Is the climate issue going to give Dave a headache?
February 6th, 2010
How’s the increasing scepticism going to play?
One of David Cameron’s early acts in detoxifying the Conservative brand was the increased focus on the environment and combating climate change. That was in a different, pre-recession world and the legacy of those policy decisions could be about to cause the Tory leadership problems.
The BBC-commissioned Populus poll reports a significant shift in public attitudes on climate change, with the proportion who don’t think global warming is taking place having increased from 15% to 25% since November 2009. The share who believe it is happening and is largely man-made has fallen from 41% to just 26% in the same timeframe.
All the main political parties’ leaderships are committed to tackling climate change but the question is now whether at least some of them are getting out of step with the voters - in particular, their voters?
Annoyingly for us, there was no voting intention question asked, meaning that we don’t know how different parties’ voters see the issue. When the Times commissioned the November poll, Populus did ask a voting intention question and while 45% and 47% of Labour and Lib Dem supporters respectively accepted climate change as predominantly manmade, the only 38% of Tories did. By contrast, 20% of Tories did not accept that it was happening at all, compared to just 12% of both Labour and Lib Dem voters.
The swing to the more sceptical stance is across the board but particularly strong in the older age groups: a demographic both more likely to vote Conservative and more likely to turn out. By contrast, the swing towards scepticism was also heavier in the lower social groups - more traditional Labour territory.
What’s caused all this? The BBC article skims over the unusually cold and snowy British winter but it would be surprising if it didn’t have some impact, especially among those who aren’t well versed in the scientific arguments.
The scandals around could also have played a part, though bizarrely, of the 57% who said that they’ve “heard stories of flaws or weaknesses in the science of climate change”, 16% are more convinced now of the risks of climate change compared to just 11% who are less convinced. The vast majority said the stories about e-mails and Himalayan glaciers made no difference.
Does this leave the Tories - and David Cameron in particular - with a problem? It’s probable that less than a quarter of the Tory vote believe in man-made climate change, while about two-fifths of it either believe it’s not happening at all or is a purely natural phenomenon.
That puts the Conservative policy well out of line with the party‘s supporters, and will significantly reduce the scope for raising taxes of the back of it.
There’s also the much more sceptical UKIP around to appeal to some disenchanted right-wingers. That said, Labour and the Lib Dems are far from in the clear either.
The problem could be a blip in opinion that melts with the winter snow. Even if that is the case, it’s pretty clear that there’s no widespread and deep public buy-in to climate change theory. Time to change the record and talk about energy security and resource preservation?
David Herdson
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I’m no expert on climate change but it seems that a lot of scientists have lost the ability to do research from a neutral point of view and then allow their findings to be interpreted by the appropriate people. Starting research on a subject on which you already have strong views can’t help but influence the results to a certain extent IMO.
Thanks for a thought-provoking article David. Two points…
1 I don’t think this is likely to be a game-changer for any of the major parties. The Tories’ position on climate change may help them a little in presentational terms, in that it helps them look more caring and less “nasty”. However I wouldn’t have thought the environment is likely to be a key factor in determining how many people vote, and the few for whom it may be really important are highly unlikely to have been seriously considering voting Tory anyway.
2 But what your article doesn’t mention is whether this apparent shift in public opinion might significantly lessen the chances of their being a Green MP come June. I suppose that’s far more likely to be dependent on the dynamics of the individual seats where they may have a slim chance (Brighton Pavillion, Lewisham Deptford and Norwich North I think).
Stephen (frequent lurker, occasional poster)
For the next general election I don’t think it will make much difference. Climate change just isn’t going to be that big an issue, especially in May, when the weather won’t be very extreme either way. Going forward I think this will be a problem for the Tories to the extent that there’s a coherent opposition to him. Two ways this could work:
1) David Davis or someone similar leads a dedicated rump of right-wing refuseniks. If Cameron gets a small majority, he could end up with similar problems to Major, but over taxation as well as Europe.
2) The UKIP or their successor party take chunks out of the Tories in the European elections, and maybe start nibbling at local councils. Long-term they could split the right-wing vote and hurt the Tories at Westminster, but they might need a decade to ramp up to the point where they’re a serious threat, and if the Tories are lucky someone will have introduced AV by then…
The desire of the public to believe the convenient was anticipated and widely discussed in some circles. Several of the largest pressure groups are now convinced this is the key issue. A document written last year on the subject is available here for those who are interested in political strategy on climate change.
http://www.campaignstrategy.org/makepoliticsworkforclimate.pdf
The legal complexities of campaigning during a general election on this are immense, sufficiently so that the strategy has been substantially amended. Nevertheless, at the forthcoming election there will be ‘proof of concept’ seats and at the following election a substantial raft of such seats.
http://www.campaignstrategy.org/makepoliticsworkforclimate.pdf
Many of us who have been heavily involved in the issue for many years know that nothing meaningful will be done until the educated bourgeoisie are organized around a defence of evidence based decision making. Don’t laugh at the back, it is still possible!
When I recently asked a Conservative MP how things lay in the Parliamentary party, he told me he thought that two thirds lent to the ‘Lawson position’. Trouble in store indeed.
What do we think the real position is on the Labour side?
Oops, sorry, put in link twice.
Climategate, Copenfailure and the great recession have all derailed camerons green agenda. It must have seemed like a no-risk issue when he first joined the new ‘radical’ consensus, with lots of free tory detoxification points up for grabs. The problem for cameron, now this has all gone a bit sour, is that if he is seen to be backtracking on his commitment to the issue, the fruit of the LD>Con lovebombing strategy might also start to unravel as people question his sincerity on other issues.
A conservative majority at the next election relies on the Cameron brand making it through the campaign undamaged. Dave has had several years to decide what his principles are. Now he has to stick with them.
what was it they said about lies, damned lies and statistics?
clearly the uk is not as warm as it was 1000 years ago, with vineyards in england up to yorkshire and lincolnshire.
in deference to the doomsayers, i do feel all that gunk going into the air from chinese factories does not help, but water vapour in the atmosphere appears to cause far more difference. that does not justify a carbon tax of course.
i would like to know about pauchari, why india now rejects him and all these grants for contriving results in supposedly neutral testing. andy at number 1 has it spot on, it is hard to be objective when you have an objective.
David, nice essay - but you answer your own question.
Yes, Cammo has a teensy-weensy problemetto, in that most of the party and half the country are not convinced by AGW.
And skepticism is growing.
However, the solution is neat and easy. The Tories should just stop talking about “global warming” and “climate change”, indeed ban their ministers and MPs from ever using these phrases. Insteas they simply shift the emphasis to “limiting pollution”, “weaning us off oil”, “preserving other fossil fuels”, “recycling wherever we can”, etc.
Almost everyone agrees with the latter Light Green agenda, even as they resent with the “no more flights to Spain” Dark Green New Puritanism.
Job done. Just a subtle shift in emphasis required. No biggie. Next.
8. Suggest SeanT spends some time on the doorstep this year. ‘Pay more for petrol to wean us off oil’ does not play because of the first clause, if that clause is not there, what is the purpose in suggesting we ‘wean’? The point here is that it is easy to describe taking action on climate change in terms that makes it sound nice; until the public sees what that means in practical terms.
Better to bite the bullet and talk honestly about what needs to be done. If the scientific position remains as is or, from a climate perspective, worse, then increasing numbers of educated people will come to see action as necessary. What is happening here is a growing divide between evidence based policy making and polling based policy making. In the vast majority of cases that doesn’t matter much, however irritating it maybe. In this case, the politician will be increasingly squeezed between the rock and the hard place. To support the science or win votes. If you think the educated bourgeoisie are becoming cynical now; watch this one play out.
politicians should stick to environmental damage that is clear and apparent - pollution , destruction of rain forests , soil erosion , loss of coral reefs and extinction of species > many of these clearly damage peoples lives all over the world today . Then on energy focus on cost , security of supply , insulation etc- put the arguments forward in a way that will make a difference to people today - do all this and as an added bonus you will reduce the risk of climate change after most people alive today are dead .
the current approach which is to scare the population with headline sexed up evidence - eg glaciers melting sea levels rising and at the same time say the west will have to put up taxes enormously on energy to transfer money to emerging economies who may not comply with the rules is not going to work
The science of global warming is probably correct but politicians should work with what is possible to achieve at a political level . Most voters will follow them if the stick to the topics which matter today or are clearly apparent - eg i am concerned about loss of rainforest even if i dont live there - but my concern is not linked in my mind to global warming but to the loss of species and habitat for ever
Does anyone else see the correlation between WMD’s in 45 minutes and Himalayas melting before 2035?
Politicians set a crazy timeline to force action to match their agenda, people cajoled to go along with it when simple analysis shows it is bad judgement at best, fraudulent at worst.
This is an issue where Britain’s wish to see itself as an important global player and the reality of its tiny influence is particularly great. The fact is that NOTHING we can do will influence climate change by even the tiniest measurable iota. Even if you believe that climate change is mostly caused by man, we make up an insignificant proportion of the world’s emissions, even cutting it radically won’t change the extent of climate change worldwide, and to pretend otherwise is just pious cant. Expensive pious cant, to judge by the huge bills for wind power and so on. Any talk about British climate change policy should start from that undoubted fact.
There is an argument for more nuclear power stations, but from an energy security point of view, not because they will stop floods in the south east.
“Time to change the record and talk about energy security and resource preservation?”
Yes
With a side order of “I am sick of walking down roads and getting a lung full of exhaust fumes and want an alternative.” i.e here is a tangible benefit.
Good article David.
The problem for Cameron is not climate change per se, because it won’t be a big issue at the GE (just as Iraq won’t be). The problem is that it makes him look like a song and dance man: all bubble and froth, like some small boat all at sea without a rudder, tossed back and forth by any wind of change.
Which is of course exactly right.
Very good post. Two points
1) The MSM has had some big spreads on the various -gates associated with the AGW scam, but much of the MSM (BBC, Guardian and others) has only just woken up. How much of the shift is down to the blogosphere? It would be a good measure of the relative influence of blogs and papers.
2) The issue goes to the heart of Cameron’s perceived weaknesses; superficiality and high-tax big government.
It was my impression that AGW appealed to the political elite because talking about peak oil scared the sh1t out of them, so I really have to disagree with SeanT for once. Among people my age and even older, ‘thrift’ has a considerable appeal, but the marketing men have done their evil work on many of the younger generation.
Of course, we are only here to talk about this because Gordon saved the world.
Climate Change is Europe for the Tories.It won’t change many votes but gives them the potential to rip themselves apart.
The whole debate about the science is sterile, we should move to Nuclear Power ASAP in our national interest and consequently hit the most extreme carbon reduction targets as an additional benefit.
Wot not hat tip ?
(see 200 previous thread ).
Joking aside, I fall into the not yet proven group but am willing to be convinced either way. What I didn’t like about AWD is how it has become more of a religion than a science and I think the climategate emails have at least opened up the debate. Governments are asking people to pay a pretty large wedge and I think they deserve better science than has previously been offered. Whilst I have sympathy for those scientists who have acted honorably it seems the zealots have been allowed to run things. Even Phil Jones has said this week that the science will now be subject to more scutiny, and not before time.
