Met Office: ‘Not us, it was Harrabin’. But…

Writing in The Register this afternoon, Andrew Orlowski shares a quote received from the Met Office that appears to cut the legs from under BCC environment analyst Roger Harrabin’s claim that:

The truth is it [The Met Office] did suspect we were in for an exceptionally cold early winter, and told the Cabinet Office so in October. But we weren’t let in on the secret.

As pointed out by this blog and Katabasis last Friday, the forecast submitted to the Cabinet Office contained no such warning.  Orlowski explains:

The Met told us:

“The Met Office has never suggested that we warned cabinet office of an ‘exceptionally cold early winter’. The forecasts said that there was ‘an increased risk for a cold and wintry start to the winter season’. The Met Office provided a forecast to the cabinet office that showed that there was an increased risk of an average or cold start to winter over an average or mild winter. This along with a verbal briefing and the text that highlighted a ‘increased risk of a cold start to the winter season’ all provided useful guidance to the cabinet office.”

What does this mean?  The Met Office appears to be suggesting that Harrabin embellished the Met Office forecast, in a way that gave cover to the department, on his own initiative and that the public was mislead with false information.  However the Met Office does not get away with it that easily.  Orlowski’s article also links back to a piece in the Daily Mail on 4th January where the paper quotes a spokeswoman from the Met Office was quoted as saying:

‘We did brief the Cabinet Office in October on what we believed would be an exceptionally cold and long winter,’ she said.

It is said that your lies will find you out.  The Met Office appears to be lurching from lie to lie.  The left hand does not know what the left hand is doing, or there is a concerted effort to create enough confusion to turn people off the story in frustration.  Roger Harrabin has been a friend to the Met Office, but it is hanging him out to dry.

What remains unexplained is the Met Office’s silence since 4th January.  If Harrabin made up the ‘exceptionally cold early winter’ quote why has it taken nearly a month for them to deny it?  Why wait until the FOI was finally made public by a blogger?  Something is very rotten in the upper echelons of the Met Office and John Hirst has a number of searching questions to answer.  It is clear we cannot have confidence in him.

Update: And by happy coincidence (yeah, as if) Roger Harrabin finally uses the BBC space to relay more of his thoughts about the forecast. My bullshitometer has gone off the scale reading this particular passage:

But the Met Office kept quietly doing the forecasts anyway. And they laid their winter prognosis on the government on 25 October.

Finally it’s come my way. The Met Office was forecasting a 40% chance of a cold start to the winter, with a 30% chance of a mild start, and a 30% chance of an average start.

This doesn’t match a more conclusive forecast I gleaned from a Met Office contact in December whilst researching an article for the Radio Times – though it does point in roughly the same direction.

It does no such thing.  He is still shilling for them.  It’s actually now amusing to see Harrabin trying to hold the line while the Met Office tries to put a continental sized distance between it and Harrabin’s reporting from his ‘deepthroat’ contact.  But it’s also interesting to note Harrabin’s determination to corral the government into this when he says:

The government was criticised in the media earlier this month for failing to publish the advice to ordinary folk planning their Christmas holidays. A spokesman for the Cabinet Office told me they had passed the forecast to key stakeholders (“Government departments, local council as appropriate – we don’t have a list”).

The forecast, he said, belonged to the Met Office – so it was up to the Met Office to decide who to share it with.

Something else worthy of note is this gem where Harrabin has spoken with a former BBC weather man, who he performs contortions to describe at every opportunity as ‘independent’.  What this forecaster says is doublespeak plus.  It is too funny for words (emphasis added):

I contacted the independent weatherman Philip Eden at the time and he said the Met Office online map had been mis-understood by journalists and bloggers reporting it.

He told me: “The Met Office are correct: it is not a forecast. It does not even indicate above average temperatures – rather, it suggests an above-average probability of above average temperatures. This would be only one of several outputs that they would consider in putting together a seasonal forecast”.

War is peace, ignorance is strength etc, etc.  The rats in the sack continue to scrabble around looking for a way out.  But Harrabin continues to show he is still ‘one of them’ as he faithfully relays the current Met Office meme, that they need more supercomputing power:

Well, the Quarmby report for the government into winter preparedness reveals that the Chief Scientist John Beddington “advises me that significant progress is being made by the Met Office in being able to make seasonal projections with more confidence, certainly up to one month and potentially up to three months in advance, and could be incorporated into operational forecasting by winter 2011/12, given sufficient computing resource.”

