atone daily for our history of colonialism and further their desire to sweep away national borders, sees decisions such as this handed down on a regular basis.

Make no mistake, these decisions are made by an out of touch elite that can afford to live well insulated from the effects of those decisions. An out of touch elite that views Britain as a small, insignificant country with delusions of power and influence that is crass and insulting to their supposedly enlightened and internationalist worldview.

So it is that Britain continues to self destruct. So it is that the Britain of just two generations ago, where the population was bound by common values and identity, is transformed into a haven for the world’s flotsam and jetsom – many of whom despise our values and have no interest in sharing our identity. So it is that Britain leaves itself wide open to attack from those extremists who seek to speed our destruction, while the authorities sweep away the privacy and rights of the host population.

Such insanity cannot be allowed to continue. But our political class is not interested in addressing these concerns because what matters to us does not matter to them. As such we will continue to be exposed to avoidable risks. So we can expect to see more examples of this insanity as Britain slowly unspools and loses all vestiges of what defined it as a sovereign nation.

UKIP lacks leadership talent but must reject Farage

Lord Pearson of Rannoch, a decent man, has done the decent thing.  He has accepted that despite being a well meaning and respectable man, he is a walking disaster as a politician.  It is one thing to be a good business leader, it is a completely different proposition to lead a political party and so he has decided to step down.

Under Lord Pearson UKIP won an increased number of votes at the General Election, but it has gone backwards in terms of its profile and standing as a political force.  It is a regression that UKIP will find pretty much impossible to reverse as it has such a thin and shallow pool of talent from which to fish for a new leader.

What must be most worrying for UKIP’s remining members is that Nigel Farage is thinking of tossing his hat into the leadership election.  Farage is charismatic but he just cannot be taken seriously as a politician.  He is straight talking but he cannot connect with voters.  Farage gets attention not for the important messages he should be conveying but for the stunts in which he engages and behaviour that can be likened to that of an upper class twit trying to act like a rebel.  If he stands for election UKIP’s membership must reject him to stand any chance of a final throw of the dice to make a political break through.  If Farage stands and UKIP elects him, it will be the death knell for the party.

But then, perhaps the kindest thing that can be done with UKIP is to close it down.  It started life as a single issue party and despite pledging to widen its focus to include the full range of domestic and international political issues, it has been unable to break free from its caricature of being a refuge for malcontents who just happen to be opposed to EU membership.  It has missed the opportunity to be seen as a mature and viable political entity and despite David Cameron’s long march leftwards UKIP has squandered the chance to make the political centre right its own.

What is needed now is the birth of a new centre right party that stands on the common ground with this country’s disenfranchised voters.  What is needed is a party that talks to all the interests of the British people with honesty and integrity.  Britain needs a party that has not been formed primarily for the purpose of opposing EU membership, but that happens to possess a desire for national sovereignty and self determination among a whole raft of centre right political principles.

Who knows, perhaps Lord Rannoch’s resignation and Nigel Farage’s personal ambitions may have brought that day somewhat closer.

Very taxing

Apologies once again for the paucity of posts here.  It’s been an incredibly busy week at work, and frustratingly the weekend is bringing more of the same.

Taxation has been one of the major discussion points of the week, since George Osborne’s Emergency Budget.  With the increase in VAT to 20% and other changes to allowances and tax rates that will leave many people worse off, it’s surprising that no one I’ve read has yet made critical comment about the attitude of government to taxation.

It can’t be just me who feels annoyance at the thinking that sits at the very heart of taxation today – a state of mind that seems to be casually accepted by too many of this country’s taxpayers.  For every time taxation is discussed I am struck by the sense of entitlement to our money that Ministers and some talking heads possess.

The overall tax burden continues to rise, not fall.  The percentage of our income sequestrated by the State is shockingly huge.  Before we spend a single pound of our income over 30% of what we earn is stripped from us.  Then we have Council Tax imposed on us to supposedly fund local services.  Of what remains, on the majority of purchases (excluding energy, food, books, etc) 17.5% is added to the true cost of goods and services.  But even on energy we pay hidden government imposed levies (thanks to the religion of global warming) before the 5% VAT is tacked on.  Then on essential items like petrol and diesel, around 65% of the cost of every litre we buy is duty and VAT that goes straight to the government.  These are just the very basic examples.  And do not forget the huge cost of funding the ever expanding machinery of government that administers this financial three-ringed circus.

The prevailing attitude is one of ‘you have money so we are taking it’.  There is no sense of regret or apology for doing so.  Quite the opposite.  Such behaviour is ludicrously described as ‘progressive’ and ‘fair’.  It is nothing of the sort.

