Having failed miserably to render the United Kingdom as a colony of the EU via her white flag surrender treaty, aka the Withdrawal Agreement, Theresa May is now seemingly intent on securing her poisonous, destructive legacy by alternative means.
According to the Financial Times, she intends to introduce legislation via a statutory instrument obliging Britain to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050, instead of the 80% reduction required by law in the Climate Change Act 2008. The recommendation, offered up by the lunatics at the Committee on Climate Change, will cost the UK at least £50 billion a year, 1 billion pounds a week. The ‘ambitious’ target would require heating to be almost entirely decarbonised, leaving households having to replace gas boilers with alternatives such as heat pumps, which cost “three times more”, significant changes to farming practices and a total ban on petrol and diesel cars by 2050, along with a tenfold increase in electric charging points. Homeowners would also need to spend thousands or tens of thousands of pounds on insulation. This is according to a letter sent to May by Phillip Hammond, the Chancellor. Hammond also advises that unless other countries follow suit, then “key industries” – such as the steel industry – would become economically uncompetitive or dependent on permanent government support.
But the Maybot Dancing Queen Brexit Terminator is apparently very keen to introduce the legislation:
Mrs May, whose tenure as prime minister will end next month, is hoping the carbon emissions legislation will be one of her most important legacies after she leaves office.
Liz Truss, chief secretary to the Treasury, recently urged Number 10 to hold off on the decision until a new prime minister is in place.
However, it is understood that Mrs May is set to introduce the legislation by June 11, according to Whitehall officials. This would require her to introduce a “statutory instrument”, a form of secondary legislation, to tweak the existing 2008 Climate Change Act.
Just when you thought Britain’s worst ever Prime Minister couldn’t get even worse and inflict even more damage upon the country she has pretended to lead for three years. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, the leadership front-runner, Boris Johnson, has apparently gone Green loco too by promising to do exactly the same thing if he becomes PM:
There’s no hope for the Tories. They have gone mad or they have collectively sold their souls to the Green Globalist Devil and no longer even pretend to govern in the national interest. They need to be consigned to history – fast.
Climate Scepticism 
How strange. Chersteron or Lewis or Orwell would find the dedicated wickedness an amazing source of story ideas.
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What, faster than Labour? Tories are selling their souls through intellectual laziness or supposed electoral interest. Labour really believes (because, as GK Chesterton nearly said: those who cease to believe In socialism will believe in anything.)
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But the Brexit Party has failed to win Peterborough. I got the alert from the BBC as I read this. The decarbonisation promises are mad. Hammond and Truss are right on that. Small mercies.
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Geoff: “because, as GK Chesterton nearly said: those who cease to believe in socialism will believe in anything”
Ha. But rather deeply true. Labour is in an even deeper mess as a result.
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Geoff, all of the main parties represent a danger to the country. However, the Conservatives are still the governing party and May is still PM and she has now apparently signaled that she will remain as PM through the summer recess in order to prevent her successor from taking us out of the EU on October 31st, with or without a deal. With the Brexit Party narrowly losing to Corbyn’s Labour at the Peterborough by-election, it’s not looking promising that a general election will restore sanity and a functioning democracy to this country. Meanwhile, we have a dictatorial, anti-democratic disloyal PM in place who seems absolutely determined to ruin the country by clinging to power, backed up by a cohort of Remain MPs and cabinet ministers in her own party.
“Opposition politicians had suspected that Parliament would be prorogued for the summer recess slightly early — possibly as soon as July 19th — so the winner of the Tory leadership in the week of July 22nd could take over and put together a new Cabinet without having to contend with immediate parliamentary action against them.
If Theresa May insisted on staying on as interim prime minister throughout the recess, which would likely last until September, and possibly until such time as her successor received some manner of seal of approval from the House of Commons, the capacity of a Leave-supporting Tory leader to ensure Brexit takes place on October 31st would be severely hampered.”
Utterly depressing. “A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within.”
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/06/06/interim-prime-minister-life-may-will-only-go-successor-confidence-mps/
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The UK is probably the only European country where people say they are “going to Europe” when they are leaving the country.
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You have to wonder how much the EU is paying Treason May, or promising to pay her, or whether they are blackmailing her. I have no other rational explanation for her treasonous behaviour.
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I really do think that people should open their eyes to the distinct possibility that a long term game plan is in play here. Heath (a Conservative) took us into the EU illegally in 1973 and lied about political integration, of which he was fully aware. Major signed us up to Maastricht without a popular vote, an act which arguably contravened the UK’s unwritten constitution. May has tortured and twisted that unwritten constitution to near breaking point in order to keep us tied to the EU, whilst she has absurdly laid claim to ‘delivering on the result of the EU referendum’. The political establishment (especially the Tories) never have had the intention of taking Britain out of the EU, and never will. Membership was a one way ticket to dissolution of national sovereignty. The October 31st ‘deadline’ will come and go, whoever is in charge. Eventually, Article 50 will be revoked or a rigged second referendum will happen where Britain will vote to Remain . . . . . . unless the political old order in this country is completely decimated.
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PHILLIP BRATBY
I can think of other reasons for May’s behaviour. Politics in Brussels is in the hands of the civil servants. Their civil servants talk to our civil servants, and they tell May what’s going on. Once we’re out, the negotiations begin as to our future relationship with the EU. These will be conducted to inflict the maximum pain to the UK, resulting in ructions in Northern Ireland and the independence of Scotland. The EU will make whatever “concessions” are necessary in order e.g. to ensure that the wings don’t fall off the Airbus, and that’s all.
The only way out I can see is to admit defeat and sign an unconditional surrender. There’s still a railway carriage handy for the purposes somewhere in France I believe. Could Farage retain his seat in the European Parliament while serving as British Prime Minister? That would be fun.