The spin, fiction and fantasy continues.

BBC climate change propaganda onslaught continues

Tonight on BBC4 viewers will be treated the the latest piece of naked BBC propaganda masquerading as an open minded examination of climate change sceptics, called – imaginatively – Meet The Climate Sceptics.  The pro Greenpeace environmentalist and film maker Rupert Murray claims:

This is a story about the world of climate scepticism and my journey as I put aside my environmental beliefs, rid myself of any bias, and try to really understand why some people think that our carbon dioxide emissions are not a problem.

Right off the bat the default position Murray holds is that CO2 is a problem and causing changes to our climate.  As such he is clearly not putting aside his environmental beliefs and demonstrates he retains a bias.  His introduction is fallacious doublespeak and his intent is to lampoon people with highly selective and distorted representations.

Being the BBC they were incapable of commissioning someone with an open mind.  They had to use a film maker who exists within their circle, so naturally it had to be an environmentalist.  To describe this as a stitch up is an understatement.  The narrative is always one-way on the BBC and there is never an opportunity for a prominent member of the counter consensus to make a programme in this manner for broadcast.  It is blatant bias and it is outrageous that we taxpayers should be compelled to subsidise this campaign to brainwash, misinform and mislead people.

For more on this venal little programme there is commentary on EU Referendum, Dellers’ news blog, Biased BBC, Bishop Hill and Climate Resistance.

 

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Rats in a sack

In an analysis of the Met Office and BBC’s role in the winter forecast fiasco, John O’Sullivan offers an interesting take on possible events behind the scenes:

A report by a top BBC environment journalist, Roger Harrabin, implied that the UK’s Coalition government might have blocked the so-called ‘secret cold winter’ forecast.  But is there more to this story than meets the eye and have dark forces in high places conspired to frame the veteran journalist?

The risk here is that heading off at a tangent into possible conspiracies and character assassination most foul diverts necessary focus from the taxpayer funded Met Office’s failure to issue a public forecast for the coldest early winter for more than 100 years.

For the millions of our tax pounds that are lavished on the Met Office we are entitled to something much better.  The fact is the Met Office claimed it warned of the extreme weather but the evidence now obtained shows it did not. Further it shows the quality and detail of the forecast is little better than what could be produced by examining chicken entrails.

The Met Office winter forecast lie is finally nailed

And heads must roll.

With compliments to Katabasis whose FOI request has been dealt with more quickly than mine… The information in the FOI response he has received today and written up in a detailed blog post goes into much more detail than Bishop Hill’s release from the Quarmby audit team.

A look at the information makes clear there is nowhere left for the Met Office to hide.  The Met Office has been caught ‘cold’ lying about its winter forecast in a disgraceful attempt to salvage its reputation.  Its claim that it forecast the cold start to the winter lays in tatters thanks to an exchange of emails between the department and the Cabinet Office.

As a result the Met Office is completely discredited.  Also utterly discredited is the BBC environment analyst Roger Harrabin, who on the Met Office’s behalf used a column in the Radio Times (later carried in the Telegraph and the Daily Mail) to state that:

In October the forecaster privately warned the Government – with whom it has a contract – that Britain was likely to face an extremely cold winter.

It kept the prediction secret, however, after facing severe criticism over the accuracy of its long-term forecasts.

(My emphasis in bold italic above and below) Harrabin went on to say in his piece that:

Why didn’t the Met Office tell us that Greenland was about to swap weather with Godalming? The truth is it [The Met Office] did suspect we were in for an exceptionally cold early winter, and told the Cabinet Office so in October. But we weren’t let in on the secret. “The reason? The Met Office no longer publishes its seasonal forecasts because of the ridicule it suffered for predicting a barbecue summer in 2009 – the summer that campers floated around in their tents.

The email exchange in the screenshot below proves this is a lie. The Cabinet Office civil servant (bottom message) confirms the weather outlook supplied by the Met Office earlier that day is what the government will use in its ‘Forward Look’.  The Met Office employee (top message) agrees with it.

