EU putting French interests first again?

You can almost hear lips being licked in anticipation in the Elysée Palace.  The Financial Times reports that the EU is divided about whether it should life its embargo on selling arms to China, imposed after the Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Members of the paper tiger are apparently jostling in an attempt to determine who dictates European foreign policy; national governments, the current holder of the rotating presidency of the EU, or Lady Catherine Ashton, the over promoted lightweight nonentity ‘foreign policy supremo’ who has never stood for democratic election in her life.  As the FT explains:

These matters were supposed to have been settled in December when the EU adopted the Lisbon treaty, a set of institutional reforms meant to strengthen the role of the foreign policy chief.

Ah yes, Lisbon.  That unimportant minor revising treaty that was presented to the British people as a mere tidying up exercise.  Anyway, we have Spain, as rotating President telling China that it intends to use its six months in the hot seat to drive forward the discussions on lifting the embargo. As  Spain is France’s ventriloquist dummy the real pressure here is coming from Paris as the Sarkozy government eyes another opportunity to sell its military hardware to a rival of NATO.

With America deciding to sell more weaponry to Taiwan, incurring Chinese wrath, the French have an eye to the main chance. Paris can see if they can get the EU arms embargo of China lifted France will likely reap further trade rewards from Beijing, filling the gap left by American goods that China will refuse to order as part of its Taiwan protest.

Given that the UK is opposed to lifting the arms embargo it is little surprise that Gordon Brown’s third choice for the foreign representative role, Lady Ashton, is nowhere to be seen and probably so out of her depth she wishes she was back chairing her old health authority.  With France already laying the groundwork for improved bi-lateral relations with China, using its tried and tested method of positive public pronouncements to demonstrate its desire for a deal, we will get a litmus test of the true extent of British influence at the heart of Europe.

The EU would need a unanimous agreement to lift the embargo, so Britain can easily prevent arms sales being approved.  But if we see the EU lift the embargo then we will have confirmation of what we’ve known for so long, that Britain is just a cash cow in the grand European project and that it is France along with Germany who benefit from the existence of the EU.

Cameron’s tough line on rights is just spin

According to a post on ConservativeHome David Cameron is to say, in an interview on the Politics Show today, this about householder’s rights:

‘The moment a burglar steps over your threshold, and invades your property, with all the threat that gives to you, your family and your livelihood, I think they leave their human rights outside.’

It’s a very interesting position for Cameron to take as many people have argued that the Human Rights Act appears to offer more protection to the perpetrators of crime than their victims. At first viewing it looks like Cameron is being remarkably consistent on the subject. In 2007, when it became known that Learco Chindamo, the killer of London head teacher Philip Lawrence, could not be deported after serving his sentence because under the terms of the Act it would deny him his right to a family life in the UK, Cameron blasted:

‘It has to go. Abolish the Human Rights Act and replace it with a British Bill of Rights, which sets out rights and responsibilities. The fact that the murderer of Philip Lawrence cannot be deported flies in the face of common sense. […]’

Cameron stayed firm on this into 2009 when in a written statement for today’s Convention on Modern Liberty he promised that a Conservative government would replace the Human Rights Act with a British Bill of Rights to:

‘better tailor, but also strengthen, the protection of our core rights.’

(Incidentally if anyone knows where I can find a copy of Cameron’s written statement online, please let me know in the comments). But despite Cameron’s pledge, he has made it clear he has no intention of withdrawing from the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights, making his proposed British Bill of Rights worthless. All we have is an illusion of action whilst Cameron not only leaves the substance unchanged, but actually downgrades the priority of introducing his Bill of Rights.

So although Cameron is talking tough and sending signals to the public that they would be able to act as they saw fit in dealing with intruders, nothing he says he would do will change the law that would be applied if householders ended up in court for assaulting those intruders. Some people ask why I, a conservative, have said I won’t vote for the party while Cameron remains leader. Cameron’s talk-tough-but-actually-do-nothing approach goes some way to explaining it.  I really wish I could vote for the party and get rid of this insipid, divisive and incompetent Labour administration.  But how can I vote Tory in good conscience when this is the way its leader spins a yarn to the public.  Small wonder the opinion polls show the Conservative lead weakening.

Cameron’s pledges are worthless unless he is prepared to address the root cause of the problems we face. But in his desperation to remain at the heart of the EU – putting his personal wishes before those of the British people and denying them a say in who we believe should govern this country, our Parliament or the EU – he will not take the steps needed to rectify problems that legislation originating from Brussels causes. The perverse outcomes caused by the Human Rights Act will continue under Cameron despite his populist utterances.

BBC’s Roger Harrabin struggles with fire and water

The BBC Trust should, as a matter of urgency, investigate not just the BBC’s editorial line on environmental and climate change matters, but the reporting by its environment analyst Roger Harrabin.  His output over recent weeks has exposed more clearly than ever before that he is incapable of reporting impartially.  This was most clearly evidenced in 2008 when Harrabin altered accurate information in a news report to play down news that was considered to do a disservice to the aims of climate change campaigners.

If the clear absence of balance in his reporting was not bad enough, his biased content consistently avoids the inclusion of information that puts into context any arguments that run contrary to those of environmental activists and advocates of dangerous anthropogenic global warming.  Harrabin’s latest online column is yet another classic example of this.

Harrabin postulates on the inclusion of a passage in the IPCC 2007 AR4 about the effect on the Amazon rain forest of just a small reduction in rainfall.  The passage in the IPCC report solely referenced a paper written by a WWF group that was not peer reviewed.  As such it should not have been included at all.  But Harrabin plays that down dramatically and suggests the issue is really about the IPCC choosing to reference the WWF in its report rather than the basic science itself.