As for Cameron, surely he is in the same position as that of all the party leaders, they’ve all been eager to show their green credentials. If anything, at least there are those in the Conservative party willing to question which is more in line with respondnents of this poll. There is still the argument re finite resources and dependence on other countries for energy.
Why is it taking so long to go nuclear? Labour have had 13 years and the Conservatives should have had the ball rolling before that.
Golden opportunity for the Tories. If the public are moving away from Ed Milibands vision of the apocalypse, all Cameron has to do is embrace the Lawson agenda which apparently most of his party already support.
18 - No chance.Wobbly boy hasn’t got a spine.
All bets are off. It’s not just that [David] Cameron hasn’t sealed the deal. It’s worse. He’s actually gone backwards.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/election-2010/7170466/Nick-Clegg-kingmaker-of-a-hung-parliament.html
Clegg moves to keep his options open.
Top blogger EU Referendum has done some digging and found out this irritating but not entirely shocking fact about the British Council:
In the space of two years, the British Council has spent more that £3.5 million of British taxpayers’ money on climate change propaganda – according to information released to this blog under the Freedom of Information Act.
It has been spent on recruiting young people in 60 countries to pressurise world leaders to “to take action on climate change”. This included funding groups to attend the December Copenhagen summit in order to take part in demonstrations.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/edwest/100025163/why-does-the-british-council-spend-money-on-climate-change-propaganda/
Interesting piece by David, as usual. Points:
- There has been a shift in view among people who don’t care very much: they get the impression the scientific consensus is less solid than previously reported.
- This is very little if any shift among people who decide their votes on the issue.
- Most of the latter were never going to vote Tory anyway - they vote Green, LibDem or Labour in that order. Cameron being ostensibly keen on climate change seemed just designed to help with the detox project (it was done in a way that didn’t address serious believers - e.g. hiring a private plane to fly to the Arctic to hug huskies).
- The interesting green strategy linked by Simon at 4 makes sense, but if they’re doing it they’re leaving it late. The kind of systematic public consciousness-raising in marginals that LACS is doing over hunting (every candidate in marginals is getting a steady trickle of emails from constituents pressing them on not reversing the ban) hasn’t happened so far.
“3.For the next general election I don’t think it will make much difference. Climate change just isn’t going to be that big an issue, especially in May, when the weather won’t be very extreme either way”
Regardless of the weather in May the increasing scepticism will cause problems for any party that tries to use the global warming scam as an excuse for more taxation.
9 “If the scientific position remains as is”
If the scientific position remains as is i.e there is no global warming then it’s not a problem for anyone except those who were building a profitable career from the scam.
BTW, there seems to have been a marked shift to the left in German polling, at the expense of the free-market liberal FDP, who are suffering as junior coalition parties usually do - the latest polls shows them a third down on the last election, with the opposition parties up to 52-44 ahead. German opinion is normally extremely stable and I’m not sure what’s caused this.
- “Does this leave the Tories - and David Cameron in particular - with a problem?”
No. Not right now anyway.
Tory-inclined voters are going to vote Tory in May, regardless of what Dave has or has not said. It is the swing voters he is interested in, and they are more likely to swallow all the green guff than “proper Tories”.
No, FM Dave’s problems begin after May. UKIP have a wonderful opportunity coming up on the horizon. But are they competent enough to grasp it?
16 Dead wrong. Look at the Church of England (the Conservative party at prayer, someone called it) - a monumental social and conceptual structure built on foundations which are frankly baloney and tacitly agreed to be baloney by everyone from the Archb. of Canterbury downwards, but everyone is too polite to say so. The ritual acknowledgement of AGW will remain set in stone for the tories but the time and money allocated to it will discreetly fade out.
The people in trouble are, happily, Labour. Ed Mil keeps coming over all enthusiastic on the subject, like an embarrassing visiting Anglican vicar from Uganda with a muslim-burning, gay-hanging agenda, and the Guardian is too deeply committed to change course at least while Moonbat is still breathing. The tories are fine provided they avoid the obvious howlers like regarding minister for climate change as a suitable demotion for Grayling.
OT
How much has been spent on IT projects that turn out to be mince ?
Millions of people could pay more tax than they should from April.
This week more problems have emerged with a new computer system which tells employers how much tax to deduct from our pay.
It has also emerged that married couples and civil partners aged 76 or more could lose an allowance worth nearly £700.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/moneybox/8500074.stm
26, over-enthusiastic? Certain people, including E. Miliband, are nothing short of zealotry.
27 - cont.. meant to say that’s a Money Box programme, it might be worth a listen Radio 4 @ 1204 GMT
8. I think SeanT is basically right - the Tory leadership can and will shift the agenda in the light of evolving circumstances. The green agenda is so much bigger than GW and covers areas that are very small-c conservative such as energy security.
Prior to the election there is no flashpoint for any discontent, that would match the government bill causing such controversy down under. After the election, there will be no need to appease the BBC etc. by kneeling at the altar of AGW.
On this issue, I’m sure that Cameron is as capable of reading the opinion polls as any other politician.
Answer: not really. Cameron may have done a little tree-hugging, but if you listened closer, you’d have noticed that Cameron said such plans had to be modified in the face of “economic realities”.
Other Tories have been reframing the debate on a more widespread argument of Tory “efficiency” where money could be made from the changes, against socialist “taxes” that stifle industry. Yet more have made the clear case for changes, even if AGCC isn’t happening, e.g. security of supply, finite supplies, air quality, etc.
There are quite a few reasons for changing energy supplies even if you aren’t convinced by the general consensus, and the argument in today’s economy could easily be diverted to effiency, security, etc.
Are you pondering where to go on your summer holidays? Scotland is going to have a new visitor attraction you might like:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article7017170.ece
It looks like the 700th anniversary of Bannockburn is going to be a lot more celebrated than the 300th anniversary of the Union was (which wouldn’t be hard, considering that that anniversary was almost universally ignored). Sign of the times.
27. It was Brown who crunched Customs & Excise and Inland Revenue together without proper thought and evaluation. This self proclaimed “strategic genius”, or so his right Balls declared, will leave a trial of havoc through the country which will take decades to put right.
33, look on the bright side: without the Union the failure of Scottish banks would’ve made Scotland look like Iceland, only worse.
Anyway, let’s not argue about who killed who. This is meant to be a happy occasion.
33 - There’s a much more significant anniversary coming up: the 500th anniversary of Flodden Field. Do you think the English should trumpet that with great fanfare?
‘Belfast’s old foes to mark historic deal with trip to the White House’
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/belfastrsquos-old-foes-to-mark-historic-deal-with-trip-to-the-white-house-1890900.html
Wot, no One-eyed Scottish Idiots invited?
33. What a relief that the SNP’s focus is on modern, civic nationalism.
36. Feel free antifrank.
However, the English are far less self-confident as a nation than we Scots are. Generally speaking, your grasp of your own country’s history is truly lamentable. Too much yapping on about the Yookay and (lord preserve us) “Britishness” for your own good.
I’d guess that about 99% of Scots have heard of Bannockburn.
I’d be surprised if even 5% of English folk had heard of Flodden Field.
Can’t see this is a problem. Tunnymede and SeanT have got it right; keep on about the environment, energy security, green and pleasant land, etc., just less hot air about hot air.
37 - mm it’s a Wednesday, I’m sure he wouldn’t like to miss PMQ’s
Sorry, Runnymede!
39. If you are judging knowledge of history on the basis of medieval bloodbaths, perhaps the next step is a link up with Sinn Fein.
43. We’ll leave the linking-up with Ulster head-jobs to FM Dave.
38 LOL!
In fairness, though, Robert Bruce was one of the outstanding commanders of history, and his story deserves to be better known South of the Border. He came within a whisker of conquering Ireland, as well as winning the Scottish throne.
No Stuart, I think it’s because they do less banging on about nationalism that means the English don’t give much attention to Flodden Field, whereas Bannockburn is the major part of part of the Scottish national ‘narrative’.
39 - I think it has more to do with the fact that the English simply have better manners than the Scots.
Morning all.
2. No, I didn’t have space to go into the potential impact on seats where the Greens are in with a chance of winning, though the obvious assumption is that it makes them less likely winners as the believers have long since been signed up and it’s floating voters and discontents they need to get over the line. Were they the only challengers in the seats, it wouldn’t matter so much but they’re not.
3 (and others). Yes, I’m sure that’s right. It probably won’t be an election issue but could be a major problem if the Tories form the government. Tim gets the analogy right at [16]: it’s an issue which is to most of the public not high on their priorities but has the potential to do a significant amount of damage if the intra-party debate gets out of hand.
9. The ‘we must do something’ lobby is unlikely to ever win over public opinion if all they ever offer is more taxes. Other, less punative option could include serious government R&D money (or prize money) being made available for alternative technologies, investment in rechargers at fuel stations (as an aside, people really, really value personal transport - the solution is making it more efficient, not more expensive), putting serious efforts into nuclear and renewable power generation or taxing kerosene to encourage more efficient aircraft usage.
On your second point, that’s just not backed up by the facts. Scepticism has increased across all demographic groups. I don’t have comparable splits by education level but the proportion of those in the AB social groups who accept AGW theory has fallen since November from 43% to 33% and the proportion who believe it isn’t happening or that if it is, the manmade aspect is propaganda has risen from 18% to 27%.
11. Yes, trust in authorities selling stories of unseen threats has diminished markedly, though not much since November - different drivers have been moving the numbers there.
17. Nice try but I started writing the piece at about 7.30pm last night.
21. Nick, one of the benefits of climate change from a politician’s viewpoint was that was a very good hook on which to hang necessary tax rises. If that hook goes, there’ll be consequences across the tax and spend policies. I agree that the direct effect on votes of increased AGW scepticism will be small but the indirect effects could be a lot bigger.
Flodden is certainly well-known in the North of England. The problem is that the English tended to defeat the Scots (Bannockburn being the outstanding exception), so it’s hard to single out one victory from another.
39, we’ve got a better history with more exciting stuff to learn. It’s like saying the average Andorran has a better grasp of Andorran history than the average Chinese fellow does of China’s.
FPT, I thought that article by Andrew Grice was a good one.
There’s no doubt that the Conservatives were caught on the hop by the dreadful GDP figures, which implied that the economy couldn’t stand big cuts in public spending. The problem (and it’s as much a problem for Labour as Conservatives) is that there seems to a perfect storm heading the way of heavily-indebted countries.
WRT Labour’s polling, it does them no good if their support does hold up well in the North - but in those seats that are heavily dependent on high levels of public spending. The Conservatives won’t worry if they go nowhere in Sheffield and Manchester, if they can win places like Elmet, and South Ribble.
Cameron can fairly easily segue into a policy of reducing waste and fossil fuel consumption, without getting too preachy. After all, who is in favour of waste, who is against energy efficiency? Couching it in those terms rather than being evangelical will be much less unpopular.