The all important sentence is the first.  ‘The Met Office seasonal outlook for the period November to January is showing no clear signals for the winter’.  The Met Office knew this was the case when it sent Harrabin scurrying off to spin its lie that the Met Office ‘did suspect we were in for an exceptionally cold early winter, and told the Cabinet Office so in October‘.  The briefing to the Cabinet Office contains no such warning – and vindicates the parliamentary answer given by Francis Maude when questioned about the forecast the government received from the Met Office.

What is worse is that the Met Office knew this, yet with its claim tried to place responsibility for the lack of prepareness for an extremely cold start to the winter on government inaction.  Harrabin added to this by saying he had put in a FOI to the government (referenced in this post) to discover what they were told, the insinuation being it was the government that had something to hide.  This is very dangerous ground that leans towards the possibility of the Met Office and a BBC reporter engaging in a joint effort to undermine the government’s credibility.

This leads us to ask a serious question that must be answered: How is it possible that Roger Harrabin could claim the Met Office line he was retailing was the ‘truth’ with such certainty?

• If Harrabin had seen the evidence and still spun his line then he has knowingly lied to the public
• If he spun his line without seeing the evidence then he is utterly incompetent and the public can have no faith in the stories he broadcasts and publishes on the BBC

Either way Roger Harrabin’s position is now untenable and in addition to resigning he must make a full public apology.  As for the Met Office, the buck stops with the Chief Executive, John Hirst, who has looked on as this false narrative was constructed and insinuations were made to deflect criticism from his department, yet did nothing to correct it.

We now have the truth.  It is what many people have suspected since the story materialised.  It’s now time for those who are funded by taxpayers’ money and who engineered the deception, and those who allowed it to happen, to pay the price for their actions.  Over to the executive board of the Met Office and the trustees of the BBC…

>>  The story from the beginning as it developed  <<

.

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Met Office and BBC – Winter 2010-11

The Met Office, the BBC, that winter forecast and how it and related stories involving the protagonists developed during the period: (in chronological order, oldest first. Check back as this post is updated as new related stories emerge).

Met Office accuracy review

Met Office: memory or honesty deficiency?

That Met Office global long range probability map

Met Office severe weather warning ignored in Northern Ireland

What supercomputers do Bastardi and Corbyn use?

Bastardi and Corbyn reply

BBC spins that Met Office got winter right, just kept it secret from public

Why issue them in the first place?

Met Office continues to hide inconvenient facts

Far from being the warmest year on record

Met Office spins itself deeper into the hole

Met Office: smokescreen, confusion or conspiracy?

What is Roger Harrabin doing?

BBC weather man tries to clear Met Office but digs deeper hole

Can the BBC’s ‘Weather Test’ project be impartial?

BBC’s biased reporting of Global Warming

Government vs Met Office forecast row heats up

That Met Office cold winter forecast revealed

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

Peter Sissons on the BBC’s climate change propaganda

BBC’s Richard Black resorts to spin and deception

There’s spin and there’s Met Office spin

The Met Office winter forecast lie is finally nailed

Met Office: ‘Not us, it was Harrabin’. But…

Harrabin the Untrustworthy

Met Office document shows it only renamed its seasonal forecasts

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

Roger Harrabin plays watch the birdie on WUWT

Government was concerned about mixed forecasts from Met Office

Departmental vested interest in helping Met Office?

Is the Met Office becoming irrelevant?

Is Met Office trying to hide inconvenient temperature records?

DECC deliberately misleading MPs over Met Office forecast

Why DECC is running interference for the Met Office

Last updated: 17th Feb 2011 @ 11:00am

– NEW!!

Yet another example of media incompetence

How many more times do the idiots at the Barclay Brother Beano need to be told?  The once respected organ is now becoming a hollowed out joke as journalism makes way for the cut and paste of releases from spin doctors.

EU Referendum points out how the Telegraph is displaying rank incompetence on reporting economic matters in its piece about a collapse in consumer confidence.  It’s as if they were having a few days off around the time of the October spending review:

Straight out of the department of the trite and superficial, The Daily Telegraph says these findings “will prompt more questions as to whether the coalition risks tipping the economy back into recession through its programme of tax rises and spending cuts to reduce the budget deficit.”