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Barnier – who master-minded the UK surrender treaty with help from Merkel – says that it is non-negotiable. He means it. He knows he means it because he knows our Parliament will never countenance walking away. The choice is very clear. We either abandon democracy in this country, cancel Brexit and proceed as originally planned along the lines of increasing political integration within the EU Project, or we opt to become an EU colony in perpetuity, or we Leave the EU and all its institutions and we trade on WTO terms, until the EU come knocking at our door, begging for a free trade agreement so they can continue to sell us their goods and services free of tariffs. Our current political masters would rather sacrifice the country than opt for leaving without a deal which, if truth be told, will be far more damaging to the EU economy and to the prospects of much closer EU political, economic and military integration in the remaining EU27 than it will be for Britain. That is where we’re at. You would think that we had fought and lost a war to Europe rather than having ‘benefited muchly’ from 46 years of EEC and then EU membership after having liberated that continent from the Nazis just 30 years prior to joining – with the significant help of the Allies. What do you know? Strange world.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/06/08/michel-barnier-warns-tory-leadership-hopefuls-eu-will-never/
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I think we should follow Bush Jr. and speak only of “Freedom Fries”. Those nasty green things should also only be known as “devil’s gonads”. And come October 31st, pizza should be spelt with a ‘t’ as nature intended.
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Anyway, not to worry, the real threat to Old Blighty is not the nasty bureaucrats in Brussels, but the climate, and Mother Theresa is going to save us all from bog standard, boringly average springs like the one we just had via the cunning Baldric-like plan of reducing the nation to an economic basket case by 2050. The sweltering climate changed summer scorcher that we were promised by the Daily Express a couple of weeks ago has already taken flight in anticipation of this brutal assault upon its Thermageddon molecules.
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UKIP used to have a sensible energy policy, but UKIP is dead and the new (Brexit Party) version has gone all mainstream and inclusive, so where is a sensible energy policy to come from? To adapt a well known phrase, ask not for whom the call is for, it calls for thee …
Here are my suggestions:
1. Don’t ban anything (a current plague we are enduring)
2. Facilitate research, but don’t mandate anything
3. Allow change to proceed at its natural pace, e.g. replace meters with “smart” versions only when an old one breaks.
4. In effect, stick two fingers up at the CCC and the rest of the Blob, but not explicitly.
5. Don’t worship the “free market”, there should be some Central Planning, followed by competition to select the supplier/operator. The Blob exploits free market worship when it suits.
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I expect May to become an EU Commissioner for something or other.
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Bees to the honeypot, dollars and power. Having failed the nation, rewarded by a seat at EU (UN) table with those other fifth columnist politicians of nation states.
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Robin G has a closely related guest post at Paul Homewood’s blog on the madness of the net zero by 2050 idea.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2019/06/07/unilateral-folly/
He points out that previously, it was understood by Blair and even uber-alarmist Nicholas Stern that such unilateral action would be pointless, a simple fact that seems beyond the comprehension of our current political leadership.
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Letter in The Telegraph today:
SIR – Philip Hammond is right to point out that a net zero emissions target for 2050 will cost more than £1 trillion, will seriously damage our economy and will make the NHS, police, welfare and other services unaffordable.
It will also be totally futile. While China continues to expand its 3.5 billion ton per annum coal industry and Japan, India, Germany and others plan hundreds of new coal-fired power stations, Britain’s efforts will count for nothing. Our primary aim should be to build up our wealth and to improve our resilience, so that whatever the future may bring we will be able to cope and to continue to help others.
David Watt
Brentwood, Essex
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The BBC has this as their headline news story today on the radio. But there seems to be no actual news in this article by Harrabin
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-48596775
It’s just regurgitation of old news in his usual incoherent one-sentence paragraph style.
Edit: Oh, and the ‘balanced’ BBC chose to interview Caroline Lucas and Ed Miliband about it. And they said that critics were saying that it wasn’t fast enough. No, you lying bastards, critics are saying (a) it’s all based on the lie of a ‘climate emergency’ (b) there is absolutely no way it’s achievable – they have no clue how to do it – billions or trillions will be wasted and the target won’t be reached (c) even if it was achievable it would achieve nothing globally as China and other countries build hundreds of new airports and coal-fired power stations.
(Trying to compete with Jaime in the ‘say what you really think’ stakes.)
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Bjorn Lomborg thinks the cost to the UK taxpayer could be as high as £12 trillion – to reduce global temperatures by 0.014C by 2100. The Maybot is going ahead anyway – she must have something else to show for 3 pointless years in office trying to destroy Brexit. An idiotic, pointless, monumental piece of economy-destroying virtue-signalling legislation regarding a non-problem is apparently what she has in mind.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/06/10/theresa-may-spend-1-trillion-pointless-policy-climate-madness/
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Don’t hold back Jaime, just say what’s on your mind.
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Best not Alan, I might offend! 🙂
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Jaime, examining what the current contenders for Tory leadership (many of which competed against each other for the same position last time around) are saying about each other, and their inability to concoct a different and potentially successful strategy over brexit, was May really that bad? Most early decisions (like the early emphasis on the Withdrawal Agreement) were in the hands of others who allowed d the EU to dictate. I have read several columnists recently who have written that she was dealt a poor hand from the outset and, given that, did the best she could.
Would you really back any of the current contenders? Or Labour? If ever there was a case for a new gunpowder plot😈
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Alan, I don’t trust a single one of them to take us out of the EU by October 31st. The whole lot of them are a joke – careerist politicians just saying whatever they think will increase their chances of getting to be PM by making the right people happy. The current miserable shower of hopefuls are no gauge by which to measure May’s appalling premiership. The creditometer fails to register in both cases.
