An alarm call for democracy? Oh please…

There is a collapse of trust in those in charge, and especially in our politicians, which should thoroughly alarm all who care about democracy.

So says Max Hastings, writing in the Daily Mail in response to George Galloway’s by-election win in Bradford West.

As is so often the case, Hastings manages to miss the point in stunning fashion.  It isn’t an alarm call to those who care about democracy, it is the result of the absence of democracy.

Restricted to going through the motions of a democratic process – which is essentially meaningless because we do not live in a democracy, the people have no control over their ‘elected representatives’ and in any case the real governing is performed by a self selecting elite that is neither elected by nor accountable to the populace – the people have done the one thing they could in the circumstances and elected the candidate who had the appearance of being anti establishment.

Never mind that Galloway is one of the more base examples of the vile, self serving and opportunist pondlife that slithers its way around the streets of Westminster.  Just the notion of being outside the establishment, combined with playing racial identity politics, was enough to see votes flood his way and send him back to suck some more at the public teat.

While Hastings prattles on in his uniquely arrogant and condescending manner, about government failing to address ‘passionate public sentiment’ about things such as human rights legislation, unrestricted immigration, perverted justice system, overbearing Health and Safety and youth unemployment, you will find not one reference about the EU’s role and power in these areas – or that this country’s MPs have emasculated themselves and refuse to take back power from the Brussels bureaucracy.

You will also find not one reference to the fact this country’s businesses and people pay more than enough tax to provide for good essential services along with a sound safety net for those vulnerable people in our society who cannot fend for themselves independently, and those who fall into hardship.  The real problem is skewed spending priorities and wasteful use of our money on discretionary programmes or ideological whims.

When these foundational issues such as these are absent from a supposedly comprehensive assessment of what voters were doing in Bradford West on Thursday, why should we pay any attention to what this pompous fool has to say about democracy?

Hastings is no different to the grubbing climbers he is writing about.  He is every bit as much part of the claque inside the bubble that insulates itself from the reality of the world outside Westminster, yet which deigns to lecture us about our condition, our thoughts and our wishes.

So where are the 81 Tory ‘Eurosceptic’ MPs now?

A rule of thumb this blog keeps reiterating is when it comes to talk of Tory MPs being Eurosceptic, people need to judge them by their actions rather than their words.

Yet another excellent, pathfinding blog post by Dr Richard North at EU Referendum delivers a case in point that our media is too stupid to understand or dishonest to explain to readers.  This concerns the proposal in Gideon Osborne’s coagulation budget to impose VAT on hot take-out food.  Anyone with a modicum of knowledge about the governance of this country will know Value Added Tax is a European Union matter and that member states must impose a VAT rate – currently with a minimum standard rate of 15%.

As Richard explains, the change to VAT announced in the budget follows the European Court of Justice rulings on a number of German cases where it was held that Germans had to charge the lower rate of VAT on all hot take-out food, instead of the higher rate.  The UK is at the other end of the spectrum, charging 0% on hot take-out food because of our our permanent derogation from the Sixth Council Directive (77/388/EEC), which therefore allows the UK to zero-rate most foodstuffs.  But the proposal in the budget would see the UK voluntarily give up this derogation, and once it has been given away it is assured we will never get it back.

It would be an act of deeper EU integration.

So, we ask, where is the supposedly heroic and infamous band of ‘81 Tory MPs‘ who profess themselves to be rebellious Eurosceptics?  Were they shouting Osborne down as he committed his budget to the House of Commons?  Or were these tribal drones cheering and waving their order papers with the rest of their playmates as Little Gideon took his seat on the sumptious green leather bench?  Let’s remind ourselves of the facts about these 81 Tories.

Once again we see Ministers of the Crown acting as the gophers for the EU bureacracy.  Our Ministers have many levers of power, but most aren’t connected to anything.  The seat of Government of this country is not Westminster, it’s Brussels – but this is only the case because UK Ministers and those who came before them wanted and allowed that to become the case.  One lever of power that remains is the ability to close the door to Brussels.