The idea of taxation is to provide basic public necessities, to ensure the Realm was defended and that provisions were in place for people in desperate need, temporary or permanent.  But the bankrupt thinking that leads some people to believe that government can solve any problem and just needs funding in order to do so, has seen the state balloon in size and soak up our money like a sponge.  It is the clearest demonstration of wasteful, lazy and overbearing governance.  Of authoritarian, paternalist, control freakery that sees our money taken then used to bribe us so politicians can achieve and wield power.

Where is the outrage?  Where is the deeper thought that leads people to question why we have allowed government-by-consent to be transformed into electoral dictatorship?  Where are the people who are standing up and demanding that government only takes what is needed to fund the essentials and nothing more?  The failure to do this has allowed government to absorb our money and fritter it away on wheezes and trivialities.  It is insanity that the government gives money to groups to fund their ability to campaign for the government to spend our money on their special interests.  It is disgraceful that we indirectly fund charities and associations, that we may choose not to support, through government grants and hand outs.

Just think how much better off we would be if we kept more of our own money and decided for ourselves how and where to spend it.  Think how much better the goods and services offered to us by companies and sole traders would be.  Think how many more jobs would be created to service the needs of a wealthier population, in turn reducing the need for state help and therefore the need to tax us so much.  Consider, given our natural generosity, how much more money worthy charities would collect if we could better afford to contribute.  Consider how much more free we would be with a smaller and less intrusive government, and how much happier we could be if we were able to make more decisions for ourselves.

Having thought about that, now ask yourself, why do we tolerate the status quo?  Why do we not take back power and decision making for ourselves, rather than leave it in the hands of incompetent and self serving fools?  Fools who, despite having billions and billions of pounds of our money to hand in recent years have managed to spend it all with little to show for it, borrow billions more on top that have been also been squandered, and who have contrived to leave this country deep in debt, supposedly necessitating the picking of our pockets to harvest yet more of our meagre incomes to repair the damage.

I describe them as fools.  But in reality, who are the real fools in all this?

It’s Groundhog Day in Washington, again

The Washington Teleprompter King stoked up the drama of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill accident last night across US TV networks in a live address from the Oval Office. 

After comparing the oil spill to the terrorist attacks on 9/11 several days ago, Barack Obama has now described the effects of the spill as being like an ‘epidemic’.  He also went on to say that:

“We will make BP pay for the damage their company has caused,”

I’m sure we’ve heard that line somewhere before…  it must be Groundhog Day!  Boy, making BP pay will be really tough considering BP – as long ago as 3rd May – proactively assumed responsibility for the clean up operation and promised it would pay compensation to those affected by the spill, without needing to be told.

But despite this, the snippy lightweight in the Oval Office feels the need to talk tough and give the impression he is telling BP what to do.  Yet again there was no mention of fully American companies, Transocean (whose employees ran the Deepwater Horizon rig using their own processes) or Halliburton, and their involvement in the accident.  This ‘broken record’ act by Obama is a feeble piece of posturing from a political pygmy, whose only interest is trying to prevent a melt down in Democrat support ahead of the November mid-term elections.

Obama’s continuing attempts to deflect blame onto a largely foreign company (BP) need to be seen for what they are, protectionist hypocrisy.  But Obama will be allowed to get away with it as long as our spineless fool in 10 Downing Street coos at him like a lovestruck teenager and fails to stand up against the blatant smear operation against BP and the UK in general.

Perhaps we should run a sweepstake on the blog to guess how many more times Obama will pledge to make BP do what it’s already said it would.  Any offers?

Met Office volcano ash computer model proved wrong

Imagine the shock!  Last month there was a growing chorus of criticism about the Met Office’s computer models that are being used to plot the spread and density of volcanic ash clouds from the Eyjafjallajoekull volcano in Iceland.  Here on this blog, readers were reminded that criticism has previously been aimed at the Met Office’s for its determination to push a global warming narrative based on computer modelling and flawed temperature records and data sets - irrespective of all-important evidence and observation.

Now, with the passage of time and the exhaustive collation of evidence and observation, the Met Office models for the volcanic ash clouds we have been repeatedly warned about have been shown to be so inaccurate as to be worthless (hat tip: EU Referendum).  Willie Walsh, the Chief Executive of British Airways, which forced the re-opening of UK airspace when it sent a number of long haul flights towards the UK and stated they were landing come what may, has said in an interview (seemingly not picked up in the UK media) that:

‘Not only have we not found any damage from ash, we have not found any ash,’

8,000 inspections of BA aircraft engines and their filters have been carried out by BA engineers and engine plant has even been sent to laboratories for closer analysis.  Yet despite the sporadic closures of airports and UK airspace because of volcanic ash clouds, often described as ‘dense’, the observation and evidence has shown there to be no ash in the engines.