Spending cuts? Spending cuts? Perhaps Barclay Brother journos can’t understand the simple mathematics this blog pointed to back in October (after another fine piece of observation by the estimable Dr North) in 2014-15 public sector spending is forecast to be £739.8 billion. That is an increase in public spending between now and then of £43 billion.  Or perhaps the Telegraph is trying to help out the Millbank minions with a bit of spinning?

Soak the taxpayer

It takes stories such as this to really get home to people how our interests are not the interests of those who govern us.  We learn in today’s Belfast Telegraph that:

Northern Ireland’s taxpayers could end up footing the bill for millions of pounds in EU fines if spending is cut on key areas of the environment, the RSPB has warned.

The RSPB is warning that swingeing cuts proposed in the DoE draft budget could damage vital work aimed at delivering a host of EU directives including the Marine Strategy Framework, Water Framework, Birds and Habitats, Bathing Water and Environmental Noise.

Dressed up as concern for the taxpayer, the warning below from RSPB NI director Dr James Robinson is nothing more than an exercise in vested interest, preserving the financial largesse his organisation wants lavished upon it:

“Failure to meet these directives puts us at a very real risk of massive infringement fines from Europe, with a direct burden placed on local taxpayers and potential impact on our future block grant from Westminster,”

Taxpayers must foot the bill for the activities of the RSPB and others as mandated by the EU, or they must foot the bill for fines imposed by that alien entity that rules us without our consent. Either way, the taxpayer loses. In a democratic countries the electorate can vote out its government if it doesn’t approve of policies like these.  But this is the UK in 2011, ruled by Brussels and the fifth columnists in parliament, and devoid of democracy.

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Richard Falk finally goes too far even for the UN

A tireless effort by campaign group UN Watch has led to what is being described as the unprecedented international condemation of Richard Falk, who has consistently exploited his position as a special rapporteur at the UN’s Human Rights Council to justify and deny Hamas and Al Qaeda terrorism.

As the UN Human Rights Council’s permanent investigator of alleged Israeli violations in the Palestinian territories, Falk has had a largely unscrutinised position from which to satisfy his unquestioning vilification of the Israelis.  As his target was Israel he was indulged by the left wing media as his outbursts fitted their narrative.

But it now seems that after years of Falk’s rampant Israel bashing and partisan bias towards Hamas, spreading slurs and distortions and the asserting as fact claims that have later been debunked, the penny has finally dropped among his UN colleagues and the media that he is a deluded and unreliable propagandist.  It follows his promotion of 9/11 conspiracy theories and attempts to exonerate Al Qaeda of any involvement in the terrorist atrocity, instead claiming the US government was responsible for the attack.

Put the faux Conservative party out of its misery

Stepping back a couple of days, Conservative MP for Wellingborough, Peter Bone, wrote a scathing review on ConservativeHome of the Government’s shenanigans in stifling debate on the insipid European Union Bill.

Bone eviscerates the claims of Europe Minister, David Lidington, who gushed that the Bill would get intense scrutiny and that it was the most radical piece of legislation about the EU since 1973 thus:

Perhaps the Minister for Europe should have said in his ConservativeHome article:

“This week the new European Union Bill will be rushed through the House of Commons, with as little scrutiny as possible by MPs. Its details will not be debated and rightly so. The EU Bill is the most irrelevant and unimaginative piece of legislation on how we handle the EU since Britain joined the then EEC in 1973.”

Bone’s amendment – asking for an in/out referendum on the European Union if certain criteria were met – never saw the light of day as the Whips stifled scrutiny and put up patsies to talk out the time alloted to debating the Bill.  This was David Cameron’s Euroscepticism in action.  Having cast adrift his promise to repatriate powers he is now ramming through meaningless legislation that will do nothing to stem the flow of power from the UK to Brussels.

That there are so few comments on such an important subject on the ‘home of the Conservative grassroots’ should tell people all they need to know about the emasculated state of the party membership.

The Cameron Conservative party will not deliver its promise to repatriate power from the EU and it will cravenly dodge any attempt to ask voters to give a democratic mandate for continued EU membership or withdrawal.