There is little point attacking the EU.  The people responsible for maintaining this country’s subservience to the EU are the Ministers and MPs sitting in the House of Commons.  Irrespective of the difficulties and challenges of taking back control of this country, they have the power to withdraw the UK from EU membership.  But as they choose to integrate more deeply with the EU they also choose to resist any desire of the British people to become sovereign once again.

Given the ‘81 Group‘ knows all this, where are they?  Perhaps they are missing in action because as we have stated over and again their faux Euroscepticism doesn’t extend to doing anything that removes the EU from power over this country.  They are consummate Europlastics.

Shock! Climate change laws survive ‘red tape cull’

Imagine our shock!

The Barclay Brother Beano reports that 53 environmental regulations relating to pollution, contamination and waste are being scrapped to save money, however the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Ed Davey has said that the Climate Change Act is an ‘example of essential legislation’ and all its supporting regulations must remain unchanged.

Of course it must!

After all, it is a money making machine for corporations at the expense of consumers and taxpayers who are forced part with cash unnecessarily by the State  – and it is used as justification by the political and bureaucratic elite for the globalisation of government and erosion of that inconvenient and troublesome process known as democracy.  Nothing can be allowed to derail the agenda.  If every environmental law and regulation bar one was scrapped the lone survivor would be the Climate Change Act.

If this latest piece of evidence doesn’t prove the fact the political class and corporations couldn’t care less about the environment and that the climate change bandwagon is just a means to their ulterior ends, nothing will.  Climate change alarmism has nothing to do with the environment and it has nothing to do with science.  It’s about money and control.  End of.

And despite this smash and grab raid on our pockets, our democracy and our individual freedoms, the vast majority of the population continue to drift through life in a sleepwalk, leaving the politicians and corporations to empower and enrich themselves.  By doing nothing we will deserve what we get.

Daily Mail or the Hypocrisy Herald?

There are few things as darkly amusing as rank hypocrisy in the media.  It shouldn’t be amusing, it should be cause for annoyance and disdain.  But it’s hard not to laugh with incredulity when one media organisation tries to assume moral superiority over another for behaviour it is also guilty of.

Climbing on its high horse is the Daily Mail, which is attempting to lord it over Sky News because the channel removed a story about a deal between Bernie Ecclestone, F1’s chief executive, Red Bull and Ferrari.  The headline is unambiguous.

As the saying goes, those in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.

If there were sound effects accompanying the Daily Mail piece it would be the cacophany of window panes smashing to pieces under a barrage of rocks, for this blog recently caught the Daily Mail removing a significant story from its website without explanation.  What started out as a piece about Guardian journo David Leigh engaging in phone hacking (screenshot below)…

silently and quickly became this and remains such to this day…

The difference with the Sky News case is that the Mail has not explained from where the pressure came to spike the David Leigh story they removed.  One rule for friends and one for competitors?

Perhaps the Sky News website should reciprocate with a story titled, ‘How Dacre’s empire works: Unnamed Daily Mail editor orders David Leigh phone hacking story to be removed from Daily Mail website after upsetting Guardian journaist pal.’

‘I am just a loyal Conservative.’

That sentence sums up all that is wrong with politics today.

It was the reported response of Conservative MP, Douglas Carswell, when we was told that fellow Tory MP, Claire Perry, had directed a foul mouthed comment at him in the House of Commons – namely ‘Why don’t you f*** off and join UKIP?’

Carswell is putting tribal party loyalty before all else.  He claims to believe the United Kingdom should not be part of the European Union.  Nevertheless he doggedly remains a member of a political party whose leadership and policy is to remain part of the EU at any cost, to deny the electorate a referendum and to conceal the extent to which the EU is the true government of this country.

How can a man who holds the view he claims remain a loyal Conservative when that party behaves in the way it does?  The party’s position is sewn up tight.  The leadership sets the policy, regardless of the wishes of the membership.  Behind the scenes and out of the public gaze there is a powerful group of people with vested interests who bankroll and control the direction of the party.  They determine who will lead it and what agenda will be followed, to suit their interests irrespective of the impact on the rest of the country.  The Conservative agenda will not be changed.