But what of the basic science?  Harrabin goes on to quote Dr Simon Lewis from Leeds University in this important passage:

Dr Simon Lewis from Leeds University, who co-authored a paper on the Amazon in the journal Science, says the forest is surprisingly sensitive to drought.

He told me: “The IPCC statement is basically correct but poorly written, and bizarrely referenced.

“It is very well known that in Amazonia, tropical forests exist when there is more than about 1.5 metres of rain a year, below that the system tends to ‘flip’ to savannah.

“Indeed, some leading models of future climate change impacts show a die-off of more than 40% Amazon forests, due to projected decreases in rainfall.

“The most extreme die-back model predicted that a new type of drought should begin to impact Amazonia, and in 2005 it happened for the first time: a drought associated with Atlantic, not Pacific sea surface temperatures.

“The effect on the forest was massive tree mortality, and the remaining Amazon forests changed from absorbing nearly two billion tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere a year, to being a massive source of over three billion tonnes.”

So, it appears that, unlike in the case of “Glaciergate”, the IPCC’s science may be right but its referencing wrong.

But Harrabin’s problem here is at the heart of his column’s convenient failing.  The fact is the paper in the IPCC report actually came from a study published in Nature magazine that wasn’t looking at rainfall at all, rather its focus was the impact on the Amazon rainforest of human activity such as logging and burning.  When you read an article in today’s Sunday Times by Jonathan Leake, one wonders if Harrabin was speaking to the same Simon Lewis.  This passage demonstrates why:

Simon Lewis, a Royal Society research fellow at Leeds University who specialises in tropical forest ecology, described the section of Rowell and Moore’s report predicting the potential destruction of large swathes of rainforest as “a mess”.

“The Nature paper is about the interactions of logging damage, fire and periodic droughts, all extremely important in understanding the vulnerability of Amazon forest to drought, but is not related to the vulnerability of these forests to reductions in rainfall,” he said.

“In my opinion the Rowell and Moore report should not have been cited; it contains no primary research data.”

This is very different from Harrabin’s line and certainly does not suggest that the IPCC statement is basically correct but poorly written.  In fact Harrabin’s column is noteworthy for the absence of the word ‘logging’ and ‘fire’ only appears as part of a direct quotation from the IPCC report.  It’s raining spin from the desk of our Roger.

How could this be?  Just how could a BBC environment analyst come up with an article so completely different in tone and thrust to the Sunday Times, and which just so happens to play down the failings, inaccuracies and misrepresentations of the WWF and IPCC?  It is telling that Harrabin fails to name the WWF’s controversial 2000 report from which all this speculation about reduced rainfall appears to come.  Perhaps this is because it was titled ‘A Global Review of Forest Fires’.

There is an oft used expression these days which suits Harrabin and his biased, agenda driven form of journalism quite nicely…  Not fit for purpose.  It is time the BBC put an impartial journalist in the role who is not working to a personal agenda and who will report fairly and objectively.  The BBC Trust needs to act now.

Glaciergate moves on to Amazongate

Readers will be no doubt familiar with Tony Blair and Alistair Campbell’s dodgy dossier, used to justify the invasion of Iraq, which included information lifted from a college student’s thesis.  Now we have reports that the IPCC took a leaf out of Labour’s manual of deception and distortion and did the same thing in constructing baseless claims that Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035 because of human activity affecting the climate.  As the Sunday Telegraph explains:

The United Nations’ expert panel on climate change based claims about ice disappearing from the world’s mountain tops on a student’s dissertation and an article in a mountaineering magazine.

You have to read it to appreciate it fully.  The problem is it completely misses the very essence of the misrepresentation of data and findings by groups such as the WWF.  It would be a funny piece if the implications for lax journalism were not so serious.  But at least the Telegraph is redeemed by the column of Christopher Booker, who moves us on from Glaciergate to Amazongate and yet more distortions in the IPCC’s AR4 in 2007.

The authority of the IPCC has been blown to pieces. Nevertheless its friends have been rushing to various media outlets to argue that this was one, quickly rectified, mistake and that the scientific basis for man made global warming is sound.  Witness the damage limitation editorial of Jennifer Morgan, director of the Climate and Energy Program at the World Resources Institute, in the Times of India.  One wonders if she will be back on those pages in a few weeks’ time, telling readers how the IPCC references to 40% of the Amazon being at risk of climate change were lifted from Nature magazine ‘by mistake’.  And that although the information was not peer reviewed and actually related to the possible effects of logging, this latest ‘one slip’ doesn’t change the big picture either.

The problem is, it isn’t just one mistake.  Michael Mann’s infamous hockey stick was used as evidence that mankind was causing runaway global warming, until the source code was unpicked and found to deliver the same result regardless of the data fed into the system.  NASA’s GISS Surface Temperature Analysis (GISTEMP) had to be corrected because it over stated the recorded temperatures.  Reported warming suddenly disappeared.  There was Keith Briffa’s selective use of 12 tree cores from the Yamal peninsula to suggest a dramatic rise in temperature in the 20th century, which suddenly disappeared when a more representative 34 other tree cores collected nearby were examined

There are other stories which reveal a mix of shoddy science and outright distortions, each of which gets played down and the same comment comes back time and again, ‘it doesn’t change the underlying science’.  Well, actually it does because it is these findings that underpin the ‘science’ of derivative researchers.  It is all guesswork, correlation, theory and hypothesis; algorithms, models and adjustments.  In the final analysis, there is no factual evidence, only belief.  That is not a good enough basis for the ‘solutions’ governments and advocacy groups are trying to force upon us that are rooted in social ideology and redistributive economics rather than science and environmental preservation.