Yes, May was that bad. She alone made the decision not to take us out of the EU without a deal on March 29th, as the current law dictated. She had three years to prepare for an exit with no agreement in place. It was not, ultimately, Parliament which prevented our exit from the EU on March 29th – it was her alone. She made that decision and she must live with it, even after saying that we could make a success of no deal/WTO. Instead, she tried three times to get an excremental surrender treaty passed by Parliament, lying to the public that it was ‘Brexit’, the last occasion being on the very day we should have left – and would have left if it were not for her stubborn refusal to allow that to happen. I wouldn’t even lend her a hankie to dry her crocodile tears. *Expletives deleted*
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Paul Homewood is also not impressed by May:
“While the whole of Parliament must stand accused here, the dreadful May must take her share of the blame. In an attempt to establish a legacy after three years of her disastrous premiership, she is instead signing the most expensive suicide note in history.
History will not look kindly on her.”
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Here is May’s statement:
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I feel ill. This woman is a curse upon Britain.
‘Faith leaders’? FFS!
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The public’s response to Treason May’s announcement:
https://twitter.com/The_LockeSmith/status/1138736164486209536
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There’s plenty more where that came from 99% of respondents on Twitter are extremely critical. Her dictatorial pledge to destroy the economy is not going down well with the British public. Mad BoJo, who has pledged the same, should take note. His first act as PM should be to reverse May’s ‘legacy’.
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Jaime I believe you are making my point for me (although you strenuously oppose what I’m trying to say). All of the current contenders for the post of Tory leader are rubbish, as were those competing to replace Cameron (and many are the same people). The Labour leadership are no better, and arguably would be worse. Given this, does May really stand out from the political swamp as being particularly bad? Would you really have trusted any of the rest? Leaving the EU has been the most contentious issue in more than a century, with the country roughly split down the middle, with many remainers unwilling to accept the result and leavers determined to ram the result down the country’s throat regardless of damage. May’s position was untenable from the start, especially with a Commons dominated by MPs who voted to remain and an electorate that was shifting ever more towards Leave. Her position and ability to force through Brexit legislation ebbed with the subsequent general election. I do wonder if, at that point, she should have pushed for a government of all the talents. After all, the decision to leave was not party political, perhaps the enactment of that decision should similarly have been cross-party? But that water under the bridge has flowed on.
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Just listened to the Caroline Lucas interview from the Today programme this morning, where she took exception to John Humphrys’ use of the word “sacrifice”, re the legislation.
“What’s sacrificing about having much cheaper public transport? What’s sacrificing about having every single home in Britain properly insulated so thousands of people aren’t dying from fuel poverty in the 21st century? What’s sacrifice about having better local quality food rather than shipping it from the other side of the world? So yes, I challenge that because I think that at the heart of this agenda is a transformation that is good for social justice and it’s good for the environment, too”.
No economy left, but at least we’ll have cheap bus fares and locally grown organic carrots. 😦
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Alan,
“Given this, does May really stand out from the political swamp as being particularly bad? Would you really have trusted any of the rest?”
We only have May’s Brexit premiership to guide us in the evaluation of how bad May has been. Nobody else got the chance to prove how badly they might have performed. On this single metric, May’s abject failure to take us out of the EU, her dithering, her lying, her ‘negotiation’ of a ‘deal’ so bad that Parliament rejected it three times, the first by an historic margin, her failure to resign after that historic defeat of key legislature, her stubbornness, her desperate attempt to get her surrender treaty passed by getting into bed with a neo Marxist and IRA supporter, her final deliberate obstruction of a no deal exit on March 29th after she had promised, 108 times that we would leave, deal or no deal and that no deal was better than a bad deal, is as damning a verdict on any British prime Minister as you will possibly find I believe. She was not just crap, she was ocean-going crap and it might take a while for any future leader to outdo her.
“Leaving the EU has been the most contentious issue in more than a century, with the country roughly split down the middle, with many remainers unwilling to accept the result and leavers determined to ram the result down the country’s throat regardless of damage.”
I’m afraid this rather betrays your probable position Alan. ‘Unwilling to accept the result’ of a democratically mandated and legally conducted national popular vote, the largest in our history, is a very generous way of describing the arrogant, condescending, insulting and downright juvenile behaviour of the losing side, beginning even before the vote took place and continuing ad nauseum thereafter. ‘Ramming the result down the country’s throat regardless of damage’ is not a fair or accurate description of the reaction of Leavers to the attempted and partially successful thwarting of the result of the referendum and the denial of democracy. The economic damage projected to be caused by our departure [aka Project Fear) has not been demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt and, as I have said many times, any short term damage caused by this government’s scandalous failure to prepare for WTO, must be weighed against the benefits of regaining economic independence and repatriating sovereignty, plus the likely downsides of remaining in the EU.
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Guido is on the case:
Not content with just banning porn and plastic straws, Theresa May has decided to add a £1 trillion – that’s £1,000,000,000,000 – economic black hole to her “legacy” with her new policy to make the UK ‘carbon neutral’ by 2050. Philip Hammond has already warned that the cost “is likely to be well in excess of a trillion pounds”. Blows the row over tax cuts into insignificance…
The problem is that no-one has any idea how much it is actually going to cost. The Climate Change Committee (CCC), chaired by scandal-ridden Lord Deben, has put out a figure of £50 billion every year. BEIS’ preliminary estimate puts the cost a full 40% higher at £70 billion per year – these are just back of the envelope calculations. The Treasury wants to do a formal review of the costs but this will take months, not days. The fact that an outgoing Prime Minister is trying to bind the country with a commitment this vast without even doing a proper costing first is the height of irresponsibility…
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“Worse, a huge proportion of the costs won’t fall on the Treasury itself but directly on ordinary people. The plan laid out by the CCC relies heavily on expensive changes in consumer behaviour. Energy bills will rise, drivers will be expected to switch to more expensive green cars. This is fine for people like John Gummer who’ve had their snouts in the trough for years. For a pensioner struggling to get through the winter or someone who depends on a van to run their small business, these changes will be very costly indeed…
Businesses will also bear a huge part of the cost – it will effectively spell the death knell for serious manufacturing in the UK. Businesses will simply move their factories, emissions – and jobs – overseas at an even greater rate. May’s Government has already done a great job helping to drive car manufacturing out of the country with their ban on new petrol cars from 2040. May’s latest genius idea should finish the job…
Whitehall insiders are laying the blame squarely at the door of May and her dour Business Secretary Greg Clark, who have been gripped with a desperate desire to rush through something to give them some semblance of a legacy in their last six weeks in office.”