It is not dissimilar to Labour taking its direction from Union barons and the uber rich champagne socialists who want to pull up the ladder behind them after acquiring wealth and influence.

Being an MP is a good gig, with its good pay and expenses and the illusion of power and influence that comes with it.  Carswell, for all his bluster and verbiage, is just another Europlastic happily sacrificing supposed principles to cling to tribal party loyalty in service of his own interest – namely remaining an MP.  When a person sees it for what it is they quickly realise Carswell couldn’t be a more loyal Conservative if he tried.

Voters who oppose EU membership yet continue to vote Conservative, Labour or Lib Dem only have themselves to blame for this country’s ever deeper integration into the EU and ever greater control by Brussels.  Until they stop being taken in by the likes of Douglas Carswell nothing will change.

This is the first reblog on AM.  From the emails received here at AM Towers, we know readers like to keep up to date with the biased and distorted reports on the BBC by its environment correspondent Richard Black.

So readers might be interested to learn that Black is maintaining the tradition of earning cash on the side from organisations who promote climate alarmism, further compromising his ability to report impartially. The Black’s Whitewash blog is defintitely one to add to your reading list.

Black's Whitewash

It appears that my last post has not gone un-noticed in the ecoloon camp:

http://uk.oneworld.net/guides/planet_under_pressure_notes_15th_march

“Attending a specialist conference should be a great way for scientists to escape the tedious attacks on the profession by climate change sceptics. It’s conceivable that Planet Under Pressure 2012 may prove a disappointment on this score.

Richard Black

The conference has drawn attention to itself by hiring the BBC Environment Correspondent, Richard Black, as a panel discussion moderator. Black is a hate figure for the sceptics who accuse him of compromising BBC principles of impartiality in his reporting on climate change.

His movements are tracked by the organised underworld of sceptic bloggers – if Richard Black shows up at your event, you’re tainted by association.

So far, the organisers of Planet Under Pressure 2012 have escaped censure. In yesterday’s outpourings they even enjoyed a little faint praise:

they have formed a board of patrons…

View original post 294 more words

Yet they say sustainability is progressive

Germany’s Spiegel has an excellent article today concerning that country’s green fetish and how eco zealotry is causing adverse consequences for the population.  The introduction sets the tone and what follows is a realtively brief, but eminently sensible examination of just some of the effects of the authoritarian brainwashing, to which history shows Germans seem incredibly susceptible:

The energy-saving light bulb ends up as hazardous waste, too much insulation promotes mold and household drains are emitting a putrid odor because everyone is saving water. Many of Germany’s efforts to protect the environment are a chronic failure, but that’s unlikely to change.

Perhaps it is worth highlighting that having been coerced into the costly adoption of ‘sustainable’ behaviour, the detrimental effects on the population require even more costly solutions for which the population will be forced to foot the bill.  Problems that industrialisation and the development of technology helped us to resolve and avoid are now coming for the fore as the sustainability bandwagon reverses progress made that brought real benefit to ordinary people.

Many corporations are getting very rich from their transit on the sustainability money train, aided and abetted by politicians who seek to out-do each other in the virtue stakes.  Yet too many people still believe all this manipulation of the markets, astronomic public spending and erosion of personal freedoms is being done to fight climate change – thus wilfully ignoring the stated aims and real objectives of unelected and unaccountable transnational bodies who are awarding themselves ever more power to control us and our lives.

If that sounds far fetched, see how the evidence is casually drip-fed into the public discourse by journalists who far from being impartial reporters of the facts are committed activists using blatant propaganda and bias by omission to push the party line.

Britain has not yet ventured as far down the greenwash path as the Germans.  It’s just as well because the Spiegel article, while only touching on some of the results of this eco fetishism, gives us a glimpse into what the future holds for us if the coalition’s climate change agenda is carried out.  This green extremism will plunge us into a nightmare.

The greens and the opportunist, self interested, authoritarian politicians and corporate officers all say what we are being forced to do is progressive.  After reading the Spiegel piece only the most deluded person would argue the realisation of the green agenda is anything other than regressive.  These watermelons are not just killing the planet, their insanity is killing people too.