He could start with reducing the exposure of the Suffolk climate taliban, Gummer and Yeo, who are quite irritating on the subject somehow.
50 Scotland has a very interesting history. Ruthless murders, religious persecution, witch-burnings, mass slaughter, are all fascinating to read about (although not much fun to have lived through).
53, hehe, I’m sure it does, I was just teasing the uppity Mr. Dickson
Incidentally, I shall be hoping Scotland beat France tomorrow. Backed Italy for the wooden spoon, and if the Scots can get one over on les Bleus it should bode well.
39 - And the English prefer to remember victories like Agincourt, the Armada, Trafalgar, Waterloo, etc., over big countries like France and Spain.
52 - John C. You could have left your last four words off that comment!
‘Every day I wonder what my Jennifer would be doing now, says Gordon Brown’
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics-news/2010/02/06/every-day-i-wonder-what-my-jennifer-would-be-doing-now-says-gordon-brown-86908-22022530/
24. You are right, it is probably too late. The problem is that the environment movement is dominated by people who do not accept the analysis. In the past week there was another letter demonstrating the problem in the F.T. A long whine about how Copenhagen was destroyed by wicked multi national lobbying, signed off by the major pressure groups.
However, there are a few of us looking at what a realistic strategy going forward might be. There are three key difficulties;
1. The environment movement does not accept there is a problem (interestingly, the development movement does. Perhaps they have more experience of the nature of real public opinion.)
2. The political parties have a huge vested interest in making sure that such interventions as suggested in the paper do not happen. The law reflects that interest.
3. Vast funds are going into lobbying politicians from the environment groups which is squeezing out all hope of funding effective action.
Through it all we must not despair!
Wether or not climate change is man-made, a lot of policies are not based purely on that fact.
More renewable energy is good as it secures our power supply, and eventually fossil-fuels will run out, or get increaingly expensive.
Recycling makes sense, as does making cars, homes, etc more and more efficent.
Where I think peoples patience will wear thin is wher climate change is being seen as nothing more than a demand from some countries for cash.
55. Yes, the only other group I can think of which obsesses about obscure medieval battles the way the Nats do is the Serbs.
One paragraph in the article linked at [4] stood out for me:
“Over ten years ago, before Kyoto, someone party to the international negotiations and whom I respect highly, predicted to me that nothing meaningful would happen on climate change until Americans were dying on American soil as a result of changes unequivocally attributable to climate change. As I have watched the issue develop over the last ten years, I fear he may be right”
Actually, that event’s already happened - it’s just that the ‘wrong’ Americans died.
Hurricane Katrina was probably the first and so far only natural disaster that can reasonably be put down to climate change. The water temperatures in the Gulf that Summer were the highest on record. That feeds directly into storm strength, other things being equal. Without such warm waters, the hurricane would have been less intense. The disaster happened not because of the wind as such but the storm surge - also related to intensity. Had the hurricane been of lesser power, the berms would have held and the floods not occurred, hence many deaths would have been avoided.
It still didn’t affect American opinion on AGW much, if at all.
48 - you can’t balme a girl for trying
Stephen @ 2 has a good point re the Greens, I somehow missed his post earlier, which has betting implications. And I agree it does seem obvious that floating voters are more likely to be in sceptic camp.
On topic, this is a really interesting point and one that is doubtless going to be a major driver of politics in the coming years. We seem to be at the start of a culture war, with one side fully signed up to the idea of manmade global warming and the other close to contemptuous of it. The language used by both sides(warmists and deniers) gives the flavour of it.
Yellow Submarine has rightly noted in the past how green issues have continued to be high on the agenda throughout the recession, and what the recession seems to have done is polarised opinion. The Greens will prosper.
It is certainly the case that the climate change scientists have been caught with their hands in the cookie jar on more than one occasion recently. Their difficulties have been compounded by the ridiculous way in which some climate change supporters - I exempt the often ludicrous but on this occasion admirable George Monbiot - have attempted to pretend that there isn’t really a problem.
David Herdson highlights that:
“The scandals around could also have played a part, though bizarrely, of the 57% who said that they’ve “heard stories of flaws or weaknesses in the science of climate change”, 16% are more convinced now of the risks of climate change compared to just 11% who are less convinced. The vast majority said the stories about e-mails and Himalayan glaciers made no difference.”
That is best explained, in my view, by people feeling that they ought to know what’s going on, but don’t really. You get similar findings if you poll the public on names of sexual practices and invent one or two - a significant number of people will claim to have heard of them or even tried them.
There is a challenge for the Tories here, because David Cameron is on the wrong side of his party’s opinion but the voters he needs to attract (I imagine I would fall in that category, if I lived in a Tory target seat) are on the same side as him at present. This is one of those occasions when SeanT is 100% correct about what David Cameron should do - focus on conservation of resources, limiting pollution, energy security and so on.
He also needs to squelch the Lawsonian tendency, at least until sufficient numbers of respectable scientists cast serious doubt on the idea of manmade climate change. At present, the impression as a non-scientist I get is that the principle is not doubted by many, even if the practices of some of its scientists are strongly disapproved of. The Australian Liberal party’s problems lie before him as a cautionary example of what happens if you let the Platos of this world capture party policy.
Standby for Dave, smashing his windmill with a sledgehammer, and kicking the sh*t out of a Husky. ‘Through my fault, through my fault, through my most grevious fault’.
51 Greece is a strong antidote to the fears that the very weak Q4 growth figures invoked. The message there is that markets will not wait while governments decide how to deal with the debts they have taken on.
Listening on R4 & R5 to economists talking of need for strong action, of the problems built up by spending and borrowing in the good times and the high interest rates being demanded as risk premium echoed what Osborne had been saying about Britain. Not that the UK is in same position as Greece but that echo reinforces the Conservative mantra and undermines Labour’s.
61, David H, I think I’ll stick with the New Scientist version,
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11661-climate-myths-hurricane-katrina-was-caused-by-global-warming.html
Stuart Dickson’s comments are fascinating. Blood and soil has been the traditional garb of the insular nationalistic mindset. Myths built up, events exagerrated and everything repeated endlessly in enforced ritual. Identity through propaganda.
The SNP, like most (though not all) western nationalist movements has dropped the blood bit, due to it being an unfortunate memento to some historically important Germans. It can only be deployed negatively: not english.
Consequently, the soil bit gets blown all out of proportion. It is exhortation and provocation. It has nothing to do with the present or the future and is therefore radically conservative. It’s the kind of dull and dreary pageantry that only geeks and nuts enjoy.
My advice to the SNP, if they want such events to last a while: free music and beer. Ken Livingstone worked that one out.
On Topic. Yawn. If you’re that bothered about the environment vote for the greens.
60 English history does have a problem though IMO. WW2 obscures pretty much everything else. It may have been “our finest hour”, but personally I think it holds us back as a nation.
8. Yes absolutely, conserving energy, forcing efficiency of what is a limited resource, and diversifying our sources of energy should be or primary concern to every Conservative and conservative.
53. Yes, but Scotland’s military history is one of constant retreat, perpetual foreign interference, frequent and savage defeat, embarrassing imperial misadventure, a litany of dismal failure, rampant cowardice, craven subsmission and hapless bungling which ended in outright occupation and conquest by the English.
Against this they have maybe one or at most two minor “victories” over the Sassenachs to keep them going.
No wonder they are going to celebrate Bannockburn. It’s the same reasoning that mekes Scots bang on and on about Archie Gemmells’ goal against Slovenia in 1953 or whenever it was. It’s all they’ve got.
OT, Guido’s “lawyered up” article
When Enron bosses cheated their customers, they went to prison. Why should our MPs be any different?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article7017156.ece
Not good news - Scottish bankruptcies show steep rise.
The number of Scottish businesses going bust rose sharply at the end of last year with manufacturing and construction the hardest hit.
Meanwhile, personal bankruptcy affected a growing number of homeowners and workers.
In the final quarter of last year, the number of Scottish businesses going under increased by 25% compared with the previous three months.
Leading accountancy firm PKF said it was the calm before the storm.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8501605.stm
The article also shows that the rate of personal bankruptcy is twice the rate of that in England & wales.
61. You may well be right, I am not a scientist but the theory seems to have the support of some respected scientists. The difficulty is in this clause; ‘unequivocally attributable to climate change.’
The complexity makes proof extremely difficult. That enables a large number of people to reject the complexity and adopt the most convenient explanation. Hence the rising incidence of ‘tea party hostility’ in the U.S. to evidence based policy on climate change.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grote_Mandrenke
50 Scotland has a very interesting history. Ruthless murders, religious persecution, witch-burnings, mass slaughter, are all fascinating to read about (although not much fun to have lived through).
And that’s just in Downing Street since 1997. True, it wasn’t much fun, but there’s less than 100 days to go
I do not think the climate change debate will cause any problem to the Tory party. The people that are most worried about this are the Greens, which are very close to the Labour party, then the Green part of the Lib/Dems. I do not think that many in the Tory party who agree that climate change is a big problem and would stop voting for the party.
Looking at the overall picture the year 2009 was the warmest year worldwide since records started, while we are only looking at the weather back here in the UK.
How annoying - I just typed a very long message on topic and it got swallowed by the ether. To repeat it in bullet point format:
1) Yellow Submarine correctly notes that green issues have remained topical throughout the recession. We seem to be at the beginnings of a culture war, with labels like warmists and deniers.
2) The Greens as a minority party representing one side of that war will prosper. A mainstream party cannot afford to be too closely side with what is at present the weaker side of that culture war, so the Tories must squelch the Lawsonian tendency. Australia’s Liberal party is suffering the fate that would happen to the Tories if they allowed the likes of Plato to take over the party’s policy on this front.
3) Amazingly, SeanT gives exactly the right prescription at 8 above.
4) The public don’t really understand the science or the arguments. The polling results are easily explicable with that in mind. The public does, however, feel that it should understand the arguments. You see similar polling results if when the public is surveyed on bedroom practices if the pollsters make up the names of one or two - a significant percentage of the population claims to have heard of them or even tried them.
9. I wonder if you held a straight face, while typing both climate and scientific position in the same sentence.
Ignorance or wilful misinterpretation of information is not the preserve of the sceptic, indeed it seems to be entirely bedded in the climate change movement. I know the difference between climate and weather, and tut when people see snow and go “global warming, what’s all that about?”, but equally i tut when we get “look at the floods in cockermouth, workington, these are the impact of climate change, with more extreme weather conditions” or “tell the people of Seaton (insert extreme weather event) there is no global warming”.
These propositions are based on abject ignorance and should be immediately rubbished as a cold winter no more shows global warming, then a series of flooding shows it.
67, aye. We could do with a politician of vision (no, don’t laugh) saying that just as our ancestors gave us a glorious history, so must we pass on the same gift to our children.
69. seanT
Throughout the Early Modern Period Scottish military commanders and troops were highly prized as mercenaries by several European powers. The 2 occupations most heavily over-represented by Scots are perhaps engineering and soldiering. Although one of our most famous military sons was actually a naval officer, rather than a soldier: John Paul Jones. Served both the US and Russia well.