The Hottest Hoax in the World

Not all Indian media outlets are shilling for Rajendra Pachauri like his vested self interest cheerleaders at NDTV…

“It was presented as fact. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, led by India’s very own RK Pachauri, even announced a consensus on it. The world was heating up and humans were to blame. A pack of lies, it turns out.”  (click on the image below to read the full story)

Government presses ahead with low-carbon rip off

A written ministerial statement on the European Union in 2010 was presented to the House of Commons yesterday by the Minister for Europe, Chris Bryant.  He announced the laying before the House of a Foreign and Commonwealth Office Command Paper, which provides an overview of the political programme and priorities of the Spanish presidency of the EU for the first half of 2010, available at www.eu2010.es.

Amidst the usual Euroblurb about how this Presidency (like all before it) would work to improve economies and create more jobs, through government hyperactivity rather than private enterprise being allowed to operate without bureaucratic molestation, there was a passage that reinforced the disconnect between the political classes throughout Europe and the people they are supposed to represent, but actually dictate to:

At the heart of any sustainable recovery must be measures to assist transition to a low-carbon economy. It is essential that the political agreement on emissions reductions and climate financing reached at the Copenhagen climate conference in December 2009 is now transformed effectively into a binding legal treaty. The Spanish presidency must be at the heart of EU work on this; the UK will support the presidency in ensuring agreements are turned into action.

There we have it.  Despite the comprehensive exposure of corrupt methods and fallacious claims made by a small number of highly places scientists – who lay responsibility for what is natural climate variation at the door of mankind and his emission of CO2 – our political masters intend to turn a deaf ear to the emerging evidence.  For them it is more important to carry out their wealth redistribution fetish funded by our tax pounds, and boost the profits of corporations who trade in thin air and continue to burden consumers with rising costs, to fight an illusory battle against CO2.

This renewed commitment was made within hours of new research being released by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that has found water vapour high in the atmosphere is far more influential on world temperatures than previously thought.  But of course findings such as these cannot be allowed to get in the way of the CO2 bogeyman.  After all, how on earth can you construct a lucrative credit trading scheme for water vapour when it is generally accepted by all scientists (not just the self regarding consensus variety) that human activity has not increased the concentration of water vapour in the atmosphere?

Climate change deceit close to making the Pachauri extinct

This is the kind of huge headline story you would expect to see splashed across the pages of the WWF website, Nature magazine and a Louise Gray article in the Telegraph.  We keep reading how various species are clinging precariously to existence and that any further small change in their environment caused by gaseous emissions will finally do for them and tip them over the edge into extinction.  I doubt that many climate campaigners ever thought they would see the Bearded Pachauri added to the endangered list, but that is what has happened.  As we are learning:

…The Pachauri habitat deep in the IPCC is quickly being transformed and climate change is at the root of it.  Observers are discovering that the IPCC is unable to support the survival of  this bearded curiosity much longer.  Despite regular well funded migrations to a variety of luxurious board rooms and conference halls around the world, and the donation of huge sums in grants and award of directorships, the delicate balance between error and fraud in the IPCC habitat of the Bearded Pachauri has been disturbed by a huge increase in emissions of deceitful hot air.  The sheer concentration of this man made gas is considered responsible for dramatically changing the conditions in the Pachauri’s environment and doing so with far greater speed that any scientist had previously projected.  A spokesman for the WWF told us that the loss of the Pachauri is almost certainly unavoidable:  ‘Man is responsible for this.  We should have dramatically reduced our emissions of deceitful hot air.  Producers of lie gas, such as Gore Inc and GISS Corp should have curbed their emissions but they failed to do so and now the IPCC is incapable of supporting the Bearded Pachauri.  It will be a defining loss…’

The problem for Rajendra Pachauri is that he compounds his lies because he is so caught up in a web of deceit.  As The Times explains today, when Pachauri was asked whether he had deliberately kept silent about the Himalayan glacier error to avoid embarrassment at the Copenhagen conferfence, he said:

“That’s ridiculous. It never came to my attention before the Copenhagen summit. It wasn’t in the public sphere.”

However The Times has identified a journalist who said that he had asked Dr Pachauri about the 2035 error last November.  Pallava Bagla, who writes for Science journal – and as EU Referendum points out ironically works for Pachauri’s chief media cheerleader NDTV – , said he had asked Dr Pachauri about the error.  He said that Dr Pachauri had replied: “I don’t have anything to add on glaciers.”  This is probably because Pachauri had previously dismissed a report by the Indian Government which said that glaciers might not be melting as much as had been feared.  He described the report, which did not mention the 2035 error, as ‘voodoo science’.  There is more of the exchange between Pachauri and Bagla reported in the Mail today.

The chickens are coming home to roost.  Pachauri’s position is untenable.  The IPCC is a discredited shambles.  But even when Pachauri is finally shoved aside by the IPCC in a desperate attempt to regain some degree of authority on climate change matters, nothing will change.  The problem is not a wayward IPCC Chairman freelancing a personal political agenda, using climate change as a vehicle to realise a huge transfer of wealth from the developed world to the rapidly developing world, and a dramatic reduction in our standard of living.  The whole entity is made up of politicised activists doing the exact same thing.