How on earth can any serving prime minister be this bad? How is it even possible? Despite the absurd claims by Lucas that we’ll all have better public transport and proper insulation to stop us all dying from the cold winters which will happen only rarely in a world overheated by nasty Thermageddon molecules, the plain fact is that energy bills will continue to spiral and energy poverty will increase and the poor, the elderly and the ill will DIE in their homes because they cannot afford to heat those homes properly. You can have the best insulation in the world, but it is pointless if there is little internal heat being generated which that insulation will prevent from escaping. Old folk simply won’t turn on the heating. So besides stabbing the economy in the heart, May is effectively guilty of culpable homicide. Some effing legacy!
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Plonkers with no idea about economics or science are running the country into the ground, or at least trying to.
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Also from this morning’s Today programme:
Laurence Slade, CEO of Energy UK: “I think this is a really exciting announcement from the Prime Minister today, to commit us to net zero. We really now need urgently the policies to back it up…”
Roger Harrabin: “It’s really radical, John, historic I would say…”
Chris Skidmore, Acting Minister of State for Energy and Clean Growth: “… we want to show global leadership to other countries… What’s so important is that across all parties, we had 190 MPs signing up to say we should be legislating for net zero, Rachel Reeves had introduced her own bill on net zero, all political parties have signed up and most Tory leadership contenders also have signed up to making sure we commit to net zero by 2050… there’s a revolution taking place, there’ll be new technologies that we don’t even know about that will be coming to market and we need to embrace this for the future…”
Ed Miliband: “… it’s a really important moment…the science tells us we need to go to zero emissions… make sure we take petrol and diesel cars off the roads far earlier than 2040… this can create a better life for people… we’ve got to take on this challenge… a small price to pay to stop much, much bigger costs down the road facing future generations… this makes economic sense…”
In other news, turkeys up and down the country have welcomed the announcement today of Britain’s implementation of Christmas 2019: “… a really exciting announcement… radical… historic… good for social justice… global leadership… one giant step for turkey-kind… super idea…”
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Thank Christ. One glimmer of hope today. MPs rejected (just) Labour’s attempt to seize control and take ‘no deal’ off the table again, preventing a new PM from proroguing Parliament. What a time to be alive.
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Jaime, thank you for entertaining me greatly on this thread.
Alan K, I have some small sympathy with the point you’re making, but I would query your idea of a Government of All the Talents. Where is all the talent to come from?
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Mark, thanks, I’ll take that as genuine appreciation of my efforts to communicate my dismay at what is happening in this country as my primary aim is not to entertain and my usual ability to see the funny side escapes me!
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JAIME
Thanks from me too.
If it’s any consolation, they all are. How can an intelligent girl with a science degree like Angela Merkel ban nuclear power because of a tsunami in the Pacific? How can Macron’s government announce today that saving the planet is their first priority, and hence they’re going to ban little plastic stirrers?
It’s a great irony that in the countries where the Greens are progressing because of the utter uselessness of the Left, rightwing governments feel they have to head off the danger by making pointless green gestures. So it’ll be the right which will be blamed when it becomes clear how annoying, pointless, and often environmentally destructive their policies are.
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Jaime, you’ve taken my comment in the way it was intended. By and large I do agree with you.
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Mark, thanks again for the confirmation. I’m afraid I’m suffering from an extended bout of depression and sheer frustration induced by the demented, soul-destroying and nation-destroying actions of a growing assortment of ignorant zealots, unhinged lunatics, vested interest Greens and now failed, psychotic, vain, caretaker PMs in search of a lasting ‘legacy’.
Even the Telegraph is spouting Graun-like climate change nonsense now and I’m coming close to cancelling my subscription. The plummy mouthed, holier-than-thou sounding double-barrelled Ambrose Evans-Pritchard writes:
There were plausible reasons for climate scepticism in the early 2000s during the “hiatus” in surface temperatures – if you overlooked the oceans – but this has since been overwhelmed by the hottest years on record and an avalanche of science. Our knowledge is orders of magnitude greater than fifteen years ago. The weight of evidence points only in one direction.
Theresa May is the authentic Tory in this intra-party fight over climate policy. Her plea for zero emissions by 2050 – the first legally-binding target among major nations – was almost Burkean. She called it the “defining decision of this generation in fulfilling our responsibility to the next”.
Gods give me strength! What a steaming pile of fake newsy, Green-streaked, ill-informed, scientifically illiterate journalistic ordure this is.
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Nobody says exactly what’s on his mind quite like Dellers:
Stubborn, thick, petulant Theresa May has decided what her legacy is going to be: she’s going to poison the wells, salt the earth, and make damn sure that her name lives on through all eternity as the stroppy cow who cost the UK economy £1 trillion.
Not a bit of it. Theresa May has responded to the challenge as only the Worst Ever Prime Minister knows how: “You think the Climate Change Act was the most idiotic bit of legislation in British history? Hold my Chardonnay!”
