The May 7th Election Dilemma

When it comes to elections I've always been a keen supporter of the 'none of the above' candidate. I have, at different stages of my political evolution, voted with a spoilt ballot paper, Green, Labour. That was a long time ago, and even then it was more of 'vote Labour with no illusions' idea that was predeominant on the far Left. Later, when I started thinking rather than knee-jerking, I stopped voting for a long time simply because there was nobody that was even close.

More recently I voted for UKIP, but again it was more of a 'vote UKIP with no illusions' thing that is common with people pissed off with the other three. And so this time round I've got the same dilemma. But now, thanks to a stream of election leaflets from the Lib Dems I've made up my mind to sling my vote at one of the big three. You see, I would be inclined to go for the UKIP protest vote again - but I can't say this with any great joy. There's more that I like in UKIP then the others, but there's also a lot I don't like. But I live in the constituency of a Lib Dem cabinet minister - and thanks to his party's electioneering I now know that the polling shows it's a straigh race between the Tory and the Lib Dem.

And therefore I am now poised to do something I never imagined muself doing - come May 7th I will vote Conservative. Not through any great love for David Cameron or even the personal qualities of the Tory candidate. Nope, it's a simple vote to punish the Lib Dems, who are a poisonous presence. This is about a vote against their statism, there climate change mania, their pro-Europe stance, the anti-science idiocies of their energy policies and more. So, this time it's going to be 'vote Conservative with no illusions' for me.

UK Politicians North of Hadrian's Wall

In a last bid attempt to get the Scots to vote yes, Alex Salmond has managed to persuade David Cameron, Nick Clegg, Ed Miliband and Gordon Brown to journey north of Hadrian's Wall. Hell, they even got Farage in a job lot. In a fantastic move for the Nationalists, the sight of the UK's 'leading' politicians has probably done more to convince people to dump Westminster than anything that the SNP could dream of. Not even the endorsement of the North Korean's could compare to Ed Miliband trying to convince a sceptical Scots public that he was a politician worth listening to.

If the vote turns out to be a No, then it will have more to do with fear of change than any love for our political classes. And let's not underestimate the effect that various business leaders have had here. The likes of Standard Life and RBS probably carry more weight than our small-minded politicians singing the praises for the Union.

Owen Paterson - Not Green Enough?

How Ed Davey and the rest of the Limp Dums, and environmentalists in general, must be pleased that the latest reshuffle sees Owen Paterson out as Environment Secretary. Having someone not sufficiently alarmist in the position was always too much for them to cope with. And he was known for being a Eurosceptic. A double whammy. No wonder he's out...

And of course the NUT and other teaching unions are probably deliriously joyful at Gove's departure from Education.

Cameron, Fracking and Climate Change

There are some who will rejoice in David Cameron's recent pronouncements on the joy of fracks. For those of us jealously looking at what has happened in the US, fracking has seemed like an absolute gift and have been desperately hoping that we in the UK would take advantage of shale gas and oil in the same way. For a long time we've watched the liberal establishment, including large chunks of the government, spreading lies and disinformation or else pandering to the green lobby. We've watched the manoeuvring in the EU as moves have been made to block the advance to market of shale gas. And, let's be honest, we're still a way off commercial exploitation of shale. But, that said, the fact remains that the recent announcement of additional incentives to local authorities to allow exploratory drilling is step in the right direction. The question is, however, is it the right thing to do? And, further, does this mean that David Cameron is no longer a green true-believer?

The reason for doubting the wisdom of the new incentives - allowing local authorities to keep 100% of business rates collected from shale gas schemes - is that it plays into the hands of those who portray fracking as dangerous, unhealthy, polluting, toxic and so on. If, as those of us who support fracking contend, it is safe, non-toxic and non-polluting, then why allow the extra incentives? If it's so positive, why the bribes? This is exactly what opponents will say and are saying. People will be told that they are being bribed, that they are selling out to the energy industry, that their acquiescence is being bought cheaply. Furthermore, opponents will claim that this is a subsidy and that it is yet another example of the fossil fuel industry being heavily subsidised. Yes, it's nonsense, but opponents of fossil fuels play fast and loose with things like definitions of subsidies. So, to those people and the green propagandists in the BBC and mainstream media, giving local authorities more revenues is a subsidy, but the feed-in tariffs and the panoply of schemes that hand over our money to wind and solar farms are not subsidies.

The bottom-line is that the incentives may actually back-fire in that they fuel suspicion and play into existing green narratives that seems all forms of fossil fuels - including the lower CO2 emitting shale gas - as inherently evil and to be attacked and stopped at all costs.

Now, to the question as to whether this change of heart on fracking signals that David Cameron is no longer a true believer. There are those on the left who have always assumed that Dave is really a cynical opportunist who has played the green card for political reasons alone. But the evidence doesn't stand much scrutiny. Dave may not have many principles, but he subscribes pretty much to the liberal line on most issues and particularly when it comes to environmentalism. Which is why he continues to make alarmist comments about climate change and will continue to do so no matter what the scientific evidence shows. He can justify his support for fracking because it reduces carbon emissions compared to burning coal, and because the US has shown that it can reduce overall emissions while delivering reliable power. In other words, for a pragmatic green politician fracking makes a lot of sense, and it's only the out and out fanatic like Caroline Lucas of the Green Party who cannot see that fracking makes sense even within the logic of anthropogenic global warming.