Changing the figurehead will not change the structure or integrity of the ship.  The SS IPCC might look a little different, but its crew and destination will remain the same.  Even when Pachauri has finally been pushed, or discovers enough humility to jump, the battle against political agendas masquerading as environmentalism will need to continue.  The battle against Pachauri is one to expose the reality of the situation for a worldwide public that has been deceived for so long.  But in reality it is a battle against the whole IPCC and the small corrupt cabal of core scientists who produce ‘reports’ generated using cherry picked data, that are then used by thousands of others as the baseline in climate science.  We have a long way to go to drain the IPCC swamp and see the truth that is well hidden below the surface.

Is the Great Climate Climbdown starting?

Could it be possible?  Could it be that we witnessing the start of a great climate climbdown concerning the true impact of CO2 as a ‘greenhouse’ gas, and therefore the supposed influence of mankind on the climate?  Something must be shifting in the climate change establishment if the Telegraph’s environment correspondant Louise Gray is prepared to go to press with an article such as this.

Sceptics of man made global warming have long argued that water vapour, which exists in hugely greater concentration in the atmosphere than trace gas CO2, has a much larger influence on climate.  But until now the media has ignored the fact and perpetuated the CO2 myth peddled by scientists who stand to earn more research grants to study it and big business which is finding ways of making CO2 into a valuable commodity to be traded for huge profits.

Regular watchers of climate change reporting in the British media will better know Louise Gray for the way she retails unsubstantiated global warming predictions without any semblance of balance or effort to challenge the claims.  Even now La Gray still turns to the warmists whenever she wants a quote, in this case Vicky Pope whose role at the Met Office is to perpetuate the agenda of the warmists rather than look objectively at what is happening to our climate.  But despite that, this piece feels different.  The climate consensus puppets in the media now realise their reputations will suffer for unquestioningly repeating claims that were made by agenda-driven scientists and organisations that are rapidly being discredited.

When even the most supportive of journalists, such as Gray, swiftly moderate their line when reporting on climate change matters, the signs are clear that the game is up.  The length of time the consensus activists will continue to fight their rearguard action remains to be seen.  They are still trying to work out if dumping Rajendra Pachauri as Chairman of the IPCC enables them to clear the slate and rebuild their agenda in a different way.  But it very much looks like a fighting retreat is underway.  The climbdown is starting.

Afghan bribes are the last straw. Bring our boys home!

With defeat staring us in the face the time has come to bring an end to our mission in Afghanistan.  The body count is rising and although some infrastructure improvements are being made, the fact is we are not winning the hearts and minds of the population, let alone the war.  The people there are not converting to western ideas of democracy and civic society.  Our strategy, if one existed, was flawed from the start and the efforts of our troops have been disgracefully undermined by the craven politicians and Whitehall bureaucrats.

As an exercise in nation building, Afghanistan is an abject failure.  Today Gordon Brown signalled clearly that Britain is desperate for a face saving way out.  In an interview he said that the only condition where the coalition in Afghanistan will engage with terrorists is “if they give up terrorist activities” and agree to become “citizens”.  But Brown has already run up the white flag.  It’s the endgame now.  These bribes are the last straw.  We must bring our boys home.  Paying bribes in Afghanistan is nothing new, but this overt effort to buy off our enemies with huge sums of money is sickening.

We haven’t brought change to Afghanistan.  While our military and police trainers maintain a stoic silence, when they would be well justified in highlighting major misgivings about the inevitable failure of our mission, in Germany there is no such discretion.  There, the announcement by Chancellor Angela Merkel that Berlin will signal a new ‘strategic direction’ by sending 500 more troops and police trainers to Afghanistan has sparked bitter complaints from the military and policing unions.  The comments of some present the reality of Afghanistan and futility of our efforts in a way our politicians would never allow here:

Rainer Wendt, head of the competing police union, called the German Police Union (DPolG), agreed with his colleague’s assessment. “The incoming Afghan police officers receive just a brief crash course from us,” he told the daily Stuttgarter Nachrichten. “We would already consider it a success if the future security personnel wouldn’t bash people on the head, cut off the hands of thieves and stone women.”

He also voiced concern that many of those trained by German police might join the Taliban once their instruction is complete. “We are training fighters for the Taliban,” Wendt said. “We should be concerned that many of the Afghan police candidates don’t even join the force after their training course. Instead, they go directly to the Taliban. They pay twice as much.” Afghan police officers earn $100 per month, according to the German Foreign Ministry.

It is not the sort of stiff upper lip assessment we are used to here.  Given this kind of insight, it would seem reasonable to assume the announcement today that £87m had been set aside to pay ‘low level’ Taliban fighters to lay down their arms and ‘reintegrate’ into Afghan society, isn’t going to achieve a damn thing.  When are western ‘elitist liberals’ going to understand the ordinary Afghan has a very different mindset to theirs?  When will they stop assuming ordinary Afghans will act with honour?  How many times do they have to witness Afghans switching sides at the drop of a hat during this conflict?

After taking the money we so generously dole out, what do we do if they decide to go back to their Talib masters and continue fighting our troops?  Do we write a bigger cheque?  Well that’s a question that no one seems willing or able to answer.  The Taliban is winning this war of attrition.  We have a paucity of troops, a lack of equipment and the cost of maintaining the military campaign is biting hard into the public purse.  Isn’t it time to dispense with futile gestures and face saving follies and accept that Afghanistan is a lost cause and get out?  This is not worth the loss of one more British life.

The idea of buying off Taliban fighters is the last throw of the dice for the NATO led alliance to give the illusion that in some way they finally overcame the insurgents.  It’s a waste of time.  This adventure was lost before it started because of the way we went about it.  It’s time to face reality.  Let’s get our fighting men and women out of Afghanistan, learn the valuable lessons it has taught us and come up with a strategy for tackling terrorist training camps and plots in a smarter way, perhaps with the use of special forces and tactics that are cheaper and in all likelihood more cost effective.