Not much “dismal failure, rampant cowardice, craven subsmission and hapless bungling” there.
69 Not entirely fair. Many Scots regiments within the British army fought with exemplerary skill and bravery.
Given that the English population outnumbered them about 8 to 1, their record against the English wasn’t too bad either, particularly when they fought on their home territory. Their big mistake was to invade England regularly on behalf of France, and then get regularly beaten.
67 I’d like to see more of our medieval history being taught.
65 - Don. That’s a different issue. The point is that not whether Katrina was the result of climate change or not but whether climate change affected the intensity of the hurricane, which itself affected the consequences when it made landfall.
The disaster wasn’t the hurricane itself, it was the floods. They were the direct result of a hurricane of at least that power striking land. A less warm Gulf would have meant a weaker hurricane which (probably) would have meant the berms holding and so no floods.
80
Just goes to show what you can achieve if you don’t wear underpants.
This couldn’t happen.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/7167497/Britain-in-line-for-blistering-economic-recovery-OECD-indicator-suggests.html
Could it?
81. Sean Fear
And before the Union, Scots regiments within the French army fought with exemplerary skill and bravery.
83 If it were to happen (presumably on the back of the sharp depreciation in the value of sterling) then it would be good news for an incoming government. They could cut spending radically, without risking a second recession.
68. I think Jonathan is correct that the history taught in schools has become too narrow in scope.
I think the obsession with WWII has resulted in part from it being seen by the left-liberal education establishment as an ‘acceptable’ bit of martial history given that it was directed against racist Nazi Germany.
This thread only needs something on PR to become a perfect nightmare of boredom, seeing as it already has climate change and Scotland.
When a new team comes to power we typically have a 100 day action plan.
Is there an equivalence for a team leaving power? A 100 day ineffective inaction plan?
76 “Looking at the overall picture the year 2009 was the warmest year worldwide since records started, while we are only looking at the weather back here in the UK.”
No it wasn’t.
I’ve already noted and posted previously that there has been a slight shift in tone from CCHQ - when Climategate first broke Cameron was very pro-AGW and it made many of us of a sceptical bent shout at the telly.
Last month, his office sent a reply to my WTF-are-you-thinking-of email - and whilst they maintained a belief in AGW, 80% of the rest was about conventional green stuff like recycling, looking after the environment etc.
I don’t think it will hurt the Tories provided this shift continues and the AGW bit is quietly dropped. Ed Its War Miliband and Flat Earth Gordon are totally the wrong trajectory.
The Greenies and LDs are I assume more likely to lose a handful of soft green votes but otherwise - no change, those who continue to believe AGW is legit won’t change their mind anytime soon if ever.
There’s an old song by ABC called “That was then, but this is NOW”.
Things change. Back in 2005/5, “the Environment” was at the centre of the Political Space. So Dave was right to focus on that. It was the Big Worry and it would have been odd to ignore it.
But now, Debt’s the Big Worry and it would be odd if that issue didn’t focus the mind. Environment, is now on the back-burner, so to speak, as an issue of the day when measured against the Economy.
But, I’ve got a feeling that the whole ‘Climate’ debate is going to end-up probably where it should have been at the start. That is, we’re burning-up this finite resource faster than we can ever replace it so what’s to be done?
And this could play rather well for the Tories
1 Labour faffed about on Nuclear for 15 years and now the lights might go out.
2 Labour relied to heavily on natural gas and now the Russkies have got us by the Morley-and-Attwoods
3 Using natural resources more carefully plays to the Conservative efficiency meme. Anti-Waste is a Tory Message.
So, DavidH’s posed a good question, but if you cut through the presentational froth, the Tories are rather well placed, I think.
84 Yes, that’s so. They were like the Swiss or Italians, who rarely fought on their own account, but provided a huge proportion of the French and Spanish forces, at the time.
77 - Antifrank. Your post has been cleared and is [63].
As usual David a thought provoking thread to challenge us on a Saturday morning.
I do not expect the “Green policy issue” to cause Dave many sleepless nights. As with any policy there will be a few thousand people for whom this is the burning issue but outwith Brighton Pavilion and Norwich South I doubt it will exercise any Tory PPC terribly much.
The mood music remains unemployment (regardless of fiddled figures), the economy, law and order and the general feeling of well-being and of course “Gordon Brown- 5 more years”.
Add to that this morning that 3 Labour MPs are proclaiming to the nation that parliamentary privilege protects them from prosecution (which I doubt) adds to the arrogance theme and whilst there are troughers in all parties, Labour is in government and all the MPs charged are Labour MPs. No-one cares about some Tory Lord who is unheard of outside Essex and his swift removal from office and from the Tory whip should mitigate as far as possible any damaging effect on the Tories.
84 The big theme of Scottish history surely was the lowland-highland divide and the relentless campaign by the lowlanders to bring the highlands under control. Some of the expeditions of the Stuart Kings of scots seemed a little harsh to say the least of it.
I also think that Cameron is probably watching what’s been happening in Oz too
IIRC The new Liberal’s leader is ahead in the polls for the first time in years and described AGW as ‘complete crap’.
“Ignorance or wilful misinterpretation of information is not the preserve of the sceptic, ”
No, but it’s there, yet you don’t argue that all sceptics are therefore scientific illiterates and are all wrong. Yet you argue that for those putting the case for AGW.
I can understand the case for saying “it’s not settled”, but there is no case for anything stronger than that. On both sides. The problem then becomes what, if any, policy response do you do, And there, you have to use a calculus of risk, as I believe the phrase du jour is. And that does not fall down on the sceptic side.
4. They understand however, when they are being taken for a ride. I dont know if Global Warming is happening, and if we are experiencing variations are they because of mans activity, but what i do know, the ’scientific consensus’ is based on flawed information, corrupt data manipulation and a concerted effort to silence opposition and hide data and evidence that contradicts the ‘consensus’.
It seems most of the big scientific discoveries by mankind, did not come about by consensus, often it was the opposite, it was the ‘consensus’ that acted to suppress or mock such ideas. Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Darwin even Einstein was mocked for his belief in these abusrd things called ‘atoms’. And When Einstein himself became the established consensus he actively dismissed such silly ideas as ‘black holes’.
87 - The thread on how the AV system would affect the chances of the Scottish Greens begs to be written.
‘SNP Confirm General Election Candidate’
http://www.inverclydenow.com/news-detail2.asp?ID=3940
Ladbrokes - Inverclyde (incumbent: David Cairns, Lab maj over SNP = 11,259)
Lab 1/10
SNP 5/1
Con 100/1
LD 100/1
In 2005 Inverclyde was one of the Lib Dems’ top Scottish targets. And now they are at 100/1 in this seat. Take note: the Scottish Lib Dems are heading for a proper spanking. At least in terms of vote share.
No morris dancing for me Jack.
79,81 The period that fascinates me most is basically the C18 but includes the late C17 through to the early C19. The Bank of England, Coalbrookdale, Revolution, party politics, the UK, the royal navy, East India Company, the USA, Newton, Robert Owen, Johnson, Trafalgar, Waterloo. etc etc. It has it all. An amazing 100-150 years.
61
“Hurricane Katrina was probably the first and so far only natural disaster that can reasonably be put down to climate change.”
Sorry David but this is simply not true. The leading expert in the world on Hurricanes Dr. Christopher Landsea who was chairman of the American Meteorological Society’s committee on tropical meteorology and tropical cyclones resigned from the IPCC on exactly this issue. He was the main author of both the 1995 and 2001 IPCC chapters on hurricane activity (both of whiich found no link) and had been invited to write the 2007 chapter before he saw an IPCC representative on TV making misleading claims about what he had written.
Katrina caused large scale loss of life because New Orleans is sinking. It is sinking because it is on a deltaic fan which is pushed down by the millions of tons of silt which flow out from the Mississippi river every year. The mere presence of New Orleans and the canalisation of the flow through the delta forces that silt further out into the delta and so prevents the build up of silt counterbalancing the sinking. This is a basic known geological fact and the flooding and loss of life from Katrina was inevitable eventually. As long as New Orleans sits where it does it is also inevitable that it will happen again.
94 WRT Brighton Pavilion don’t assume it will go with the national tide. It has shifted demographically a lot in recent decades against the Tories and the Greens, if the Labour vote collapsed there which is entirely possible could well win. It wouldn’t mean a lot outside Brighton though as you say.
99. antifrank
55. Archroy, every one you name there the English needed assistance from other countries, give us one battle that they won on their own.
84
Alexander Leslie who fought with the Dutch, then the Swedish during the 30 years war. Leslie as the Earl of Leven then went on to fight first with the Covenanters and then the Royalists in the British Civil Wars: an amzing military career.
The second consequence of the tediously insular nationalistic mindset, after radical conservatism, is willywaving. See 105.
Aha, here comes the day shift! I’m offski. The better half wants her breakfast now. Have fun!
57. So Gordon Brown has ran out of children in schools to hide behind, he is forced to trawl cemeteries, has he no shame?
We all have sympathy for anyone who loses a child, it must be utterly awful, and put a massive strain on the one relationship which is the core of many peoples lives, that of their spouse. But what we have here is a politician trying to use X to justify and entirely unrelated Y.
86 Actually, I think schools aren’t the problem. History teachers do their best within a culture that doesn’t really look at history beyond WW2.
This started way before 1997. I remember my history teacher in the early nineties fighting to avoid running what he called “the Hitler dept”.
Pre-GCSE was WW1 up to WW2
GCSE was ind. and ag revolutions.
A-level was the Tudors and equiv European history, the reformation and all that.
It’s not a party political problem, there is more too it. I suspect it will take another generation to move on from WW2.
70. Sean , you drunk this early again.
107. astateofbitterness
I’m not showing no-one my willy! Ta ra.
8 and 76
I largely agree with Sean T.
The other factor which limits the political damage which the gap between all three parties and their supporters would otherwise cause is the effect of the energy security issue.
Every single climate change sceptic with whom I have discussed the issue still supports nuclear power on grounds of energy security. For those of them who live in Copeland the fact that the local economy is totally dependent on the nuclear industry may have something to do with this, but I have found exactly the same thing when talking to fellow tories from other parts of the country.
The majority of West Cumbrians I have spoken to who do think man-made climate change is happening still think we already have quite enough onshore wind in the mix, on grounds of reliability, e.g. it doesn’t deliver when there is too much or too little wind. (There are already a lot of turbines in West Cumbria, not to mention several huge wind farms being constructed off our coastline)
The policy of a balanced energy mix including nuclear, energy efficiency, some offshore wind and other renewables, and researching CCS can be sold on grounds of a good mix of energy security and cutting pollution and cost.
82 - Not necessarily. The reason why the SSTs were so high that year, in part, was due to high levels of AMO, or Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation. Every 60-70 years or so, a season like 2005 occurs. The Loop Current was particularly strong that year, also I think. That goes in natural cycles, and in high periods, you’ll often see more storms, or more intense ones. It was also bad due to Neutral-La Nina, El Nino just causes abnormal levels of wind shear in the Atlantic Basin. If Global Warming did have a direct impact, then it would be seen more often. The season with the most major hurricanes is still back in 1950 with nine, I think. Even the 1930s had more Category Fives than the 1990s did.