Its members, usually so vocal on important matters, are sitting in embarrassed silence as promise after promise is shown to have been broken. The illusion of power in Westminster matters more than doing the right thing by the people of this country. The Conservative party is led by a fraudulent hypocrite and cannot ever be trusted to honour its pledges.

We were promised power would be devolved to the people. But EU membership – the critical state of affairs that influences nearly every aspect of this nation’s governance – is kept off limits and completely invalidates the pledge Cameron had no intention of keeping to. He is all spin and empty rhetoric. He says what people want to hear but has no intention of delivering on it. He instructs his Whips to prevent his pre election promises ever becoming reality.

If the EU is a subject that matters to you and you want Britain to be sovereign and to run its own affairs, it is time to accept voting Conservative is incompatible with your aims. If you want the British people to deliver a mandate for staying in or getting out of the EU, don’t expect the Europhile Cameron and his circle to deliver a referendum – they are determined to remain loyal to Brussels, not the British people. The Conservative party is no longer conservative.

It is time for a new political force to represent the vacant centre right, one that not only talks the talk on democracy but walks the walk too. One that believes in genuine equality and meritocracy. One that will reject the nannying ‘nudge’ mentality and actively reduce the scope and power of the state so individuals can realise greater personal freedom.

One that restores the representative nature of politics and eradicates the this self serving elective dictatorship that refuses to honour its promises and treats the people of this country with contempt.

It is time to put this rapidly declining faux conservative party out of its misery and provide a genuine alternative for conservative minded people to support. It is time for genuine conservatives to say ‘no more’, to stop feeding the voracious cuckoo chick in their nest and establish a new home characterised by honesty and integrity.

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.

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Cameron’s useful idiots, Hannan and Carswell

The Critical Reaction website carries a piece this evening which confirms the suspicions of many people that Daniel Hannan and Douglas Carswell are nothing more than David Cameron’s useful idiots:

In Committee Room 7 at the House of Commons this evening, Dan Hannan and Douglas Carswell proposed that Better Off Out should wind itself up. Arguing that the supporters of BOO – whom present tonight included Lord Tebbit – have, in one form or another, ‘sat for thirty years’ without achieving the objective of Britain’s withdrawal from the EU, the two men, supported by Mark Reckless, proposed that BOO should go out of business and be replaced by a cross-party referendum campaign.

There seems to be no end in sight to politicians seeking to dismember grassroots campaigns while pledging to advance them in another guise. Closing down a grassroots campaign like Better Off Out so it can be replaced by a politicians’ ego club within the walls of the Palace of Westminster, which will wither and die, suffocated by the desire to attain consensus and horse trade over vested interests, is the worst thing that could happen.  I can’t wait to hear what Simon Richards at The Freedom Association has to say about this.

Thankfully the author of the Critical Reaction piece has their wits about them, unlike Hannan and Carswell.  As the editorial rights points out:

If Tory MPs are reluctant to join BOO because of the implications for their career prospects, any group which is established that doesn’t threaten their personal ambitions isn’t likely to be doing its job.  David Cameron has been unambiguous on this point: he fully supports British membership of the EU. A group that he and the whips can tolerate ambitious Tory backbenchers belonging to is, almost by definition, a neutered body. With, in this instance, the proposed distinction of being one that intends to neuter itself.

Perhaps that is Hannan and Carswell’s intention?  Cameron would be very grateful.  After all, despite claiming to want Britain to leave the EU Hannan and Carswell have resolutely stayed within a Conservative party that has vowed to remain inside the EU and also refuses to allow the British people their democratic say on membership in a binding referendum. Perhaps Hannan and Carswell value the trappings of power as MEP and MP respectively more than principle.

Better Off Out should remain.  It should continue to provide a grassroots outlet for those outside the Westminster and Brussels villages who want democratic accountability restored to the UK. It should redouble its efforts to educate people about the consequences of being run by the EU and it should do so without a couple of parliamentarians attempting to play power games within a system that ensures they are doomed to failure.

The cost of tackling a handful of Irish Republican terrorists

On this blog and elsewhere I have spent several years arguing that the threat from republican terrorists in Northern Ireland was being systematically downplayed to give a false impression that all in the province was well.