Climate change claims have been a WMD

Not a weapon of mass destruction, but a weapon of mass deception.  A desperate attempt to continue obfuscating the facts and hiding the truth, by a member of the inner circle of panic-striken dissemblers and spin doctors who see their house of cards collapsing about their ears.  That is the most restrained comment I can offer in response to Vicky Pope’s work of fiction in The Times today.

Who she?  The Head of Climate Change Advice at the increasingly discredited Met Office.  It was all too clear what was coming when she started her fantasy piece with a classic understatement:

For Britain’s climate science community, the past few months have come as a profound shock.

Not half.  Never in their wildest dreams did the warmists think their lazy or non existant scientific methods, deliberate actions to withhold data from educated people who would see through it and, personal biases and beliefs being presented as evidence, would ever come under the kind of scrutiny they considered themselves to be immune from.  The complicity of lazy, unquestioning journalists desperate to be fed dramatic copy and the unscrupulous power hungry environmental groups and charities was thought to be sufficient to perpetuate their unsubstantiated claims and terrify people into thinking their actions were changing the climate with terrible consequences.

But even though the shroud has been pulled aside, the ‘evidence’ discredited and the naked political agenda of the climate warmists exposed, the delusional nature of people like Vicky Pope remains on open display with articles such as hers.  The lies creep across the screen in a shameless exercise of self pity combined with misplaced vindication.  Clearly Pope and her comrades-in-deceit have told the lies so often, they really do believe them.  They cannot understand why people laugh or react with incredulity.  It really is a state of mind.  The only thing truly scientific about this scam is the implications for psychology of their continuing inability to accept what the facts show.

More recently we have had a series of reports suggesting that “key” sections of assessments of climate change science by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) were in error.

Not suggestions, evidence.  A concept that seems entirely alien to Pope and her fellow travellers.

For scientists, climate research was based on powerful computer models backed by a wealth of real-world evidence.

That is, the evidence that was allowed to remain after discounting everything that was collected and found not to provide the desired outcome.  From the temperature records of surface stations, to the tree cores of the Yamal peninsula whose tale was discarded, the ‘real-world evidence’ was a distorted and contrived fraud.  But still she goes on, desperate to hook any reader who might have not seen the myths perpetuated by her and her friends completely shot down and utterly destroyed.

The more substantive mistake in the IPCC report that Himalayan glaciers were melting so fast that they would vanish by 2035 has been dealt with swiftly and clearly by the IPCC.

You know, perhaps it’s true that there is runaway global warming and that everything Pope and her friends have claimed and projected is accurate.  Perhaps the problem is that this all this is taking place in the parallel universe they inhabit, which is why we don’t see it here.  Anyone who can suggest the IPCC dispensed with the Himalayan glacier farce ‘swiftly and clearly’ is in need of therapy.  Pope’s claim flies in the face of the established facts of the matter.  How are we to have confidence in anyone who is willing to lie so effortlessly?

The big difference then, is not in the physics of climate change but the public’s perception of what climate research is all about.

That means it is a communications problem and the blame for that has to lie at least in part with the scientists and in part with the way that science is reported.

It didn’t take long for the old ‘communication problem’ chestnut to surface did it?  This is the polite way of Pope saying ‘we’ve given you the truth you must believe, but you’re too stupid to accept it’.  It’s nothing to do with the reporting.  In fact for too many years, Pope and her ilk have had carte blanche to put any old rubbish in the press, reporting theory as fact and ideas as forgone conclusions.  Now the truth has started to undermine the cosy little consensus and expose the vacuous and unscientific nature of what we have been told for so long, the problem is suddenly a communication one.

If there is a communication problem it’s the determined refusal of the small cabal of leading scientists, who form the foundation for thousands of derivative researchers, to tell the truth.  This is the reason why the climate change consensus is falling apart.  This is why confidence is plummeting.  This is why Vicky Pope has been reduced to nothing more than a joke to be rolled out at dinner parties, like an exhibit at a Victorian era freak show.  The genie is out of the bottle and compounding the lies in the way Pope has done in this article will do nothing to put it back in.

Lib Dems take populist stance over EU doctors

When you have a group of politicians who actively campaign for ever closer union in Europe, who argue we should embrace free movement of people and labour throughout the EU and who condemn anyone who dissents as being a narrow minded little Englander, or a closet racist, it shows some brass neck to see them complaining about the resulting consequences.

But then, we are talking about the Liberal Democrats, the nasty party of British politics, whose campaigners will pledge whatever you want to hear on your doorstep and say the exact opposite to your neighbour.  So it should come as no surprise that their actions and their public pronouncements are a mass of contradictions.  As the BBC reports:

The Liberal Democrats have called for doctors from other European Union countries working in the UK to be subject to tougher restrictions.

The party has called for exams to root out those with poor language skills and inferior medical training.

But as the article goes on to explain, there are almost 20,000 doctors from the EU qualified to work in the UK and EU regulations designed to encourage the free movement of labour mean they are not subject to the same checks as those from outside.  The very EU regulations the Lib Dems have supported and badgered us to accept.  Now all of a sudden the reality of their European utopia hits home and they rush to the media complaining about how wrong it is.

With the exception of the BNP, there is not a more irritating group of ignorant, deceitful halfwits in the UK political sphere.  There is nothing they will not say to get a vote.