Kiribati sea level story – Dr Nils-Axel Mörner responds exclusively

Yesterday’s Daily Telegraph carried yet another climate alarmism story, this time about the government of Kiribati negotiating to buy land in Fiji ‘so it can relocate islanders under threat from rising sea levels’.

Autonomous Mind contacted the former president of the International Association of Quaternary Research’s Commission on Sea Level Changes and Coastal Evolution, Dr Nils-Axel Mörner to ask for his response to the story.  Dr Mörner has very kindly replied with an exclusive comment, below:

With respect to the article on March 7 by Paul Chapman on the future of Kiribati, I have to protest and urge all readers to consult the only “hard facts” there are, viz. the tide gauge record of the changes in sea level.

The graph reveals that there, in fact, is no ongoing sea level rise that threatens the habitation of the islands. This is the hard observational fact, which we should all face before starting to talk about future flooding and the need for evacuation.

If the president of Kiribati, Anote Tong, claims that the islands will soon be flooded and that there is an urgent need to buy new land for possible future refugees, it is the president’s own tactical idea in order to raise money from abroad. Let us respect the observational facts and stay away from invented disasters.

Once again the media rushes to print with an alarmist piece that is completely devoid of balance or contrary opinion and which completely ignores the overtly political motivations and background of what has been shared with the press.  The dramatisation of Earth’s ever changing climate for ulterior political motives needs to be challenged.

How long will it be also before people start to hold the media to account for acting as the propagandist mouthpiece of government and vested interests?

Burwood School assaults – Ofsted shows its inspections are worthless

In January this blog focused attention on the background to the serious assault on two teachers at Burwood School in Orpington, and the media’s failure to report the story in a fuller context.

The Daily Mail later looked deeper into the story and obtained an interview with the father of one of the seriously injured teachers, Diane Whithead.  In that interview, Ms Whitehead’s father shared the previously unreported news that she had suffered another assault at the school in 2009 that resulted in two broken ribs.  Although I carried out a detailed search for news of this incident, there were no reports about it in the archives of the local or national press.  Not only did was this incident hushed up, but it took place in in the very year that Ofsted took Burwood School out of special measures, having been placed in them after the 2007 inspection.

Clearly Ofsted had questions to answer about this – and as the media has lost interest in the story and moved on to its usual diet of celebrity fayre and tittle tattle, I duly submitted a Freedom of Information request asking the following:

• Did the assault in 2009 take place before or after the Ofsted inspection?
• If the assault preceded the inspection, were Ofsted told about it?
• If Ofsted were told, was it taken into account when lifting the school out of special measures?
• If the assault followed the inspection, were Ofsted told about it?
• If Ofsted were told, did they consider another inspection?
• Were the Ofsted inspectors conducting the 2011 inspection aware of the 2009 assault?
• If they were aware, why did the school get a satisfactory rating despite safety concerns of several parents and carers and evidence of issues around behaviour management?
• If they were not aware, why did the inspectors not investigate the parental concerns more vigorously?

Although the reply came in February, I’ve delayed returning to this story as I tried another avenue to get more information.  However, now seems as good a time as any to revisit the story and publish Ofsted’s reply following a written answer to a question about violent crime in schools in Parliament that was published yesterday in which no mention was made of Ofsted and its role in assessing safety and behaviour in schools:

View this document on Scribd

Ofsted’s reply which amounts to ‘nothing to do with us, guv’.  It is staggering that documents are destroyed after only six months so there is no way of looking back at evidence collected during previous inspections.  How on earth is an inspector supposed to accurately assess a school’s change performance from its previous inspection when all that is available is what amounts to a brief summary report?  This only reinforces the belief that Ofsted inspections are largely cosmetic and ultimately worthless.

There is no point having Ofsted assess and share information about safety and behaviour in schools if it is incapable of being held to account for its reports when events show them to be flawed or hopelessly out of kilter with the day to day reality in our schools.