Despite repeated assurances from the Stormont administration that the ‘dissidents’ are only few in number; and a shocking refusal on the part of some media outlets to report some terror incidents over the last couple of years, both now seem to have come to an reluctant acceptance of the true state of affairs.

And that reality is borne out by the request from the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) for an extra £245m over the next four years to combat ‘dissident’ republican violence.  An extra £61m per year is a huge some of money for a minor problem.  Clearly the number of terrorists involved with these groups, their increasing capability and enhanced reach can no longer be swept under the carpet and dismissed as a little local difficulty.

The breakneck effort to drawdown security forces in Northern Ireland and decommission assets necessary to combat terrorist activity has given the republican groups the space to recruit, train and carry out attacks.  The pandering to IRA/Sinn Fein by the Labour government, which is carrying on under the faux Conservatives, has increased the threat in Northern Ireland and restored a threat to mainland Britain.

Giving us yet another reason not to trust anything the political class say, it is clear weapons we were assured by terrorists and politicians had been put beyond use, under independent scrutiny, are being used having been transferred to these groups by the IRA.  Maybe now the political class will be hauled back into the real world to deliver on the obligations they have failed to fulfil as they engaged in spin and self congratulation. Hopefully not too many more lives will be lost while the security forces try to get hold of what they were instructed to let go of.

More appalling incompetence at Northern Ireland Water

The fallout from the unfit-for-purpose utility that is Northern Ireland Water shows no sign of ending any time soon.  It has just come to light that almost £25 million allocated to upgrade Northern Ireland’s ageing water system was given back to the devolved government in December.

Despite years of under investment in the water infrastucture, when money was made available for capital projects it was untouched then returned to the central government pot for reallocation to something else.  Democratic Unionist MLA Alastair Ross seems to sum up the general feeling:

“One has to ask why NIW were unable to spend the £25 million when the need for improving the water infrastructure in Northern Ireland is well-known. This indicates poor financial management within NIW, and a lack of clear leadership within that organisation far beyond the former chief executive (Laurence MacKenzie).

“It seems that every day we learn of more and more mismanagement issues within NIW and indeed within their parent department under the ministerial responsibility of Conor Murphy.”

Perhaps Conor Murphy is finding it harder than he expected to make the adjustment from being a member of the IRA and possessing explosives to being a member of a government and possessing control of a government department.  Perhaps he is in denial of the reality at NI Water, but then, denial seems to be something that comes naturally to him.

Climategate inquiry not a whitewash, but…

As the University of East Anglia, BBC, Nature and other global warming advocates attempt to set aside Climategate following the latest inquiry, and press ahead with Operation Sweep it Under the Carpet, for once Lil Lou at the Barclay Brother Beano has done what journalists like Richard Black should do, and scraped just a little deeper for some insight.

Lou Lou has spoken to Graham Stringer, the lone scientific and honourable voice on the Science and Technology Standing Committee, for his assessement of the report:

“It does not say this is the end of the scientific case for global warming but it does say that people at the centre of this research did some very bad science,” he said.

“It is not a whitewash, it is the establishment looking after their own. They are not looking hard enough at what went wrong.”

While Stringer takes the view what we have is not a whitewash, what he says is a serious indictment.  They are not looking hard enough because they know what they might find could destroy the reputation of the globally influential Climatic Research Unit.  The public is not being served, it is being conned.

And isn’t interesting that while Louise Gray speaks to Stringer and offers unusual balance for her, Richard Black only cites the comments of those with involvement in previous unsatisfactory inquiries.  Perhaps its the unique way the BBC is funded that makes such bias by omission possible.

BBC’s Richard Black resorts to deception and spin

The BBC’s official response to the report from the Science and Technology Select Committee, by Richard Black, provides us with confirmation of everything Peter Sissons writes in his book about the BBC propaganda on climate change.

Knowing, as all journalists do, that many people read the first few paragraphs of an article and often turn their attention to something else, Black gets the message he wants people to understand in nice and early.  If people take nothing else from the article they will get what Black wants them to see:

Inquiries into issues raised by 2009’s climate e-mail hack did have flaws, a committee of MPs concludes.

But despite questions over remits and omissions, they say it is time to make the changes needed and move on.