The flooding of Katrina was more due to its size than intensity. Sure, intensity had an impact, but it was reduced to Category Three by landfall. Ike, the hurricane hitting the Galveston area in 2008, caused a sustained level of storm surge, yet was only a Category Two in the Gulf of Mexico. The fact was it was just huge. Katrina was not even the strongest hurricane in 2005 actually, Wilma was.
Overall, still too difficult to disentangle from the naturally occurring cycles.
“I’d guess that about 99% of Scots have heard of Bannockburn.
I’d be surprised if even 5% of English folk had heard of Flodden Field.”
That is because Scotland is an insignificant, whiny little nuisance to England, while England is a mighty, overbearing neighbour to Scotland. Bannockburn or Flodden are about as significant to us as Scotland’s seizure of the Orkney Islands in the 15th century is to Scotland (how many Scots know about that?). England’s equivalent of Bannockburn, say Crecy, Agincourt or the Spanish Armada (so many to chose from) is fully as well known in England as Bannockburn is in Scotland.
On topic, I don’t think climate change will be an important topic in the next election or subsequently. A few people care passionately about it, most are far more concerned with the economy or immigration. And many people would actively welcome climate change, if it meant warmer winters in this country.
87. David, once again you win “Boring Dipstick of the Thread”, do you ever post anything other than a whinge.
113. Rereading my post I should perhap add that not all fellow tories, either here or in the rest of the country, are climate change septics.
On the subject of the prosecutions of the MPs I must admit to having some reservations about this. Not because I don’t think they should be tried and punished (along with about 350 other similar scumbag MPs) but because we might be forgetting why we have these rules on Parliamentary privilege.
We have been fortunate until recently to live in times where MPs need not fear that the executive might use the police and legal system as a means of pressurising our representatives. I no longer feel that is the case - as was seen with the Damian Green case.
Once the precedent has been set that MPs can be arrested by the police and taken through the judicial system it is not difficult to see this power being abused. Far better would be to set up a robust system within Parliament which allows for successful prosecution and punishment of sitting MPs without the interference of a police force which can no longer be trusted to be politically neutral.
94
The four named should pay up and shut up and take their punishment, but why just them? This is decimation in all but name.
There are others whose dubious behaviour has been overlooked.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/7167165/MPs-expenses-Nadine-Dorries-paid-35000-to-close-friend-in-PR.html
117 Sticky keyboard problem, let’s try again.
Not all fellow tories with whom I have discussed it, either here or in the rest of the country, are climate change sceptics.
115. PSJ, Wishful thinking on your part methinks. You boys down there spend all your time trying to point out how much better you are than us. Its your insecurity and knowledge that soon you will be on your own , no pretensions of greatness and skint pontificating on your former “Greatness”.
91 Bunco & 94 Easterross
I agree with your findings and conclusions. AGW is low on the electorate’s priorities, but the price of energy is not.
As one who is actively involved in the development of renewable energy, DC has to break the mould and lead on energy policy for both the short and long term. The main problem is that long term equates to 10-20+ years - a vision not in the sights of most politicians who have at most a five year horizon.
There are many things that can be done using presently developed technology which includes energy conservation and efficiency and the use of solar to heat water - all that requires is legislation for all new builds.
All other renewable is costly to develop and HMG, having ignored the subject for so many years, needs to link up the the USA, Germany and Spain especially in the sharing of knowledge and resources. The long term aim should be towards all-electric power which will by-pass the hydrocarbon industry which should be used as a chemical building block resource. Significant advances are being made on more efficent transmission of electricity.
Each country has to utilise it natural benefits - for the UK that is offshore wind, tidal and wave power, with some solar - again great strides are being made in both efficiency and cost for solar.
HMG should also reverse the trend and stop funding academia and set up a UK laboratory which could be based at one of its former sites that are now privatised.
Nuclear fission must be used, but technolgy has to change in future so that it uses a more readily available fuel that done not leave such a toxic residue. Fission is still very much on the horizon but recent progress has been encouraging.
One problem - who in the next government could be the Minister for Energy who has a strong enough scientific background to be able to understand what is happening and also able to cut through much of the rubbish being spouted at present by academia.
119. It is scandalous that we only get a handful of sacrificial lambs, hoping it will blow over. There should be at least a 100 in the dock if not more. A massive cover up by the 3 main parties , all colluding as usual when its down to keeping their nests feathered. Amazing that the only time they stand shoulder to shoulder is when they are filling their pockets.
The brief spat upthread gets me on to one of my “hobby horses” namely the lamentable lack of history teaching in our schools now on both sides of Hadrian’s Wall.
It is true that since Scotland has been a more martial society than England, there is a slightly better understanding of historical events like Bannockburn and Culloden in Scotland than similar events in England. I suspect the knowledge of such events in Wales and Ireland is similar to that of the Scots.
However history teaching in schools now seems to start at 1914.
How many youngsters know about
The Roman invasion of Britain
The Angle and Saxon occupations
The Viking Invasions and Alfred the Great
The internecine wars within the Saxon royal house leading to the Norman Conquest
The Plantagenets and the civil war fought between Stephen and Matilda
The Wars of the Roses and Bosworth
Tudor intrigue
The Civil Wars of the Stuarts
The Hanoverian Succession
etc etc
101, third century BC is more interesting to me. There’s the power struggles of Alexander’s Successors (including the young Pyrrhus in a minor role) and then the Punic Wars.
117, uurrrghhh! Much too much information, Mr. Whiteside
105, my knowledge of this era isn’t great, but whilst I agree Waterloo wasn’t just the mighty British (hurrah), who helped at Trafalgar, or Agincourt or against the Armada?
123
Agree!!
So this is why we haven’t heard from Marcus lately.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1248898/The-Tory-Twitter-police-Election-hopefuls-told-online-comments-approved-first.html
We haven’t have we Mike?
101. Jonathan I agree - that is a fascinating period.
On your other point, of course the problem didn’t start in 1997 - the left-liberal educational establishment is much older than that. I think it has got worse since then, though. My history curriculum a generation ago was much broader than that of today.
126
I thought I saw a post from him on here a couple of days ago.
118. Richard - we could alternatively try to free the police from political interference, which would anyway be a good idea.
I think your idea of an in-house parliamentary process being more reliable is naive; MPs would inevitably divide along party lines.
This isn’t entirely a new problem either - a look back at some history will show that impeachment processes were frequently highly partisan.
125 There were Welsh, Irish, and Scots in all three of those battles, but they were basically English victories. Waterloo was definitely multi-national.
Given your interest in Alexander’s successors, have you read “Funeral Games” by Mary Renault, a grim, yet gripping, account of the years of warfare after Alexander’s death.
129
My thought was less of the full house, more of a small number of MPs chosen from the back benchers who could be relied upon to be politically neutral in this issue. They would have to have absolute independence from the whips and would be charged with maintaining the reputation of Parliament and punishing those who transgressed.
Didn’t the Black Watch get their name at Waterloo?
130 Alexander’s last words showed a grim sense of humour. “To whom do you leave your Empire?” “To the strongest.”
131. The parties wouldn’t allow it, even if you could realistically find such an eminent and Olympian group.
127 The emphasis on WW2 is not a left wing thing. If it was it would never have stuck in the way it has. Both the left and the right use WW2. But they are exploiting rather than causing something.
It is much more deep seated. WW2 is the first major event in history with good photos and film stock. Its history more visual than what preceded it. Churchill’s speeches were recorded. You can hear them today in the same way as they were first heard. In a way, it lives.
That coupled with the breadth of direct civilian involvement (so much living memory) means that it has dominated our history ever since. And will do until something replaces it.
O/T is this the grubby side deal with the DUP that Yokel has been hinting at of late?
’some would appear to be suggesting that British government concessions in the form of compensation for savers in the Presbyterian Mutual Society could be the cloud cover necessary to allow the DUP to publicly endorse the very same deal it effectively rejected at Monday’s now legendary party meeting.’
http://sluggerotoole.com/index.php/weblog/comments/throw-money-at-the-pms-dup-cloud-cover-strategy/
125. Morris, I used a bit of poetic license there, would have been a bit puny saying they had some assistance in a few of them.
In what the polls are showing to be an increasingly tighter election, increasing AGW skepticism COULD have been a significant factor.
However, he of the clunking fist, proved once again he has a clunking brain to match by calling a large proportion of the electorate “Flat Earthers”.
Talk about opening your clunking mouth putting your clunking foot into it!
The Westminister Four could always use the ‘Amess Defence’
http://www.libdemvoice.org/david-amess-expenses-bank-17843.html
My office is, I think, pretty typical of the young (25-35) middle class swing vote, and all except me are interested in politics but not particularly devoted to it. Two of us are firm centre-right and will almost certainly vote Tory. Two are floating voters (one centrist, one centre-left), who will both likely vote Tory although still hold reservations. One who was a big Blairite - open-minded if the Tories had been particularly noble but will now probably vote for Labour.
If Cameron u-turns on the environment, he would lose one of the Tories and both of the swing voters, guaranteed. I understand this is a demographically limited sample, but young urban professionals seem to me the sort of people the Conservatives need for the future.
Also, I don’t buy this “these aren’t the economic times to do this” line. If you look at path-dependency theories, a recession is actually by far the cheapest time to change the path of growth. Also, an auctioning of carbon permits seem like a very good way to cut the deficit, taxing pollution rather than work.
133, brief post before I go wandering:
I’ve heard it suggested that he actually meant Craterus, which is similar in Greek/Macedonian to the word for ’strongest’. Very sad that Craterus died so early on in the Diadochi period
137, you McFibber!
124. The Glorious Revolution gets a horrendous lack of coverage in our schools, seeing as it was such a defining event in British exceptionalism. I’m also shocked by the complete absence of the Seven Years War, which basically founded our empire.
Good article, though one poll commissioned by a pro-MMGW organisation isn’t that compelling either way. Anecdotally, I know nobody who admits to believing in potentially catastrophic man made global warming.
But accepting a shift towards scepticism, I think this will pose Cameron a small problem in that many natural conservatives - as well as a good proportion of those swing voters who want Labour removed from power for at least a decade - see ‘green’ policies as really a front for yet more taxation and more government restrictions on lifestyles, including increased surveillance to enforce these (microchipped wheelie bins, anyone?). As more voters come to realise these measures are not, in fact, needed to save the planet, support for any party which maintains they are must be affected. As an aside, Dave’s early dabbling with greenery, the toy windmill on his roof and cycling to the House whilst a following car brought his clothes and bag, did him no good at all.
Nobody denies the climate changes any more than they deny the tide goes in and out; what is not widely accepted is that human activity is leading to an increase in the planet’s temperature which will, if unchecked, have disastrous consequences, and it now appears that the ’settled science’ which claimed it would is largely rubbish based on fake data and rigged computer models promoted by green activists and other even less palatable groups for their own political ends.