Sarkozy says no to more troops for Afghanistan

Visiting this subject somewhat later than one would have wished, but better late than never.  It would have been delightful being a fly on the wall in NATO headquarters on Monday after Nicolas Sarkozy told French television he would not send a single extra combat soldier to Afghanistan.  It is only nine months since France rejoined NATO as a full member, but under this modern day Napoleon, the French are already upsetting the apple cart.  What is it with power crazed, short arsed Frenchmen?

Just weeks ago it became clear that with a classic Gallic shrug, France had done a deal to sell a Mistral class amphibious warship along with advanced military technology to Russia, although the European media corps has pointedly ignored it.  Now with NATO imploring its members to support the military effort in Afghanistan, Sarkozy grandstands for the French media and delivers a resounding ‘Non’ to the alliance.

It seems that under Sarkozy, France’s idea of being part of an alliance is to provide enhanced war fighting capability to its major rival and refuse point blank to send much needed combat troops to help fight the Taliban.  NATO must be wondering what exactly it gets out of France being a member, apart from Parisian petulance and a lot of headaches.  Perhaps Sarkozy would have sent an entire regiment if only the US and Britain had followed Russia’s example and offered to buy some French hardware…  With friends like the French, who needs enemies?  Ladies and gentlemen, I give you France.  Our selfless partners in peace and cooperation.  Santé!

Oh the delicious irony

If anyone wants to understand why it is the Conservatives are not doing much better in the polls under David Cameron, a piece in the Telegraph goes some way to explaining it.  For it tells us that Britain has become more conservative in both politics and economics, according to the annual British Social Attitudes Survey.

The problem for the Tories is that while people are becoming more conservative (small c) the Conservative party is becoming less conservative.  The Tories and the electorate are passing each other on the road, going in opposite directions.  While the Heir to Blair continues to make his party more like blue Labour with each passing week in the hope of securing ‘centre ground’ votes, the voters are rejecting the centre ground and moving to the right:

The public have said “enough is enough” when it comes to wealth redistribution and no longer has an appetite for tax increases and raised spending on key services such as health and education.

Views on market forces and laissez faire is even stronger now than it was under Margaret Thatcher, the report concluded, and blamed the shift on New Labour repositioning itself towards centre politics.

Cameron thought Tory unpopularity was all to do with policy and set about reversing the party’s position on low taxation and pledging to spend more on public services.  The problem is that he wrongly identified the reason why people turned against the Conservatives in the 1990s.  It was to do with the ERM debacle, the Tory wets pushing us further towards European integration with Maastricht and sleazy personalities acting in arrogant fashion. 

Because Cameron refuses to accept that policy was not the problem and is determined to advance towards consensus politics, despite poll after poll showing people supporting Tory policies until they discovered it was Tories offering them, many people are now wondering what the point is of supporting the Tories today.  Especially as it is clear they are determined to pursue the same harmful approach as Labour, which has resulted in a catastrophic impact on the public finances and the efficiency of service provision.

Make no mistake, a lot of people still think the Conservative party is conservative and will vote for them this year in the hope they will rebuild Britain like Thatcher did in the 80s.  But after a term of a Cameron government with its social democract agenda and refusal to address the issues people feel strongly about, we will see many more people desert the party in search of a genuine conservative alternative.

Pachauri’s ‘regrettable error’ is a blatant lie

On Saturday, the Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Rajendra K Pachauri, stated the bogus and long standing claim that Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035 as a result of man made global warming was a ‘regrettable error’.  Pachauri said that no action would be taken against any scientist in respect of the bogus claim and explained that:

“There is a full process that is followed and attributing responsibility on specific experts may not be desirable, particularly since the error was more of one of judgement,”

However, Pachauri has been caught out lying in his statement of regret.  A report from the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) sets out in detail the concerted attempts that were made by scientists to modify the Himalaya glacier section of the IPCC’s 2007 4th Assessment Report due to the bogus claim (hat tip: EU Referendum).  It reports on the blank refusal of Dr Murari Lal, one of the four Coordinating Lead Authors for the Chapter on Himalayan glacier melt, to accept any changes despite the lobbying and evidence presented.  It also details Lal’s subsequent lies on the matter this very weekend when declaring that:

“This is more about a systematic failure of the (IPCC) review process. The… conclusions were sent to hundreds of scientists and governments… and no one raised any doubts… then.”

The GWPF documents prove that is false and that far from an error of judgement as Pachauri put is, what we had was a deliberate plan to deceive people by publishing a claim that was known to be completely false.  What we are seeing is nothing less than an international conspiracy to perpetrate a gigantic fraud against ordinary people around the world.  It is a deception of immense proportions.  It is being carried out by political appointees who are not interested in science or truth, but in carrying out a series of political objectives using the theory of man made global warming as justification for their actions and impositions.

Despite the growing body of evidence supporting this accusation of fraud, Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg still accept the climate change theory as fact.  Are they ignorant, stupid or are they part of the cabal of vested interests and opportunity seekers who are driving this scam?

Indians fed Pachauri propaganda by business ally

Picture the scene.  Jeremy Paxman is conducting an television interview with Gordon Brown.  The interview is happening because Brown has under increasing international scrutiny for making worrying claims many months earlier that the UK economy will collapse in 25 years time due to the new banking crisis.

Brown claimed in a major report, signed up to by government funded international economists and financial experts, but disputed by a number of experts and other opponents whose evidence has been ignored by the mainstream media and refused air time on the BBC, that unless everyone agrees to an immediate 25% increase in income tax and six day week, the UK will go bust and wreck the entire international economy.  The claims have been widely reported and accepted at face value for a long time.  Stick with me here because this gets good.