When cooler heads who refused to be whipped up into panic by the scare story said that the Met Office’s approach and reliance on modelling-derived probability, rather than observed findings, had resulted in the unnecessary closure of British and European airspace, they were right.  This caps another inauspicious week for the bonus-hungry Met Office team, which has suffered the indignity of seeing the seaside town of Bournemouth launch its own weather site because Met Office forecasts have proved so unreliable they have caused visitors to stay away despite balmy conditions.

Perhaps it’s time the Met Office put more stall in evidence and observation than virtualisation and computer models.  The permanent failing of computer models is that if you put rubbish in you get rubbish out.  This has proven true for volcanic ash clouds and will without doubt prove true for global warming hysteria.

Electoral fraud focus intensifies

The developing story of investigations into alleged attempts to commit electoral fraud through disgracefully easy and avoidable abuse of the postal vote system, is gaining traction in the dead tree press.  Since the original revelations concerning a suspicious increase in the number of new voter registration were reported in the Independent, the Daily Mail and the Times among others have picked up the story.

The estimable Dr Richard North at EUReferendum has been tracking the story and making points that too many in the media seem happy to ignore, or haven’t the wit to grasp.  His latest piece today on the subject is titled ‘Vote early, vote often’.  It is a rather apt summation of the corruption of the electoral system.  But perhaps to really reflect what is happening among this country’s crumbling ruins of a democratic process, the phrase should be updated to read ‘vote early, vote often, vote as someone else’.

Sharon Shoesmith was properly dismissed

Common sense has prevailed at the High Court today as the former director of children’s services at Haringey Council, Sharon Shoesmith, lost her legal fight against dismissal by the local authority following the death of Baby P, Peter Connelly.

Sharon Shoesmith had claimed that her dismissal at the request of Children’s Secretary Ed Balls was ‘procedurally flawed, unfair and unlawful’, and that she had been the victim of a witch-hunt.  The fact is Shoesmith’s department had a track record of failures and at some point the person with responsibility for the performance of the children’s services team had to be held to account.  For too long in this country, too many people who have management responsibility seek to evade the consequences for unacceptable performance.  Shoesmith is one of those people.

Despite her defeat in the High Court, Sharon Shoesmith will now resume her Employment Tribunal claim for unfair dismissal and sexual discrimination.  It is reported she stands to receive hundreds of thousands of pounds in compensation if her claim is upheld.  Shoesmith’s dismissal was for incompetence after her department’s performance had been found to be inadequate. 

Shoesmith’s sacking had nothing to do with her gender and as Mr Justice Foskett has said today, the Secretary of State had been within his rights to sack her from her £130,000 a year job.  It would be a travesty if the Employement Tribunal finds in her favour and rewards her financially for her failures.  Employers should be able to dismiss staff who fail to do their job to the required standard.

SpeedSpike GPS speed cameras won’t improve safety

So speed cameras are about to become even more sophisticated.  The PIPS Technology ‘SpeedSpike’ system uses a satellite positioning system and automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) technology to track vehicles and it has now been tested in England.  It begs the question, just how much taxpayers’ money has been spent on developing and deploying the various forms of speed cameras that have raked in over £1billion in fines since Labour came to office?

The problem is speed is a factor in only a minority of accidents.  In 2006 figures showed that excessive speed was reported as a factor in just 15% of all road accidents and in 26% of crashes where there were fatalities.  So while hundreds of millions of pounds are spent on systems that can generate revenue, where is the investment in reducing the 85% of all road accidents where speed is not a factor?  Perhaps the attraction of SpeedSpike is its reliance on many more ANPR cameras, which enables the police to store images of vehicles and drivers for up to two years and could be used in any future effort to conduct real time tracking of individual vehicles or people.

What is being done about the defective vehicles being driven on our roads? What about the increasing prevalence of drug-driving? What about banned or unqualified drivers who still get behind the wheel? What about the need for more road safety education for children? What about the extent of dangerous driving, where among other things we see all too often drivers tailgating, not paying attention to the road, manoeuvering without looking properly, undertaking and going through traffic lights that have turned red?

The only conclusion that can be drawn is that the government is more interested in fining motorists and imposing penalties that can raise money for often minor speed transgressions in otherwise safe conditions, rather than addressing flaws in road design, road conditions, making driving tests more rigorous and improving the overall standard of driving.  Having more traffic police on patrol would deal with the problems that speed cameras self evidently cannot.  The financially motivated, one dimensional approach to road safety where technology is set to record and fine drivers who exceed limits that are often set unrealistically low for modern vehicles and conditions, has to come to an end.