Cameron ought to announce that the recent spate of scandals has placed many of the claims of the greens in doubt and that Conservative policy will be to re-evaluate the science when the dust has settled and reliable data is available, i.e. after the election. Recycling is well established but needs to be justified on economic as well as environmental grounds - how much is waste paper or glass worth these days? - and doing it not too much of an imposition on the householder. Who wants to waste two hours a week sorting, washing and squashing, putting out different bins on different days, etc. and being penalised for getting it wrong?
But the really big story of the next few years is energy security, ensuring the country has reliable supplies of gas, electricity and oil at prices the man in the street can afford. This will mean building new power stations, as well as telling the EU ‘no’ when they demand we shut some of our older ones in a few years. A governing party which presides over fuel poverty affecting half the population, regular powercuts (or at least Enron-style rolling brownouts) and petrol rationing after clear warnings that these real and preventable blights were coming may as well call it a day as nobody will ever vote for them again.
Finally…(i) the Greens won’t win Brighton Pavilion even with their glamorous parachuted-in candidate, it’ll fall to the Tories on a high turnout, and (ii) Katrina was far from the biggest hurricane of the C20. It only caused the massive flooding it did because Bush 43 cut back on levee maintenance and the death and destruction toll was exacerbated by his appointment of an idiot as head of FEMA.
use more from less.
I’m not totally convinced of the science of AGW. It is likely that human behaviour is affecting the climate but there may be other effects which swamp the human effect, but it doesn’t really matter.
For the UK oil and gas are limited resources, we also need energy security for our information economy to run. That means more efficient use of what we have and ensuring we have enough in the future.
It will take 20 years or so but we must start now.
So investment in large scale renewables (e.g. severn barrage will generate 5 times more than all the offshore wind we are looking to put in and as much power as the Drax power plant) and use of nuclear for electricity reducing C02 and more use of electricity for cars. Wind / solar - both domestic and industrial, must be justified in terms of generating more energy over their lifetime than they consume in construction.
And.. gradual movement away from gas for heating our homes in winter - though this will take time.
125/130 etc. I recommend watching one of the “better” quiz shows ….. Eggheads/Mastermind/University Challenge ….. when “history” is the subject. Unless (e.g. M’mind/UC) it’s someone’s specialist subject it can be quite scary to an old git like me. And don’t let me get started on Anne Robinson’s contestants or the average participant in “quiz shows” on ITV!
133. Alexander living another 25 years would be a fascinating counterfactual: he would have probably conquered Arabia and the Med.
57 - Stuart, I know Brown is hopeless, I know he is a flawed individual (putting it mildly) but this is just pathetic.
I couldn’t read it all, cringeworthy.
“Vote for Gordo the Clown, I may be sh*t but lifes been unfair”
More snow to help focus the mind in the US
Biggest snowfall in 90yrs hits Washington DC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8501246.stm
I asked Lansley a couple of years ago if the Conservatives had a plan B in case the man made climage change theory unravelled and was given very short shrift.
Morning all,
On topic, I agree with Sean its all about tone and approach. Basically, the biggest problem is the typical leftie loony claptrap language and solutions.
If politicians start talking about cheaper cleaner energy (in the same way that natural gas was once sold) and energy self- sufficiency and forget the blame game (nobody can definitively prove whether it is or isn’t humanity’s fault) stop talking about tax rises (which never encourage anything they only deter people and raise revenues), global crises (which we can do nothing to influence), stop planning to put a blight on the landscape (wind farms - the most inefficient and relatively costly form of clean energy) then I doubt there will be anywhere near the resistance that currently exists except perhaps from the propellerheads and the energy companies (who have no reason to complain considering how they have shafted us for the last 20 years).
Now in reality the Conservatives have some good starter policies (the domestic energy loans for investment in clean power - wait till geothermal takes off) but they have got to start acting like conservatives (conservatists) and not like left wing swivel eyed loons. After all, all the left’s Green Agenda has managed to do is force the left back into the nuclear (ironic how Brown’s brother works for the company that has the UK’s nuclear contract isn’t it?) and coal options which in the short term may be the only realistic solutions to the coming energy shortages.
As for windfarms they are the 21st century equivalent of those 1960’s tower block estates. Why are the left’s solutions always so ugly, so damaging to the environment and so readily disposable. Why are they so short-termists and such a waste of money?
142. Socrates - re. the Seven Years’ War you are of course right. But that’s ‘Empire History’ which today’s educational establishment don’t like - they only think kids should learn about slavery etc.
Back to the WWII theme, it’s also notable that while the period is given too much prominence, there isn’t much taught about the actual war itself. The emphasis is very much on the holoc***t and ‘the rise of fascism’, with these forming a kind of modern parable about the dangers of right-wing extremism. All very worthy, but extremely narrow.
The period in UK/Irish history when the nations were formed is too little taught. For example who has heard of the Battle of Brunanburh , where arguably the idea of a united England was settled, and to an extent the Kingdom of Scotland? Constantine II who fought Aethelstan was the one who adopted King of Alba rather than of the Picts. The history of 8th through to 13th Centuries show how intertwined the peoples and then their nations of these islands are.
147 And, with a comparitively small army, as well. His overthrow of the Persian empire has never made any sense to me, given how hugely outnumbered he was. Even though he was a general of genius, and his opponents were mediocre, you’d have thought he would have found it almost impossible to hold down the territories he conquered, particularly Iran and further East.
153. Very true Ted - but Anglo-Saxon history is another area that has fallen deeply out of favour. There’s a lack of comfort with the idea of ‘English/Englisc’ identity that is involved. So what you tend to get if the period is taught is an emphasis on the strand of thinking that insists that ‘the coming of the English’ is a myth…
The MP Expenses Scandal - Legal Warning
Please do not make any comments which infer that anyone of those against whom charged have been brought is guilty. This could prejudice the trial.
152 I think that Hitler has done an enormous amount of damage to all right wing political parties in the West, post 1945.
154. I’m not sure. Of course, we’ll never know how good he would have been as an emperor, because he never stayed in one place long enough for us to tell. But he did make a huge effort, despite the criticism of his generals, to ingratiate himself with the Persian ruling class, and to broadcast himself to the people as a legitimate heir to Darius. If the Manchus held power for centuries in China, I don’t see why Alexander could have done it in Persia (although admittedly central Asia would have been a stretch).
155 Alternatively, Anglo Saxon history is taught as “Britain has always been a multi-cultural society”.
91
‘But now, Debt’s the Big Worry and it would be odd if that issue didn’t focus the mind.’
Time for a national poster campaign explaining to the electorate that 20% of the total tax take will no longer go to pensions,schools,healthcare etc but for paying New Labour debts.
‘The cost of failure’
135
I think much of the pre-eminence of WW2 is that it was a global event of cataclysmic intensity, the other that it is still within living memory - it is almost not an historic event yet. I was born the day after Churchill died, when I was at school my friends had fathers who fought, my own parents were too young but grew up in the East End, my grandparents lived through the blitz as well (one grandfather was a volunteer fireman, the other worked on the railways). When I was 10, the war had only finished 30 years ago, to a child at the time that seemed like ancient history - but to adults that is fairly recent, it’s like remembering the 1979 General Election today.
It will be interesting to see if WW2 takes more of a back seat as the generation that fought in it dies off - you now have to be nearly 80 to have served. In addition, with the end of the Cold War, we have now finally stopped fighting WW2 - and the War Between the West and Islam is in full swing. I’d warrant it has not yet reached its maximum intensity, and it would be interesting to guess what future generations will call it, or how they will view it.
157. Actually, I think the damage only affected Conservative and Nationalist parties. Christian Democrats seem to have had a resurgence as people trying to find spiritual renewal after the destruction and violence of the war.
154 He never got the chance. Presumably revolt could well have broken out in time but we’ll never know. As for conquest the Macedonian phalanx was a revolutionary tactic for the time. Such breakthroughs can dramatically alter or overturn existing orders. The Spartans were unbeatable for centuries until the Thebans developed new formations in their phalanx to beat them. Almost overnight they disapeared. All the Macedonians did was adopt and improve on the Theban idea.
154 How do you think the Mid terms will go now.
119 - Another cracking Nadine story there, although you are wrong to say she’s been overlooked, there’s currently an investigation trying to locate her main home.
163 If the loser learns from defeat, revolutionary tactics aren’t enough on their own to achieve final victory. The much bigger problem for the Spartans was their disastrous shortage of manpower, by the 370s. Their citizen body had declined from about 8,000 at the time of Thermopylae to about 1,500 at the time the Thebans beat them.
165. If the Tories win do you think the Labour leadership contest will follow the Tory model of last time with the Conference being used as a platform contest for the candidates and result by Christmas.
On topic, it surprises me that the main parties haven’t put forward green policies that are also vote winners.
Yellow school buses nationwide and a massive increase in allotments are the first two that spring to mind.
No losers, not expensive and with benefits for everyone while reducing emissions.
157 - I’m not sure that’s accurate. Association with Hitler is one reason why the far right has generally struggled to get traction in Western Europe compared with the far left (who are much weaker since the collapse of Communism but were very strong in much of the continent). This has generally been good news for the pragmatic, moderate, Christian Democrat-y right.
167 - Depends on how much they win by.
One seat no, 100 seats yes.
Looks like Clegg believes the opinion polls are moving with the Dave Malfunction.
121. “You boys down there spend all your time trying to point out how much better you are than us. ”
In your fantasies maybe. The truth is, we only notice Scotland when they start whining about us, usually coupled with shameless demands to keep the Barnett formula intact. Down here in the south of England, France, America and even Australia both get far more attention than Scotland.
The causes of the ignorance of history amongst the young go much wider than just history lessons, crucial though those are. When my father was at school, he studied Henry V and Richard II in English, while I only had to read Shakespeare’s comedies. (Needless to say, with the usual perversity, I find Shakespeare’s historical plays fascinating and my father really now likes his comedies). NuLab has a violent contempt for history, as it showed by removing the ancient nobility from the Lords and vandalising our Constitution in a dozen ways. Of course, this is because past experience proved that just about everything Blair and Brown said was rubbish.
166. Yes but usually it takes time for armies to adapt from really long held ideas. Look at the British Army in WW I. In 1918 it was fighting in a way and using tactics and stategy that would have been unrecognisable to the old contemptibles of 1914. But they had taken years and massive casulaties to alter tactics and stategy. The Persians didn’t have the time to adapt before being overwhelmed by the Macedonian army.
155 but it isn’t just Anglo-Saxon history, its the history of the British Isles. The Kings of Dublin were also Kings of Northumbria & York, the early history of the Scots is in Ulster (Scots after all means Irishman) and Ulster and the west of Scotland including the islands were for much of the time one kingdom or shared rulers. The royal families of Scotland post Norman Conquest of England had Norman roots, the Bruces, the Comyns, the Stuarts.