“Hold my beer,” more like:
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Slightly OT, just a reflection on two items in yesterday’s news.
John Humphrys on the Today programme: “It’s more than 30 years since the world began to notice that the climate was changing. World leaders started holding summit meetings to discuss it. A new phrase entered the vocabulary: “climate change deniers” – but they’ve been seen off. The argument has been won by those who believe that unless we change our ways dramatically, the planet is at risk”.
A teenage climate activist on the BBC TV evening news: “2050 is far too late, unfortunately. We urgently need to actually take immediate action, rather than having this over the course of nearly 30 years.”
So “climate change deniers” have been “seen off”, meaning we aren’t allowed to hear any rational discussion of the science on broadcast media. But we do get to hear – loudly and often – the opinions of those in total denial of economic, cultural, social – and scientific – reality and common sense.
It’s a topsy-turvy world out there.
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Give the insane plenty of airtime and it makes the less insane seem normal by comparison. It’s the same strategy as insisting that the IPCC are conservative in their estimates when every step along the way involves adding a little extra salt.
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World leaders started holding summit meetings to discuss it. A new phrase entered the vocabulary: “climate change deniers” – but they’ve been seen off. The argument has been won by those who believe that unless we change our ways dramatically, the planet is at risk”.
The argument was never won. Climate fanatics realised they could not win it with science, logic and rationality, so they launched a propaganda war and they are now winning that war, having successfully infiltrated almost every academic institution, commandeered control of the media and brainwashed upcoming generations.
This is why it is so vital that Trump succeeds in his fightback against alarmism by re-energising the scientific debate by questioning key facets of global warming theory with his team of sceptical scientists. This will cut through the layers of propaganda, built one upon the other, which have convinced so many gullible people – Humphrys included – that the real argument has been won on scientific merit – on facts and evidence.
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On the brighter side, I don’t think any of our politicians will actually do anything towards this loony scheme. For example, take the man who is soon to be our Prime Minister. Here’s an example of his integrity and sincerity. As quoted in this post, he’s jumped on the bandwagon and declared his commitment to net zero by 2050. Yet it’s reported in the news today that despite having previous been strongly opposed to the new runway at Heathrow, he’s now dropped his opposition to it.
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Paul, first Doris, now Boris. If he gets in the only difference will be one letter. Both liars. Both two-faced. Say one thing, do the opposite. Boris won’t get us out of the EU by October 31st. He won’t leave without a deal. Like Doris, he’ll try to get the UK to sign up to the Withdrawal Agreement – by getting the EU to tweak the backstop and then claim that is an ‘orderly exit’ from the EU, where it is nothing of the sort. He will betray the country just like May. I don’t think air transport is included in the measures to get to net zero, so that will just mean the hammer will fall more heavily on industry and businesses and the general public.
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My instincts about this woman, even in 2017, were spot on. She is deceitful in the extreme, spiteful, vindictive, mendacious, calculating, treacherous – and never had the slightest intention of delivering on the result of the EU referendum, as is now obvious. She is absolutely determined to screw this country up, even when she is no longer PM, first by making damn sure we never escape from EU control and then by hobbling the economy with a pointless zero emissions target – plus whatever else she can dream up in the coming weeks.
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/06/16/report-theresa-may-vows-block-no-deal-brexit-aligning-tory-remainers/
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There’s an article in the Irish Times saying that to retrofit a typical house to include heat pumps, insulation, solar panels etc will cost E70,000 – 80,000. We have about 25 million houses in the UK so at a rough estimate that’s £2 trillion £2000000000000, twice Hammond’s estimate, just to re-fit houses, before you even start to think about where all the extra electricity that would be needed is going to come from.
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Well this is embarrassing for the BBC. The man they chose to use for the leadership debate last night to attack Boris over his “letterbox” comments, who asked “do the candidates agree that words have consequences” turns out to have some awkward words in his own history that have the consequence that he has now deleted his twitter account. The BBC’s Nicky Campbell who had the guy on his show this morning has apologised.
Guido had his post up by 12.33 last night, soon after the debate and several hours before Campbell’s BBC 5 Breakfast show.
See also in the Spectator, The questions the BBC must answer about Abdullah in Bristol
… and “Aman from London” worked for the Labour Party.
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Hang on, hold my beer one more time, the Maybot strikes again. Looks like her final contribution to her ‘lasting legacy’ will be the formation of the “Office For Tackling Injustices”. Something tells me that its first task will probably not involve looking at why Tommy Robinson was banged up for 9 months for contempt of court for ‘harrassing’ Muslim rape gang members turning up to court for sentencing. Let’s hope this is the last blood and vomit-filled strangled gasp of a catastrophically failed premiership in the moments before merciful death (with Abba’s ‘Dancing Queen’ playing in the background).
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She sure does like those Corniche Chips; been there twice in a single day!
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She just keeps adding to her ‘legacy’. It’s quite remarkable. Now we learn that it was her government who called in the police to investigate the Kim Darroch leak, the same police who then warned that the press could be prosecuted if they publish any more embarrassing leaks about how this government operates behind the scenes. Mrs May is now the dictator in charge of a government which seeks to gag the free press using the instruments of the state – but we knew that anyway, it’s just nice to have it transparently confirmed at the end of her atrocious failed premiership.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/07/13/theresa-mays-officials-fire-chilling-warning-press-following/
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Oh yes, let our free press do whatever damage it can to our country’s reputation and relationships by encouraging scumbags to release private sensitive information. You don’t really think that the Daily Mail or the leaker had this country’s best interests at heart did you? Or that the editor and proprietor didn’t know they were accepting secret, and therefore, stolen information? Yet because it happened under the twilight of May’s watch it’s all A-OK.