There was a hoo last year when Ofsted’s budget for 2014/15 was announced as £143 million.  This is down from £198 million in 2010/11 and £266 million in 2004/05.  For all the use Ofsted is and lack of value it provides, it would seem reasonable to argue that even £143m is far too high a price for taxpayers to pay.  It may have the motto ‘raising standards, improving lives’ but it clearly failed spectacularly when it came to Burwood School, with serious consequences.  Ofsted simply isn’t fit for purpose.

FOI gamechanger – Bolton Council loses court appeal over senior officers’ outside interests

Regular readers may remember the story of the battle between transparency campaigner John Greenwood and the bureaucrats at Bolton Council to force the authority to make public the register of interests of Council Officers, so the business dealings of senior town hall staff are a matter of record.

As we said in a blog post about the matter in June last year, John Greenwood won what amounts to a game changing battle when the Information Commissioner ruled that the details of the register of interests should be released.  Imagine for a moment what would happen if Council Officers – and by extension civil servants in other branches of government – had to release the details of business dealings with developers, or reveal relationships with organisations such as Common Purpose.

Undeterred by the Information Commissioner’s ruling, Bolton Council has used thousands of pounds of council taxpayers’ money to appeal the decision so it could continue hiding information about the outside interests of its officers from the public.  That the elected councillors in Bolton have let this happen is not only shocking but should also raise alarm bells about what might be being concealed.  As various branches of government keep telling us, if there is nothing to hide there is nothing to fear.  So what is it Bolton Council’s public servants fear?

The story returned to the fore last week with John Greenwood kindly contacting AM to point us to this news in the local Bolton press.  In Court it has been ruled that the council’s appeal will be partly allowed, in that lower-paid staff’s privacy would be protected.  But the outside interests of senior officers – the real decision makers in the local authority –  must still be made public as per the Information Commissioner’s earlier ruling.

This really is the gamechanger in Freedom of Information we hoped for last year.  The outside interests of senior council officers must by law be made public.  FOI requests about these interests cannot be refused.

However, the story in the Bolton News omits a number of important points that put matters into proper context and should, once again, cause the residents of Bolton some concern.  Although there were around 1,000 council officers who were paid at Grade 8 and above, only about 70 of them bothered to to submit a declaration of interest to the Council register.  So it is estimated there are more than 900 council officers who have failed to comply with the requirements to declare their outside interests.  Also omitted from the story is that while the lower paid council officers will now have to declare they have outside interests, they won’t have to say what those interests are.  This is a very odd state of affairs and one which will only serve to raise more doubts in the minds of the public about their probity than before.

As John Greenwood observed to AM, what will now be interesting to see is what Bolton Council Director of Legal Services (and standards monitoring officer) Alan Eastwood does personally.  He is due to retire in May but Greenwood is wondering if Eastwood will now decide to go earlier in order to keep any outside interests he has out of the public domain.

Climate alarmism money train attracts rent seeking sockpuppet

There is an amusing tale on the Watts Up With That? blog, also covered by Bishop Hill, concerning an ‘organisation’ calling itself The Arctic Institute.

The story is about an individual called Malte Humpert (readers of Viz magazine may immediately be thinking ‘crazy name, crazy guy’) who is the founder of this august body, but has been posting comments on WUWT using at least three different names – none of which are his own. The story is explained on WUWT, providing essential background for the follow up information that Anthony Watts has added with this comment.

While this tale provides readers with some entertainment and again reinforces the shameless unethical behaviour of those like Malte Humpert who are promoting climate alarmism, neither Anthony nor the Bishop nail the real story here, which would add more value to the taxpaying public.

The institute was set up last year and its website has an About Us page which outlines its objectives and key drivers. You will notice my emphasis in red which has particular relevance following some recent posts here on AM:

Malte Humpert contacted WordPress to demand that this post be removed or the content quoted here be removed, along with the screenshot of his page. Presumably Google will also be asked to remove their screenshot and the content Humpert wants removed from view here, because that is where I obtained it when it was removed from his site.