Some of those historical events still seem to affect Britain today - it was noted back in 1983 how the Danelaw line could be seen in the Labour North/Conservative South in England. In Northern Ireland the returned Scots built again alliances to their fellow countrymen across the water rather than to the South. In Pembrokeshire voting splits between the Pembrokeshire English and Welsh. In Scotland the politics seems different between the old Northumbrian areas from Edinburgh south and those of the West of Scotland, between the old Kingdom of Galloway and that of the Clyde, the ancient Pictish Kingdom in the north east and the islands of the West.
110. 125. For A level, I had to cover 1714-1914 English and European history, there was a hell of a lot of reading and note taking outside the lessons.
I’m not sure when the French Rev and Bonaparte started to fall out of favour, (1990?) but perhaps British resistance to a pan European unelected leadership is a bit to close to the bone.
170 Why would that alter matters? Unless a 2nd election seems imminent you would think using the Labour Conference as a platform to assess and publicise the candidates would be ideal for Labour. The time up to Christmas after being beaten in an election people are only interested in the Government otherwise so it would seem obvious for Labour.
Developing Tim’s theme of easy green policies, encouraging more blocks of flats (perhaps on the continental courtyard design) with centralised heating would help in our large cities.
For me, GCSE History was all Hitler and Stalin nonsense. A-Level was Tudors on the one hand, and on the other, France from 1789-1968. Which was quite interesting.
But yeah, if there’s one thing that makes me livid as a History student, it’s the current syllabus(es?). For the most part it’s uninspired, tedious dreck, designed to be shovelled into idiots.
Firmly of the belief that History should be as compulsory a GCSE as English or Maths.
169 It’s more attitudinal. It’s why right wing parties are on the defensive on issues like immigration, or other forms of cultural conservatism. Although the Nazis were in fact a revolutionary movement (albeit racial, rather than economic), in the popular mind they were extreme conservatives.
173 Not sure it is right to suggest that the “Scots” returned to Ulster. Lowland Scots are ethnically largely British (ie Welsh) and Anglian (English) rather than Scots (ie Gaels) as you yourself suggest; the Ulster language is a form of Scots, not a Scottish version of Gaelic.
175 - It matters because if Labour lose narrowly say 290 - 270 then all bets are off.
179 In the 17th century though, a lot of Ulster Protestants spoke Scots Gaelic, whose use was widespread in South West Scotland.
180 Still not sure what you mean unless you mean there is no Tory majority and a 2nd election is possible. Are you saying Gordon could stay on in a scenario where there is a small Tory majority.
176 - Putting cycle lanes on pavements rather than roads a la Berlin.
Tim: on the subject of all things Green. Was it you that said something on here about a switch by the front door that turned off all the lights in the house?
For a little light relief, the CiFfers are not impressed with Polly. Again.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/feb/06/late-praise-brown-votes-count?showallcomments=true#start-of-comments
182 - I wouldn’t like to predict what would happen in a hung parliament, adding STV multi member constituencies to the referendum would be the best thing Brown could do to carry on governing.
I find the whole bloody idea of a single safe constituency represented by a Devine a Dorries a Moran or a Wiggin an insult to my intelligence and an abuse of democracy.
181 O/T But do you think the major party Leader endorsements will make any great difference for Bercow in Buckinham.
Mike - are you aware of any polls due out this evening please?
184 - Yes it was, should I apply for a patent? it seems the most obvious thing in the world.
186 Well yes I agree regarding a hung parliament. Assume though a reasonable Tory majority and no prospect of another election and don’t you think Labour would wise to use their Conference as the Tories did to assess their candidates and get them known.
189. Exactly. I can’t recall having ever seen such a thing, or seen it mentioned anywhere else. You could put a lovely extension on your wine cellar with that idea.
OT, I wonder if we might get an ICM poll for the Sunday Telegraph tonight?
191. It’s fairly standard in hotel rooms. I can see some practical difficulties that might arise in domestic situations with more than one occupant, and some people like to leave lights on to deter intruders, but other people might like it.
171.
“Down here in the south of England, France, America and even Australia both get far more attention than Scotland.”
It is just a pity that none of those countries reciprocate, then isn’t it?
Well, I suppose that isn’t strictly true. Maybe they do reciprocate, but in a patronising way.
I remember reading a French magazine at Charles De Gaulle airport once, with a pretty graphic and lurid account of England under the heading “The failed state”.
189 what is the benefit of it tim? It seems merely a device for lazy people who leave lights on in rooms they are not using. Not to mention the H&S aspects of having a single light accessible by children whilst parents are cooking in the kitchen/using sharp knives etc etc
Not sure I understand the envirnmental benefits either - would people without this all in one switch leave lights on when they go out otherwise? Fitting it would presumable add to the carbon footprint more than any use thereafter.
O/T Following on from its headline a couple of days ago of “Toni the lonely”, the Daily Mirror follows up today with “Terrivederci”
Time to get your skates on Mr Roe!
Interesting article on the Situation in Southern Europe.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/jeremy-warner/7168631/Eurozone-pigs-are-leading-us-all-to-slaughter.html
194 - The amount of times I get home and find one of the kids has left a light on in a barely visited ,more remote wing of my house is unquantifiable.
A simple light switch by the front door would solve the problem in one go.
Even for those who live in houses where the number of bedrooms is easily remembered.
195 Fabio’s ‘Dear John’ caps Terryble day for England
193 - it wouldn’t appeal to me because of that reason. There are too many public building floodlight at night for my liking though. Do they ever turn the lights out in the HoC ?
171. PSJ, your petty schoolboy insults only show your insecurity. We know who we are and having funded you for many years, know the difference between reality and your ill judged comments.
Vaguely related to the conversaiotn on where we are all form in these islands, I spent a very enjoyable few ours yesterday browsing through the archive of English regional accents and dialects that you can find on the British Library online site. If you are interested in that kind of thing - and I am - it is incredible to hear the recordings made in the 50s and early 60s of people who had grown up in the Victorian era. The variety of accents and dialect words is extraordinary and for a southerner like me, many of the Northumbrian, Yorkshire and Cumbrian speakers may as well have been speaking Dutch for all I could understand of them. It was the same thing with some of the Cornish folk as well.
As I am now based in Warwickshire, I had alisten to all the recordings from there and even inside this relatively small county there were major differences in how people spoke, just 50 years ago. There was also a recording of the now virtually dead Middlesex accent. An a load of voices from Kent and Sussex which I guess are now pretty much gone as well.
Anyway, I don’t have the link handy but you can find it all at the British Library site and it is absolutely fantastic.
197 “one of the kids has left a light on in a barely visited ,more remote wing of my house is unquantifiable”
Barely visited remote wing of my house
tim is Anthony Steen and lives in Balmoral
Here is the accent archive:
http://sounds.bl.uk/BrowseCategory.aspx?category=Accents-and-dialects
An absolute treasure trove.
131: Richard Tyndall - the Committee on Standards and Privileges, while viewed by the public with scepticism, does work like this. I know several members fairly well: they decline to discuss any cases before the findings are published, are quite proud of judging cases on their merits, and say the whips respect the tradition of not interfering. The recent penalty imposed on Harry cohen was by the CSP, not Legg.
The problem is that the public have lost any fsiath they had in MPs doing self-regulation. I don’t think that’s recoverable any time soon.
197 So, an intergrated light control panel?
They already exist tim.
How do you know there is no-one in the remote wing of the house unless you go there? In which case you could turn the light off when you get there.
Look at the Poll changes on the last 3 elections.
http://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/the-swing-back-myth-icm-199720012005/
How do you know there is no-one in the remote wing of the house unless you go there
Its a funny thing you know but on leaving the house I normally check that I’ve got
a.Wife.
b.Daughter 1
c.Daughter 2
with me.
Leading to the conclusion that the rest of the house is empty.
199 Actually, now I think of it the lights we have on timer are just plugged in and I suppose we aren’t the only ones. You can’t really switch off the ring main at the main door if you use a freezer or burglar alarm.
207 then shouldn’t you turn the lights off when you leave?
I mean, you’ve gone to all that toruble to fit the single switch and you are coming home to find lights on??!
Very wasteful tim, very wasteful
The Tories simply cannot be trusted on such important issues as Climate Change. Their backbenchers are going to be an absoloute nightmare and I fear for the country.
207 Tim - don’t forget the laptop!
Oi, stop rubbishing tim’s idea. I’m trying to get him rich enough that he votes Tory out of sheer inertia.
211 - I never leave the laptop, can’t you tell.
Off topic, this guy makes Christina D look like a Dave-sceptic.
http://www.middlewichguardian.co.uk/news/4992604.Letter_to_Tory_leader__played_part_in_decision_to_scrap_Middlewich_charges_/
212 The Sun patented it in 1992 anyway - the ‘all-in-one’ switch is at Sun HQ, and was to be deployed if Kinnock won when the last person out left the country.
On topic.
http://www.johnredwoodsdiary.com/2010/02/06/im-even-greener-than-i-realised/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+JohnRedwoodsDiary+%28John+Redwood%27s+Diary%29
Seant was correct.
‘What we need is some commonsense in this debate, an acceptance that we want to become greener and cleaner, to recycle more and waste less, to generate power in a more efficient way and to lift our fuel efficiency at home, on the move and at work as rapidly as possible. We need to cut our dependence on imported fossil fuels as quickly as possible.’
215 if climste change is such a bug-bear, just retract the clean air act. The reduction is SO2 is responsible for much of the recent temperature rise - it was masking the rises since industrialisation in the C19. Trouble is, you’ll have smog and acid rain to deal with instead….
To be honest, I feel that even Climate Change sceptics should support motions to reduce CO2 emissions. Because even if we end up being wrong at least we will have set an example for generations to come showing that we made a decision, which was not to waste fossil fuels as if we have an unlimited supply of everything.
168. tim … what’s “green” about yellow school buses? At the moment buses are multipurpose and are used for lots of different purposes; we’d need twice as many if we had dedicated school buses. The USA has parking lots full of yellow buses that get used for 2 hours a day in term time and are idle the rest of the time. They moulder away because of the weather, hardly used. Where’s the green angle?
The question on this thread is a non starter for the 2 following reasons:
1. All the major parties are parties - what a pun! - to the climate change idea and it wont affect dave any more than the others.
2. The still dodgy recovery, and the fact that a double dip is looming, will focus minds economics and the daily doings of government.
My own take on climate is that whatever changes occur are natural events, and Man in his hubris has very small effect on these climatic variances.
Where Man has an effect it is purely local, i.e., rain forests, drinkable water tables and pollution of rivers and localities.
I do agree that we should all endeavour to make the world a cleaner and be lest wasteful of resources. Atomic energy should be put to use more, but windmills are a blight on the landscape and should be eradicated. Instead the sun can be harnessed, now more than ever, even in our northern climes.
Roll on the GE.
DH - Cameron has already said that if people are not motivated by the idea of AGW they should support reduction in use of fossil fuels to reduce pollution and increase energy security.
218 - Each one takes dozens of cars off the road plus many people only run two cars because of the school run. Regular buses aren’t flexible enough to pick up in the spots where the children actually live.
And they’re much safer.