At least Hunt showed some spine, but wave press freedom across his sensitive membranes and he devolves into a jellyfish.
What has this country become?
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Not going to get into arguing about politics Alan, but our country’s international reputation was already in the gutter before publication of this ‘damaging’ leak and the only reputation damaged by this embarrassing revelation is that of this already culpably incompetent government, particularly the person who purports to ‘lead’ that government. The “private sensitive information” released by “scumbags” was clearly in the public interest, revealing as it did the risible unsuitability of our current US ambassador for the very cushy and well paid job he was paid to do. The May era can’t end soon enough.
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Jaime. Read my 9.49am again. It’s not about politics, it’s about the impact of the new timidity concerning the so-called freedom of the press. Where purveyors of stolen goods are now encouraged and recipients of those goods are allowed to prosper. Leaving politics aside, who has benefited, who has been damaged? And why?
Regardless of political affiliation and intent, all leakers of restricted documents are IMHO “scumbags”.
It is interesting to compare Trump’s response to that of Cameron who in 2010 when the Wikileaks revelations exposed American disparaging written opinions, essentially ignored them (at least in public). May, however, is having to deal with toddlerpolitik.
If you don’t wish to discuss politics, why write and publish a blatantly partisan post?
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A line from me in support of Alan’s view. At the risk of seeming to contradict myself, while passionately believing in the freedom of the press, I don’t believe the press should be free to publish, with immunity, information obtained by illegal means, and regardless of the consequences. (There may here be a breach of the Official Secrets Act).
At the very least, I think the press in a case such as the publication of the Darroch emails should be forced to justify the publication, from a public interest point of view. I’m struggling to see the public interest as outweighing the harm done in this case.
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Alan,
“If you don’t wish to discuss politics, why write and publish a blatantly partisan post?”
Please indicate how my post is blatantly partisan. Thanks.
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“I quoted you from THIS post, Jaime, and I’m still waiting on your response from over at Ken’s.”
Stop lying, stop trolling the wrong post and say something sensible, or I shall merely ignore you. Carry on posting off topic crap and I will just delete it.
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Whilst we wait for Alan to indicate why this post is blatantly partisan, noting that there appears to be some disagreement about whether the press were correct to publish the Darroch emails (I think they were), it seems that Neil Basu’s attempt to protect May’s failed government from embarrassment has backfired spectacularly and he has now been hung out to dry:
“Scotland Yard terror chief Neil Basu has been left isolated over the diplomatic leak inquiry as the London Mayor and a former Met Commissioner warned police against limiting what the press could publish.
Mr Basu, who is heading the inquiry, warned papers on Friday not to publish the leaked diplomatic cables from ambassador Sir Kim Darroch.
However, Sadiq Khan, who is responsible for policing in London, said the media “must not be told” what they could publish, while Sir Paul Stephenson, a former Metropolitan Police Commissioner and a mentor to Mr Basu when he was at the force, said the police must “step very carefully and warily.”
It is understood Mr Basu’s statement had not been seen or approved by his boss, Cressida Dick, the Met Commissioner. Ms Dick attended a passing out parade at Hendon police training college on Friday, a commitment that usually takes up most of the day.
Sources said that as an Assistant Commissioner and the country’s leading anti-terror officer, Mr Basu was senior enough to issue his own statements without needing to have them signed off.
Mr Basu issued a second clarifying statement on Saturday in which he said the Met had “no intention of seeking to prevent editors from publishing stories in the public interest in a liberal democracy.”
However, he also warned that the Met’s legal advice was that publication could “constitute a criminal offence and one that carries no public interest defence.”
Mr Basu previously locked horns with the press when he was the Police Commander in charge of the investigations of phone hacking at the News of the World and allegations of corruption at other newspapers.
Mr Khan told The Daily Telegraph: “Free speech is a vital cornerstone of our democracy. We are rightly the envy of the world. The media must not be told what they can and can’t publish.”
Sir Paul said: “I hold Neil Basu in the highest of regards. It’s clear that where there’s been a breach of the Official Secrets Act the leaker should be pursued vigorously and face the full force of the state.
“Clearly one needs to step very carefully and warily when considering those in receipt [of the documents] in the media. No-one would wish to undermine the freedom of the press and the important function and role the press plays.”
A former chief constable said the leaked material was not sufficiently sensitive to put newspapers in breach of the Official Secrets Act.
“To date nothing has been released that in any way affects national security. My only thought is that there is other material that has been leaked which is a threat to national security. However, even if there is, it is a decision for responsible newspapers to decide whether they should publish it.”
David Davis, the former Brexit secretary, called for Mr Basu to be pulled from an investigation into the leaking of cables.
Mr Davis wrote to the Times accusing Mr Basu of “straying beyond his brief” and called for commissioner Cressida Dick to put the investigation in the hands of “an officer who puts preservation of our free press ahead of protection of the state’s reputation”.
He wrote that prosecuting journalists for “embarrassing the state is not what we do in the UK”.
He added: “Furthermore, while I deplore the release of diplomatic telegrams, it is seriously debatable whether this is a criminal act.
“If so, why did the Foreign Office not engage the DA notice procedure on being notified of the leak, and prevent publication?”
Meanwhile, the chairman of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport committee Damian Collins urged the force to focus on the leaker, rather than the media publishing the leaks.
He told the Sun: “The Metropolitan Police should… make it clear that there is no legal risk for newspapers freely reporting on the leaked documents.
“Neil Basu’s statement was clearly a threat aimed at newspaper editors encouraging them not to report on a story, in which there is clear public interest.
“This was wrong. If an offence has been committed, it is by the leaker and the police investigation should focus on that.