The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee does not find anything to challenge the prevailing view of human-induced global warming.

But it says data should be more open, and rules on how Freedom of Information (FoI) applies to science need reform.

Richard Black is a disgrace to journalism as the second and third paragraphs demonstrate. He is a cheap propagandist who is determined to push the man made global warming line in spite of any counter evidence.  The standing committee did not have a brief to look for anything that challenged ‘the prevailing view of human-induced global warming’.  Black deliberately put this in to make it appear as if they did and that the prevailing view has been validated.  The committee’s remit was to focus on how the Independent Climate Change E-mails Review (ICCER) and Scientific Appraisal Panel (SAP) did their job and addressed the issues raised.  Black knows this very well because he read the summary as used the final paragraph as central thrust of his story.

It is impossible to trust the BBC’s coverage.  Black is not impartial and he has long since abandoned journalistic ethics.  Instead one has to read more widely to understand the issues, such as this commentary by the Global Warming Policy Foundation.

Biased BBC is equally unimpressed by Black’s deliberate distortion.  Unsurprisingly, Bishop Hill’s brief early morning round up of coverage on the report shows that Black has taken exactly the same line as avowed AGW lobbyist, Nature.

That’s right Richard Black. Play it down, sweep it under the carpet, then carry on as if nothing happened. Erase if from the record, Consign it to the bin of history, Use it as your rationale for disregarding the serious question marks over CRU ever again. Reset the clock to year zero in order to continue your cheap propaganda effort, brainwashing of an unquestioning public and indulge your personal beliefs rather than the facts.

SciTech committee – who was pulling the newbies’ strings?

Bishop Hill explains the ‘findings’ of the Science and Technology Committee’s inquiry into the reviews into the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit’s (CRU) e-mails, a key part of the Climategate scandal.

To describe this latest report as another bucket of whitewash is an understatement.  Andrew Montford, the author of the Bishop Hill blog, covers some of the assertions of the Committee members and sums it up thus:

The best that can be said of the report is that it is marginally better than expected. This, I suppose, is the great advantage of low expectations. My impression is of a group of people who know they are raising two fingers to the general public, and feel forced at least to admit that there is something amiss, but the overwhelming need to hold the line on global warming gets the better of them and leaves them looking at best foolish and at worst outright criminal.

Once you have read Montford’s post on this, do take a few moments to absorb his follow up post that shows a proposed amendment to be included in the report.  Despite this amendment being proposed by the only MP on the committee with a scientific qualification and understanding of scientific rigour, Graham Stringer, it was voted down by the other three MPs present, all of whom are wet behind the ears having been elected for the first time at the 2010 General Election:

There are proposals to increase worldwide taxation by up to a trillion dollars on the basis of climate science predictions. This is an area where strong and opposing views are held. The release of the e-mails from CRU at the University of East Anglia and the accusations that followed demanded independent and objective scrutiny by independent panels. This has not happened. The composition of the two panels hasbeen criticised for having members who were over identified with the views of CRU. Lord Oxburgh as President of the Carbon Capture and Storage Association and Chairman of Falck Renewable appeared to have a conflict of interest. Lord Oxburgh himself was aware that this might lead to criticism. Similarly Professor Boulton as an ex colleague of CRU seemed wholly inappropriate to be a member of the Russell panel. No reputable scientist who was critical of CRU’s work was on the panel, and prominent and distinguished critics were not interviewed. The Oxburgh panel did not do as our predecessor committee had been promised, investigate the science, but only looked at the integrity of the researchers. With the exception of Professor Kelly’s notes other notes taken by members of the panel have not been published. This leaves a question mark against whether CRU science is reliable. The Oxburgh panel also did not look at CRU’s controversial work on the IPPC which is what has attracted most [serious] allegations. Russell did not investigate the deletion of e-mails. We are now left after three investigations without a clear understanding of whether or not the CRU science is compromised.

This paragraph should not be forgotten, it is a damning indictment that should be trailed as widely as possible.

What possible reason could the three MPs, Gregg McClymont, Stephen Metcalfe and Stephen Mosley have for rejecting this paragraph proposed by an experienced scientist and parliamentarian?  We seem to have moved on from ‘hide the decline’ to ‘cover up the truth’.