However, Brown’s claim has been exposed as completely bogus and nothing more than the result of a single comment by a lowly official unsupported by any evidence.  As confidence in Brown plummets to even greater depths the clamour for Brown to admit to the mistake to the public grows by the day.  So Brown is in the BBC studio with Paxman, describing what happened as a regrettable error and saying that the possibility of there being more errors in his report ‘is minimal if not non-existent’.  Paxman then ends the interview by saying to Brown:

“Your credibility is impeccable… Let’s hope you fight back and win and clear your name in all these… in this widespread attack from one side against you.”

Can you imagine the uproar at such blatant bias and lack of objectivity by Paxman?  Would you have confidence in his impartiality if you learned that Paxman had a huge business interest in supporting Brown’s position and had therefore spoken at a seminar, arranged by Brown’s colleagues, where he argued in favour of the punishing higher taxes and longer working hours, saying:

“From the smallest individual to the highest level of government, each one of us has to take action to minimise future harm to the economy.  The BBC through the Work More Pay More Campaign has taken the responsibility to initiate a nationwide movement for people to take the financial pledge and do every bit to stop further harm to our economy.  The staggering response we received in the first year from our viewers and people from all walks of life only makes our belief, to effect a change, much stronger.  This year too, we strive to continue our efforts to reduce our financial impact on the world through actions that will make a difference.”

Well, you don’t need to imagine it.  All you need to do is change the names, the issue and the country and what you have read actually happened this weekend.  Not in the UK but in India.  For Gordon Brown read Rajendra K Pachauri, Chairman of the IPCC.  For Jeremy Paxman read Dr Prannoy Roy, a journalist and Chairman of NDTV.  For BBC read NDTV.  For this great economic collapse read the 2035 Himalayan glacier story.  For the seminar read NDTV and Toyota’s green campaign in New Delhi.  If you think Silvio Berlusconi’s abuse of his position as head of a media organisation is bad, it is nothing compared to the bias and vested self interest of Dr Prannoy Roy.

We see yet again Pachauri and his IPCC nesting with big business.  It’s like looking into a box of hamsters.  Writhing like entwined lovers in the heights of passion, they are inseparable because of their mutual reliance on each other to bring about the ecstasy of fulfilment.  In their case that fulfilment is not brought about by orgasms, but regular injections of massive sums of money.  Money secured by governments who extracted it from ordinary people in taxation; and money from companies with a vested interest in making bigger profits, who have increased the cost ordinary people must pay for their goods and services.  We are being conned.

Lord Hutton… a Labour saving device

Today we have yet another example of our Lords and masters at work in their parallel reality.  The Mail on Sunday is retailing the story that Lord Hutton, the peer who chaired the inquiry into the death of UN weapons inspector Dr David Kelly (who had earlier been outed as the source of BBC information that the Iraq dossier had been sexed up) has secretly barred the release of all medical records, including the results of the post mortem, and unpublished evidence.

This is the second twice that James Hutton has ridden to the rescue of the Labour government.  Clearly Hutton was not content with publishing a whitewash of an inquiry in 2004 that hammered the BBC while clearing the government of any wrongdoing.  With the Chilcot Inquiry closing in on the possibility of seeking to re-examine evidence concerning the death of Dr Kelly, a move that could embarrass Labour again, we now see that Hutton has taken a draconian step to hide the medical records, post mortem results and other evidence that was unpublished.

There is no justification for such action.  It is inexplicable.  What is it these socialists keep telling us, if you’ve nothing to hide then you’ve nothing to fear?  So what is it Hutton and the government have to hide?  It should not be legally permissible to seal the records in this way to prevent objective independent scrutiny of the available information.  Hutton is seeking to hide information he is trying to keep out of the public domain and the only possible beneficiary is this squalid Labour government.

The stench of scandal and corruption surrounding this action is nauseating.  It is imperative that independent judges overturn this ruling and allow proper scrutiny of that which Hutton is trying to hide for the government.  Such an abuse of the law must not be tolerated.  The law should serve all citizens of this country fairly and be used as a tool to establish the truth and hold wrongdoers to account.  It should not become the sole preserve of the political and moneyed class, to be abused for their own ends and shield them from justice.

But perhaps people will remain more concerned with Celebrity Big Brother and the latest goings on in Albert Square to be bothered about this.  Until that is it directly affects them in a damaging way, by which time it will probably be too late to act.

Wind farm subsidies cost us £1bn in energy bills

Britain’s energy policy faces new controversy as it can be revealed that electricity customers are paying more than £1 billion a year to subsidise windfarms and other forms of renewable energy, according to the Sunday Telegraph.  It’s not new news, but it’s better they arrive late to the party than not at all.  At least more people will become aware of (EU driven) charges such as the Renewables Obligation that are forcing up our bills to subsidise forms of power generation that do not produce power when it’s needed most.

The excellent EU Referendum blog has been explaining for many months how we energy consumers are paying no less than five separate charges to ‘fund the battle to combat climate change’.  They are the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, the Carbon Emissions Reduction Target, the Renewables Obligation, the Community Energy Saving Programme and a forthcoming levy on investing in clean coal projects.  Now the media is waking up to this outrageous rip off people will be able to see how we are manipulated and treated as climate change cash cows to make a fortune for big business.  It would be nice if the media also explained the origin of these charges… our government in Brussels.

Will David Miliband’s school choice be a Balls up?

So David Miliband and his wife Louise have chosen to send their son at a Church of England primary school two miles from their home, when there is a ‘successful’ state primary school just 80 yards from their door.  Good for them I say.  Parents should have the ability to seek the best school they can find for their children without being hindered by the state and its interfering bureaucracy.  They should have the ability to send their children to a faith school if that is their choice.