The Mail on Sunday which published the original cables that led to the resignation of Sir Kim as ambassador to Washington released another in which he said Donald Trump abandoned the Iran nuclear deal as an act of “diplomatic vandalism” to spite his predecessor Barack Obama.
Former Home Secretary Amber Rudd, the work and pensions secretary, said the Press was justified to publish the cables, adding: “We have very precious freedom of press legislation here.”
Both Tory leadership contenders Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt have defended the right of the Press to publish leaks, warning of a “chilling” effect if publishing became a criminal matter.”
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“One Last Poisonous Swipe at the UK from a Departing Disloyal and Discredited PM”
Well I suppose these now published opinions about a politician could be a personal, vindictive attack upon someone who led the Conservative Party, rather than Politics. This would indeed make me wrong.
If I consider the basis for your use of the words “disloyal” and “discredited” am I not indulging in political judgements. But I am honouring your wish not to discuss politics.
I note that upon the substance of my posts – press “freedom” you merely offer an un-argued opinion that the disclosure of (presumably) stolen communications by the Daily Mail was in the public interest. You totally ignore the possibility that it was a political act that may have spectacularly misfired and the tinderbox ignited to this country’s detriment.
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Jaime. Might I make a plea to treat Corey more gently. Corey could be a replacement Len, a troll of inestimable value, a target for some, a source of amusement for others, but more than that a source of argument, responses to which inform and bolster the sceptical reader whether they be long-term or just passing through. Yes Corey may be contaminating this thread, but then Len contaminated everything, but breathed life into much of it.
Needless to say, I miss Len. And over at Bishop Hill, the near absence of Entropic Man, impoverishes it.
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Alan,
So, my post is not partisan, by your own admission. I make no secret of my intense dislike for the Maybot, as you will no doubt have noted. In three years, she has done immense damage to this country and my opinion remains that she has been disloyal to the nation and has not worked in its best interests. My hard evidence for her disloyalty is in black and white, written in the text of the Withdrawal Treaty which she tried to foist upon the country not once but THREE times and would have gone for a fourth if she hadn’t finally been stopped. I appear not to be alone in my low opinion of her:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1153235/brexit-news-theresa-may-david-cameron-no-deal-brexit-latest-express-poll
I don’t ignore the possibility that the leaking of the Darroch emails may have been a political act. In fact, it’s obviously quite likely that there was some element of political motivation behind it. How could there not be? It’s even possible that the government itself is behind the leak, knowing that it would damage US relations, thereby decreasing the likelihood of negotiating a favourable FTA with the Trump administration post Brexit, but I don’t think this is a likely explanation. Whatever the motive, the reaction it has caused was probably not anticipated.
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Alan, Raff/Len was sometimes worth arguing with. A little bird tells me that Corey is probably not the same person or even in the same class of troll that Len was.
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Jaime, you don’t do sarcasm do you? I admit nothing.
I assume you don’t know her personally, thus your opinions are based upon her political utterances and doings, ipso facto, political.
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Alan,
I wrote:
“Please indicate how my post is blatantly partisan. Thanks.”
You made the accusation that my post was blatantly partisan.
Your response to my request was:
“Well I suppose these now published opinions about a politician could be a personal, vindictive attack upon someone who led the Conservative Party, rather than Politics. This would indeed make me wrong.”
I personally intensely dislike May, because she is a liar, because she has deliberately deceived the public and because she is, in my considered opinion, a traitor to the UK. If you want to call that being vindictive, that’s up to you, but there is nothing in the content of my post which suggests my composition is blatantly partisan, despite your accusation. Your inability to back up your accusation with any examples which would prove my post is blatantly partisan, combined with your vague reply above is a tacit admission from you that there is nothing blatantly partisan about my post.
If you don’t want to get into these silly arguments, please don’t start them, or if you do start them, please don’t expect me not to robustly defend what I have said in the light of false allegations. I said I didn’t want to argue about politics and I thought you might take that as the hint that I didn’t want to get into silly arguments about ‘politics’ and about opinions of political figures. But you didn’t. You insist that my objections to May are ‘political’ because her ‘doings’ known to me are political. Maybe so: if you can construe objections to lies, deception and treachery of an entire nation – and latterly virtue-signaling vanity in pursuit of a ‘legacy’ – as political. I think of it more as a moral stance. But whatever, it still does not make my objections to her behaviour ‘blatantly partisan’. No more so than your tacit defence of her behaviour is ‘blatantly partisan’.
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Jaime, You continue to demonstrate your blatant prejudice against Theresa May and her politics with everything you write, but then deny being so biased. Very, very strange, but it’s getting rather boring and getting us nowhere.
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No Alan, quite the opposite, I am very upfront about how I personally despise that woman and have clearly explained the reasons why, which I do not think constitutes prejudice. You however, defend her, but in a much less obvious manner, and have provided us with very little clue as to your motivation in that respect. So what’s strange? My transparent dislike backed up by reasons for that dislike or your obfuscatory defence of a PM who is deeply unpopular?
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I must say Corey, your posts are without merit, unlike some of those of Len.
Jaime (+ other moderators) Cliscep has an enviable record of moderating with the lightest of touches and only very occasionally removing posts. Corey is deliberately provoking. Might I suggest an alternative method of dealing with such provocations. Set up a new thread, titled something like “troll dump” into which all such provocations can be transferred. With an annotation in the original thread, the intent of the troll is thwarted and Cliscep’s reputation maintained.
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I don’t run from arguments Corey. Well done, you found a comment underneath this post about which I had forgotten. It would have been helpful had you pointed that out in response to my first reply, but you chose not to, insisting that it was on the POST, forgetting to mention that it was in a comment beneath the post which i made a month ago. By not doing so, you scored a very minor victory and I admit to being wrong. *claps hands*
If you call me trash again, I will just erase you from this thread, you nasty little man/woman.