Yes, there it is again! The catch-all justification for imposing an anti democratic, internationalist system of centralised government on the world… sustainability – coupled with a nice dollop of alarmist scaremongering. When the day dawns that catastrophic anthropogenic climate change alarmism (CAGW) is confounded by Mother Nature, Humpert and his ilk will simply focus on some other sustainable development issue. But that is not the story here.

The story is how and why a vehicle such as The Arctic Institute can be created by someone like Malte Humpert. Set aside for a moment the fact Humpert claims to have been its Executive Director since November 2010, despite the Institute’s About Us page stating it was founded in 2011. His biography and work experience demonstrate absolutely no qualification for being the director of an institute focusing on scholarly research.

Image removed by request of WordPress after a demand by the very shy rent-seeker Malte Humpert. Google however continues to provide a screenshot of the page without threats of being closed down.

What his biography does show, however, is someone with a passion for political science and a self professed head for commercial ventures. Humpert would appear to be another member of the legion of politicised rent seekers jumping aboard the taxpayer funded money train to enrich themselves at our expense. The money train is creating opportunities for people like Malte Humpert.

Clearly being a teaching assistant wasn’t satisfying enough for our Malte, so he hit upon a way to make money from his apartment without producing anything tangible for the economy. Five months spent as a Climate and Energy Policy intern seem to be his only exposure to the ’cause’; but as the director of an institute created to spread the alarmist gospel he can be assured of attracting funding and being accorded ‘prestige’ by those whose interests he will serve.

This is the nature of so much of the CAGW community. It is amazing how powerful the incentive is to jump on a bandwagon when there are billions of dollars, euros and pounds of our money out there just waiting to be hoovered up by chancers like Humpert – and you don’t even need to have any form of scientific background or experience, as Rajendra Pachauri of the International Panel on Climate Change demonstrates. This is being facilitated by the politicians and despite claims we live in a democracy we have no way of stopping this scandalous waste. That is the real story here.

Having has his head put in the spotlight by Anthony Watts, it will be interesting to see what sources of funding find their way to The Arctic Institute. No doubt, with their commitment to transparency and openness, people like Dr Peter Gleick, Andy Revkin, Leo Hickman, Suzanne Goldenberg etc. will demand to know the sources of Humpert’s future funding. If not, they will surely be content with any ‘leak’ of documentation obtained via impersonation and deceit. It’s the way of things among the true believers.

Note to WordPress – do not mark this post ‘private’ again. You do not have any justification to censor this.

Roger Helmer abandons Europlastic Tories and joins UKIP

When this blog coined the increasingly common term ‘Europlastics‘ to describe politicians and tribal political party members/supporters who are pro-EU but claim to be Eurosceptic, it was as a direct result of comments made by Roger Helmer MEP in support of pro-EU Conservative MPs who were .

This blog had published a post that exposed yet more Tory deception, with MP Chris Heaton-Harris taking a leading role in a new Tory MP grouping that claimed Eurosceptic views when their Commons Committee actions and voting record showed otherwise.  Helmer stepped in via the comments to defend his friend and former fellow MEP while trumpeting Heaton-Harris’ Eurosceptic credentials.

While tribal Tories rushed to Helmer’s defence, our criticism and that of a number of other blogs that had joined the discussion, we learned that within Europlastic circles there was substantial concern about the way their fragile edifice was being demolished.  The Eurosceptic gloss had been wiped off and grassroots Tories were starting to accept the reality of the situation – their party is bereft of genuine Eurosceptics at senior and parliamentary level.

Roger Helmer’s statement that he has resigned from the Conservative Party (channelling Neville Chamberlain at the same time) and joined UKIP is a further nail in the Tory Europlastic coffin.

It suggests Helmer’s principle may have finally overcome the tribalism that kept him part of a party that does not share his publicly stated views on the most fundamental political issue in the UK today – whether this country is genuinely democratic and who really governs it.  While I am not a UKIP voter for reasons previously explained on this blog, I applaud Helmer for taking what I know to be a very difficult decision.