We should use fossil fuels wisely and manage our consumption of them. This makes sense simply because there is a finite supply. This does NOT mean piling taxes on them and ‘banning flights to Spain’ etc.
It’s nothing to do with global warming - merely good sense. If by doing so then we lower our CO2 production, then that’s an extra benefit.
The ultimate question on AGW is simple: if mankind ceased all production of CO2 at midnight tonight, would it affect the world’s heating / cooling cycle, and if so how much?
Answer - we simply don’t know.
There is a difference between saying that the CRU and IPCC activities are useless and junk science - which increasingly appears to be the case - and saying that therefor global warming is crap too.
An increasing number of people accept that CRU and IPCC are scam artists, as the evidence gets ever more convincing.
AGW may be happening - it’s just that nobody has produced any untainted evidence to support it.
But the whole ‘climategate’ affair has dealt a body blow to the ‘big government and more taxes’ crowd.
http://mreugenides.blogspot.com/
There is a video of Jim Devine condemning himself out of his own mouth, but failling to see he did anything wrong, incredible.
173. Ted - yes you are quite correct. The ‘British angle’ in that early period of history is often missed. Until recently that was also the case in the study of the ‘English’ Civil War, which is now often referred to instead as ‘the Wars of the Three Kingdoms’.
221 - Tim, you a correct on the safety angle.
Each one takes dozens of cars off the road plus many people only run two cars because of the school run
No it doesn’t, and they don’t - many senior high school students drive their own cars to school. One car households in the US are rarer than hen’s teeth. I have not seen a house built in the last 40 years that only has a single garage. I don’t know a single family that has less than 2 cars. It’s pretty much a car per person over 17. We have 3. In the US, outside of city centres, if you go anywhere you go by car.
Obviously this may not apply if you live downtown in a major city such as New York.
If we start getting more boiling hot summers droughts, floods and hurricanes then people might believe in it.
If things stay more or less the same they won’t and we don’t have to do anything anyway.
Nothing has really turned up in the weather that is out of the ordinary, unless it does, people are right to be sceptical.
Most people assume that using buses and trains are better for the environment, I have never seen any scientific data to prove this.
It is only in the rush hour that they are busy the rest of the time they are running empty or with only a couple of people on them.
I have recently seen reports that they air pollution around the Oxford Street area in London is very bad due to too many buses.
227 - BS, in the US the railroads are mainly used for freight, (except in the BosNewWash corridor) and on the mpg per ton measure, they are quite good.
http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/can_a_freight_train_really_move_a.html
227
The amount of buses clogging up the roads of the City and West End is ridiculous. Most of them are empty.
I like the “cap-and-dividend” idea of auctioning off carbon permits and then dividing up the proceeds as an even split to the American people. I’d love to see the GOP try to demonise that…
229. They would be a lot more clogged if those buses were cancelled and cars flooded in instead.
It won’t give Dave a headache unless he very stupidly decides to become evangelical, a la Miliboy junior, about it.
Why dismiss sceptics when they can easily be part of the consensus?
As many above have said, talking about “lowering your home energy bills” is something which everyone can support. Talking about “promoting electric cars so we don’t need to rely on dodgy Saudis and Russians”.
Personally, I think Pachauri is an idiot, he should resign immediately, and that nevertheless, the vast bulk on climate science is valid - but why alienate people, by calling them flat earthers, deniers, and the like when you don’t need to?
231 Any thoughts on the US Mid Terms.
231
What nonsense. Go and have a look at the red wall of buses. Most are empty outside rush hour and clog up the roads in the area of london with the most tube lines, stations, rail and most expensive parking. Not to mention congestion charge.
You don’t get the bus into london to beat the traffic. It is the traffic.
I’m expecting a new ICM poll for the S. Telegraph. This usually comes out on the first weekend of the month. Last ICM: CON 40 LAB 29 LD 21
10 minutes ago from web
MIKE SMITHSON.
233. I think we’ll probably lose three Senate seats (Lincoln’s, Dorgan’s, Reid’s) and 20-25 losses in the House. However, there is a much bigger downside risk than upside risk for the Democrats, and there will likely be a massacre if they don’t get healthcare through. However, I think the Democrats have the potential to get a more energised base than many observers are predicting by running on a couple of populist measures and a much strong messaging push (although they still won’t have the energy of the GOP base).
‘why alienate people, by calling them flat earthers, deniers, and the like when you don’t need to?’
For the same reasons that the threat of AIDS was deliberately wildly exaggerated.
232 - the vast bulk of climate science is valid
That’s just the point, Wibbler, it isn’t. The whole database that the AGW premise is based on has been shown to be incomplete, contains figures that have been ‘adjusted’, temperature stations in many cases have been found to be outside the criteria (in cities etc) or in weird locations, and there are some odd inclusions and exclusions.
Add to that that the ‘gatekeepers’ of the data will not let it be peer reviewed or scrutinized, and the original datasets have been destroyed, and you have yourself one rather large piece of junk science.
This is NOT to say that AGW is not happening - merely that we have no untainted evidence of it. If the CRU and IPCC start practicing science in the traditional way - open up their data, data collection methods and models to peer review - then we might get somewhere and establish once and for all if AGW is happening or not.
238 Tim B
Oh, I agree scientists at the CRU and elsewhere (especially high up in the IPCC) have acted very badly.
They need to become scientists again, instead of preachers.
236 What States are those? Do you think the democrats have any chance of pick ups in Florida for Governor and Senate if the GOP goes into civil war between the Crist and anti Crist factions.
“but why alienate people, by calling them flat earthers, deniers, and the like when you don’t need to?”
Because the worst advocates for any cause are often its most passionate adherents.
Good advocacy involves persuading the uncommitted, and even opponents, that you’re right. It doesn’t involve shouting people down, or denouncing them as stupid and/or wicked.
241 see 172.
LIVINGSTON Labour MP Jim Devine was today at the centre of fresh controversy over his expenses after he appeared to admit he had claimed thousands of pounds for stationery and used it to pay staff.
http://news.scotsman.com/politics/MP-Jim-Devine–faces.6049778.jp
TimB
They need to become scientists again, instead of preachers.
They need to be charged, tried and if convicted jailed!
I think DC has gone quiet on AGW recently and I think that GO is definitely more sceptical and he will be the one presenting the budget.
AGW at the 2014 election will be as relevant as joining the Euro, CND and for/against the poll tax will be at this GE.
BBC CLIMATE CHANGE POLL – February 2010.
The nation’s scepticism on climate change has increased considerably since last November, lots of bumph for those incline - as to why, make of that what you will..!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/05_02_10climatechange.pdf
Did Devine’s lawyers tell him not to give interviews?
Hilariously, his lawyers had issued a statement in his name (and that of their other MP clients) saying they would not be giving an interview. Watching this video, I can quite understand their reasoning. I watched it picturing their faces as they viewed it and laughed even harder.
http://lastditch.typepad.com/lastditch/2010/02/i-had-no-inservice-training.html
236 - I suspect that POTUS should say very little about health care reform for a while: every time he does his ratings drop, as does Americans support for it.
He should stick to the jobs theme, which is also not going his way a present: he loudly trumpeted an unpopular stimulus bill which would prevent unemployment going over 8%, and after spending all that money it’s now at 10%. But he may well be able to rescue the jobs issue. At least most people here understand that governments don’t ‘create’ jobs. Selective tax cuts for businesses - which would get some Republican support - will help here.
He is losing independents rapidly, and has disappointed his activist base. I was amazed to see his exchange with Blanche Lincoln - he seems quite happy to sacrifice her and others to keep pushing his increasingly unpopular agenda.
He needs to do some populist things and get some token Republican support to shed his ultra-partisan image, and above all to be a LEADER.
Given his personal ratings he hasn’t much scope to use the bully pulpit, but at least do something
244. Also if Ed Miliband is the new Labour leader then he was the one losing the plot at the Dopenhagen summit
246 - to err is human:to forgive Devine
232. Wibbler
Talking about “promoting electric cars so we don’t need to rely on dodgy Saudis and Russians”.
‘Electric Cars’is probably the most disingeneuous of proposals out there in that it will require an extortionately expensive infrastructure to support it will put further drain on an already under pressure power supply. Basically in their zeal to rid this country of oil dependence the sponsors of this could well break the taxpayer, the consumer and the national grid and because oil will be required to generate the electricity do absolutely nothing to reduce the amount of oil required (in fact could it increase demand for oil?).
There are viable clean alternatives to oil supply in the pipeline. We should not be investing in the extortionately expensive white elephant of electric cars……..
Labour have selected Yvonne Fovargue in Makerfield (Ian McCartney retiring)
http://yvonnefovargue4makerfield.co.uk/
BETTING POST
————
I just spotted this…..
Bookies say Labour set to keep three Gwent seats
http://www.southwalesargus.co.uk/news/gwentnews/4992505.Bookies_say_Labour_set_to_keep_three_Gwent_seats/
And its comforting to know that Labour’s nepotism is still strong:
LEYTON/WANSTEAD: Dromey linked with another Labour safe seat
http://www.guardian-series.co.uk/news/4993075.LEYTON_WANSTEAD__Dromey_linked_with_another_Labour_safe_seat/
252 Those odds will change if Labour imposes AWS in Islwyn. Also Newport East will be in all probability be very close at the election.
254. Perhaps, I don’t have any knowledge. I posted because I thought it might be of interest to some of the gathered throng…..
255 It was of interest.
249 Is Crist finished in Florida now.
244 Flashy
Browsing the website of a Conservative PPC near me, I noticed his website makes no mention of Global Warming, it used to.
124 - The National Curriculum requires all pupils to study from the Norman Conquest to the Cold War (and most schools also look at one of the Egyptians, Romans or Anglo-Saxons). However, I agree GCSE is too Nazi based in many schools for those who study the subject beyond 14, A-Level is a bit broader.
New thread
Couple of articles one in the guardian one independent about tory wobble, now this could be true but strange how both came out after brown got a good kicking in PMQs on weds and labour came of worse in expenses !! Are the lefties getting worried cameron will carry one scoring points of brown at PMQs and are trying to cause a wobble where there isnt one ?
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/andrew-grice/andrew-grice-for-the-first-time-the-tories-are-worried-ndash-and-with-good-reason-1890902.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/feb/05/conservatives-david-cameron-economy
You’ve always had 99.999% of people who just go along with what they are told, knowing that they haven’t really got a clue about any of it and who just agree with those that they always agree with, whether they either pro or sceptic.
So, in the end, there’s no real change there apart from that people move around a bit, still clueless.
That a government is elected on how well they can lie about their lack of knowledge and understanding is one of the supreme ironies of the democratic system. It isn’t about truth, it’s about who you can make believe, in that sense politicians are nothing more than present day religious prophets, leading their tribes to a supposed promised land.
I wasn’t around to comment on the charges for corrupt MPs but, having been as forthright as I could be very early on as regards political corruption it still gives me no pleasure to be proved right.
“He is losing independents rapidly”
The real independents are only around 10% and there is a small percentage change there.
Look up the poll commentators explanations of why people are claiming to be independents (especially on the right).