David Cameron - Prime Minister and Climatologist Speaks

Experts tell me that the recent weather we are having is completely consistent with climate change. Now I'm not a scientist, but people who know these things, the experts if you like, they tell me that weather is not climate. We all know this to be true, they're spelt differently for a start. But that technicality aside, we do know that our carbon emissions are causing warming somewhere in the world. That warming's probably jolly nice, but it's causing cold and wet elsewhere. You don't have to know anything about science to know that's true, and as someone who knows nothing about science, I can tell you from experience that it's true.

Let me elaborate a bit on this fact, because so many so-called climate change sceptics do not know this. The climate system is a bit like the economy. If I get richer, you must get poorer. If I get hotter, you must get colder. Which is why it's important that we continue to take your money in taxes and give it to people like me, who have the land to build wind and solar farms. So, please remember that if you're shivering and can't afford to have the heating on, it's because we've taken the money from you to sort out the problems your carbon emissions have caused somewhere else in the world, where's it's probably jolly hot and sticky.

The IPCC Has Delivered

The IPCC has delivered something of a crowd pleaser in its latest assessment. There really is something for everybody in this latest report. For the true believers we get the "95% confidence" that humans are the dominant driver of climate change. Forget the models diverging ever more from reality, forget the 15-17 years flat-lined temperature increase despite record CO2 levels, forget the lowered estimates of climate sensitivity to CO2. Just focus on that 95% figure and everything else pales into insignificance. There's little doubt that it's a crowd-pleaser and the true believers will take that number and batter the sceptics with it repeatedly.

For the political classes who pay for the IPCC gravy-train, this is just what they wanted. Here's the justification for the continued green policies and the subsidies for grandiose and futile schemes to reduce CO2 emissions and stop us boiling the oceans. For those in power in the Westsern countries, they've bought themselves permission to carry on as before with failed policies that we citizens are paying dearly for. Obama, Cameron and the rest will quote the IPCC ad infinitum and continue with the refrain that the evidence is incontrovertible and that it's worse than we thought.

And, let's be honest, the IPCC has done a great service to the sceptic cause too. There was a chance that it could have taken a more honourable course and admitted that it's models were wrong, that there was less cause for alarm, that we know less than we pretend to. It could have admitted that the 'science' is far less settled than it has previously claimed. But it hasn't. The IPCC is like a super-tanker set on a course and is unable to nimbly change direction in the face of the obstinate reality in its path. So it continues with statistically incoherent pronouncements and politically acceptable sound bites. For us sceptics this is confirmation that the IPCC is irredemable, and the voices that are being raised against it are growing more vociferous and increasing in number. Witness Judith Curry saying:

We need to put down the IPCC as soon as possible – not to protect the patient who seems to be thriving in its own little cocoon, but for the sake of the rest of us whom it is trying to infect with its disease.

For the moment though, the IPCC have bolstered the confidence of the diminishing band of true believers who are immune to evidence. For them, the 95% number, along with the fake 97% 'consensus' number from Cook and his band of crooks, is all they need to fight off the mounting evidence (much of it in peer-reviewed journals) that climate alarmism is not warranted. In fact it wouldn't suprise me if another 90+ number appeared soon. Having three 9s to quote will feel so much better than just two - as if that's enough to close off reality.

Syria - TFFT

As is usual the defeat of the government in last night's vote on "action" against Syria is widely being replayed as a personal defeat of David Cameron (and to a lesser extent Nick Clegg). It was, of course, but it's more than that. It's one of those rare moments when Parliament has acted as a parliament and has reflected on an issue and how the public feels about it, rather than ignoring us and voting the way they've been told to vote by the whips. It happens all to rarely so we should savour the reminder of what politics could be like if we had more direct control of our politicians. If that had been the case it is unlikely we would have invaded Iraq, or even Afghanistan come to that.

In the meantime, the senseless rush to be seen to be "doing something" for the sake of it can carry on across the water. Heaven forbid that Obama miss an opportunity to claim the moral high ground...

Lab-grown brains and Syria

On the day that scientists reveal that they've grown human brain tissue in the lab, we have our own leaders parading their lack of the stuff. How else do we explain this rush for yet another military intervention? What the hell are these people thinking - indeed, are they thinking?

Reaching for the missiles seems to have become a stock response. The siutation in Syria is appaling, but the complexity of the situation seems too much for our leaders to comprehend. Like all politicians their first response is always to be seen to be doing something. It doesn't matter what that something is, it just needs to be something that means they can't be accused of standing back and doing nothing. And, like it or  not, the simplest way of showing that they're doing something is to drop bombs on people. To make this palatable you need to have a simplistic narrative. You know, something like evil regime versus freedom-loving rebels, good versus bad. Forget the fact that the rebels include jihadists of the worst kind who hate the regime for being soft on religious minorities, women's rights and so on.

Do our leaders think that the these jihadists will show gratitude when the regime falls? Like hell they will. Recent history is littered with jihadists we have supported turning their weapons on us as soon as they get the chance. There are plenty of Syrian rebels who hate the West as much or more than they hate Assad and his clan. Those brain cells grown in the lab? They've got more memory than our brain dead leaders.

We don't know for sure what these chemical weapons were or who fired them. Both sides are capable of such an act, but the Syrian state had more to lose than the rebels in doing such a thing. In any case it seems that it's enough to give us the WMD moment when our sanctimonius leaders can play elder statesmen and bomb another country. And then conveniently look the other way when it helps to lead to the slaughter of Christians and other religious minorities, the institution of Sharia law and the inevitable blood bath as rebel groups fight it out for the spoils.

Lab grown brains? I'd vote for that rather than the brainless morons now in power.