The response from the political blogosphere’s answer to Hans Christian Andersen is as predictable as it is laughable.  This is not a Cameron problem, it is a Conservative Party problem.  The Conservative Party does not provide the best, or any, hope for Eurosceptics. It remains pro-EU and anyone remaining in that party while professing to be a Eurosceptic is a Europlastic.

The fault lines in the Conservative Party now appear to be opening – and not a moment too soon.

The tactics of the globalist warmists are legion

In the comments to my previous post about the article on melting Arctic sea ice causing colder winters, by Richard ‘Black is White’ of the BBC, is this response from fellow blogger, Dephius, who writes:

AM, if you haven’t noticed it, I sense a paradigm shift in the trend of the BBC’s output. Its not so long ago that a report like this would have rammed the AGW message home loud and clear with several references to it.

Instead we have just one paragraph related to how man made CO2 might skew the natural pattern of global climate cycles.

When natural cycles and the effects of the Sun on global climate are given more emphasis than warmist dogma, I just wonder if we’re seeing the tide finally turning.

I’ve seen more emphasis given to Chinese (no friends of the AGW cult) climate research now too, which is interesting.

And then on another post prior to that, where I invited readers to forget the climate science feeding frenzy and focus instead on the real issue of the globalisation of government, which is using climate change as a justification for its development, commenter Karl Hallowell, contributes these thoughts:

I have to disagree. Not that there are ideologies that move to overthrow the current democratic order, but rather the claim that the strategy for dealing with them are flawed. Coming up with a policy attack -based vehicle for ideological purposes is not a trivial task. It’s not like guessing passwords or trying different keys in a lock. Each attempt takes a great deal of effort, communication, and coordination. And exposes the participants to risk of humiliation, disfranchisement, and even criminal charges, if they go too far.

Dealing with the attacks rather than the ideology has three strengths. First, it builds up a body of policy for when a valid weakness is found. Ultimately, having an established, democratic plan for dealing with valid environmental or societal problems will do more to cut off these attacks than fighting the ideology directly. Democracy by itself has done much to weaken the power of these ideologies, precisely because it provides conduits for debate and action that ideologues can’t bypass.

Second, they lose something every time they fail. The more they cry “wolf” the more they discredit themselves in future assaults. They don’t have infinite resources at their disposal.

Finally, it means that the strategy remains effective, even if the ideology mutates or is replaced. It works as well against would-be theocrats (of any flavor), Marxists, or any new ideologies that haven’t yet had a chance to rear their nasty, little heads.

Both are very good comments and worthy contributions to the debate.  As I was about to write a post replying to these points I spotted a great blog post on Biased BBC by the ever excellent Robin Horbury.  It addresses both points at once.

Firstly is demonstrates the shift in approach by the BBC, explaining the point raised by Delphius.  As, for example, the comments section on Richard Black’s activist page are increasingly pock-marked with spaces where comments have been removed and comments that are allowed to remain that nevertheless pull Black’s warmist position and bias to pieces, the angle of the warmist attack has changed.

It seems the BBC is slowly giving up pushing such an alarmist narrative because it is increasingly rejected and derided by readers those who stop to think about the reality of the situation and provide counter evidence.  Why waste time trying to convert people who refuse to accept the party line?  Far better to seek the adoration of and nodding agreement of those who believe the alarmist argument on climate and stand to benefit financially from the UN mandated wealth redistribution programme under the guise of fighting climate change.

On to Karl Hallowell’s comment, the Biased BBC post shows that going toe-to-toe over the scientific arguments being used by the globalist warmists only serves to drive them down another avenue, while maintaining their direction of travel.  The opportunity to engage and challenge the science is being removed from the sceptics while the globalist agenda is furthered in a different way.

Ultimately our money and resources are still going where the UN wants it to, and we will still pick up the tab for the alarmists’ policies as we are forced to pay for wind turbines that don’t work and CO2 emission measures that make no difference to the environment.  Surely that demonstrates that focusing on holding the line in one theatre of battle is futile as the enemy troops elsewhere isolate you from the rest of the war.

Their tactics are legion.  Until we stop tackling the climate science symptom exclusively and go after the political root cause of this agenda, we will be swamped and lose the war.