Now that Miliband has nailed his colours firmly to the mast of parental choice and spurned the local state primary in favour of a faith school, we expect to see him standing up for his principles in the House of Commons the next time the vindictive Ed Balls launches another of his assaults on faith schools.

It’s probably just a coincidence that the Milibands lived in their home for five years and their son was two years old before Lutheran Mrs Miliband was suddenly inspired to seek spiritual nourishment in the local Anglican communion – and with it the near certainty of a place at the nearest Church of England school for Miliband Jnr (will he take an apple in for teacher, or will it be one of his dad’s infamous bananas?).  It should not matter that Mr Miliband is an avowed atheist and agreeing to send his son to a faith school is anathema to his orthodoxy.  It’s probably just a sign he’s becoming more open minded.

What matters is the ability to choose.  The ability for parents to decide what is best for their children and pursue it with vigour.  The Milibands have chosen and more power to their parental elbows.  Of course, by doing this the only logical course of action is for David Miliband is to champion faith schools in Parliament and demand that all parents enjoy to same opportunity he has taken advantage of.  Surely he has no option but to fight any proposals the arch secularist Ed Balls brings forward that make it harder for other committed parents to do the same as Miliband has.

Anything else would be sheer hypocrisy.  No self respecting and ambitious politician would ever stoop so low as to secure an advantage for themselves that they would deny to others through legislation.  Would they?

Conservatives continue to delude themselves

I like Jonathan Isaby, the co-editor of ConservativeHome.  He is a genuinely nice guy and he is a good writer too.  But then, he should be having been on the roll at the Telegraph.  He is also an optimist and clearly as loyal as an eternally patient schnauzer.

But it seems of late that his loyalty is clouding any sense of realism in his public pronouncements.  The Times yesterday carried an Isaby opinion editorial about the new faces of the Tories, which contained the following section:

While they are generally socially liberal, sympathetic to localism and in favour of reversing Labour’s erosion of civil liberties, they are Thatcherite on Europe, tax, enterprise and defence. They are not, in the main, especially moved by the green agenda that Mr Cameron has so personally embraced.

There is an understandable rationale to Isaby’s plea because Thatcherism was the most successful form of conservatism and Cameron is no Thatcherite.  He is not even a conservative.  He is a frustrated liberal of the Orange Book wing who is using the wider electoral appeal of the Conservatives as a vehicle to realise his personal ambitions.

But the problem in Isaby’s written appeal to centre right is that while the new Tories who could be returned to Parliament will not be clones of Cameron, they will be completely subordinate to him.  Cameron is an authoritarian paternalist who believes he knows best.  He will brook no dissent from the new intake.  On Tory climate change policy, in accepting the flawed scientific argument and resisting doubters of the consensus, Cameron bared his teeth by saying:

“A very small number of people take a different view on the science, but the policy is driven by me, and that is the way it is going to be.”

What ambitious Tory fresher in Parliament is going to take on the leader and risk the frosty marginalisation that would follow?  Sadly Isaby is ignoring the reality of the situation.  And he was at it again today back on ConservativeHome in an article about UKIP possibly standing candidates against Conservatives even if they support the ‘Better Off Out’ campaign for withdrawal from the EU.  There is simply no basis in evidence for the argument made by Isaby:

All the same, I would argue that for anyone who agrees with UKIP’s principle aim of getting out of the European Union, their preferred direction of travel will be infinitely better represented by a Conservative Government than by a Labour one, and that voting UKIP is merely aiding and abetting the europhiles in Labour and the Lib Dems.

Time and again David Cameron has made it clear he sees Britain’s future as being in the EU.  Because it is what Cameron wants, it is Conservative policy and will remain so until any future leader has the courage and good sense to change it.  No voter who wants Britain out of the EU will be any better represented by a Conservative than by a Labour socialist or Liberal Democrat federalist.  To claim otherwise is to engage in the politics of delusion.

A Cameron government will not do anything that tilts towards the direction of travel sought by those who want the United Kingdom to be a sovereign independent nation once more.  I will not say Isaby is being dishonest for I think he really believes what he says; but he is deluded like so many other Conservatives who cling to the hope that once in office Cameron will suddenly reveal himself to have been anti-EU all along.

As for UKIP?  Yes, they want to take us out of the EU.  But as a political party with elements that are quite unsavoury, they do not appeal to me any more than the Conservatives.  The fact is there is a large proportion of the UK electorate that simply doesn’t have a political party they feel able to support.  The choice between consensus politics and extremist or intolerant parties is not much of a choice at all.

A statistic for Gordon Brown to note

Gordon Brown likes to use statistics.  In fact there is nothing more likely to make him contort his face into one of his inappropriate and disturbing manic grins than the opportunity to spout reams of figures at his opponents.  So here is one that this Autonomous Mind would like to see him share in Parliament in full view of the TV cameras… the UK has dropped out of the top-ten countries in the Index of Economic Freedom.  As the Institute of Economic Affairs explains:

The country’s score dropped from 79 to 76.5, the second largest fall among the world’s twenty largest economies (only in the USA is economic freedom declining even more rapidly). Worse still, the 2010 Index is based primarily on data from July 2008 to June 2009 – before December’s disastrous Pre-Budget Report and the arbitrary supertax on bankers’ bonuses.

Perhaps Brown will respond by calling for yet another international conference to discuss concerted international cooperation to deal with his incompetence and mismanagement of the UK economy.  And there was Brown believing he had saved the world.  All he’s done is make it easier for the rest of the world to outperform the UK.