So let’s get down to business, shall we, though I still think it would be more appropriate to discuss on the Trump post. But tell me, what “overwhelming facts and evidence” is Trump denying. Give us a few example of these overwhelming facts and evidence so we can explore them further.
You want to continue the conversation about the jet stream started at ATTP. Fine. I’m not going back there, so you bring the argument here and point out the literature which ‘proves’ that the jet stream has been significantly affected by Arctic warming and we’ll start from there.
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Jaime. Pray inform me of where I might have defended May. That would have been totally out of character and an error of the first order, indicating my dotage has arrived.
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Good suggestion Alan. We’ll see how Corey responds to my comment above. We can argue here and sometimes disagree vehemently, but not end up gratuitously insulting one another or deliberately being provocative. That appears to be Corey’s main tactic. Let’s see if he/she has the firepower to back up his/her advance mouthy assault.
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Alan, I did say your ‘tacit’ defence of May. You have not directly stood up for her, but the sum of your arguments against my criticism of her appears to suggest strongly that you believe she’s not as bad as I portray, maybe even due some credit.
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Ignore my last post Jaime, it’s of much lesser importance than dealing effectively with “Coreytroll”. Concentrate upon that..
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As per your suggestion Alan, I’ve set up a new post. Take it away Corey.
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Well Jaime you’ve called Coreytroll’s bluff and with luck you may not hear from it again.
My suggestion was, however, for a permanent “dump” into which obvious, and in this case obnoxious posts could be dumped, thus clearing legitimate threads of rubbish posts, but retaining them so that all can understand what moderators sometimes have to endure, or to ‘ave a good larf’.
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Ah yes, that might be a better idea. Still, we’ll see if Coreytroll can put his money where his vile mouth is.
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Corey. My own response to your ill-informed and quite frankly offensive is over at Jaime’s new post.
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The mentally ill Coreytroll has been put in moderation because he/she keeps posting insane comments, like one a minute. I hope he/she gets some treatment for his/her serious mental affliction. It looks bad. I’ve kept all the comments for posterity. Might be useful to show to the shrink.
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Jaime,
I wish I had a chance to see the offal laden posts!
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Hunter,
The nutter is still dropping comments into moderation. God knows how many he’s shat out now. A lot of them really offensive. I gave up reading quite some time ago. Never come across a real live totally unhinged Gremlin troll before. It’s not like I even fed him after midnight!
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Maybe Corey is a Russian bot……
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The urban dictionary defines a Corey as
“A Corey is the type of person who can always make you laugh but yet make you wonder why you’re even laughing. Coreys are males who are amazingly smart and attractive but not cocky about it. Corey is a guy you can just stand near and be insanely happy because you’re close to him. Coreys are also great friends and lovers 🙂 Coreys know no limits …
I’m speechless.
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Corey is a regular commenter at ATTP who came over here to cause maximum disruption and, it seems, to attack me personally. I’m annoyed that I didn’t recognise him for the demented troll that he is. Me setting up his own personal post was a dream come true for him and he got very upset when I trashed it, along with all his comments.
“Steven Mosher says:
July 16, 2019 at 11:17 pm
in the humanities some poor guys end up doing dissertations on shitty forgetable writers.
it would be interesting , 50 years from now, to do a volume on shitty skeptics doing science..
who is the best of the worst, and worst of the worst.
Corey says:
July 16, 2019 at 11:30 pm
(I’d nominate someone at CliDeny, but my very own thread was pulled…
Clearly, Jaime was trying to protect me from myself.)”
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I think I might have to start claiming royalties from the Telegraph at this rate:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/07/16/dying-embers-premiership-theresa-may-still-best-dent-cause-traditional/
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Poor Steve, pondering which skeptics in 50 years will be analyzed for doing shitty science when there is such a rich field of climate consensus believers doing truly meaningful shitty science.
It is interesting how Steve always has a hate-on for skeptics but nary a murmur about the believers.
That he would prefer to associate with the Corey’s without criticism is nearly puzzling as to why a certain HRH Prince of Wales latest foray into climate belief is not a topic of comment.
https://www.climatedepot.com/2019/07/16/prince-charles-at-it-again-issues-yet-another-climate-tipping-point-deadline-after-previous-100-month-deadline-expires/
I am sure Steve and Corey and ATTP can find a way to blame climate change for turning a Prince into an imbecile.
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The world turns, as they say. Merkel’s comments to Boris Johnson confirm without doubt that the Irish backstop was never, as May and the EU insisted, an insurance policy which hopefully would not have to be implemented, it was a mechanism intended to permanently annex UK sovereign territory. The DUP’s response is quite stunning:
“The comments from the German Chancellor to the Prime Minister that Northern Ireland must remain in the EU Customs Union forever now reveal the real objective of Dublin and the European Union.
For the United Kingdom to be asked to leave a part of its sovereign territory in a foreign organisation of which the UK would no longer be a part and over which we would have no say whatsoever is beyond crazy. No UK Government could ever concede such a surrender.
The EU is not interested in a negotiated outcome at this time. Their position is the UK can only leave with a deal if it agrees a binding piece of international law permanently tying either the whole country or a part of it to the EU’s legal order over which it has no control.
The true purpose of the “backstop” is now in the open for all to see. Those who eagerly supported the backstop as the best of both worlds can now see the error of that assessment. It was neither temporary nor an insurance policy.
It appears that Martin Selmayr’s remarks about Northern Ireland being the price of Brexit is still the EU negotiating stance.
The Prime Minister’s proposals have flushed out Dublin’s real intentions to trap Northern Ireland in the EU Customs Union forever, where Dublin rather than the United Kingdom’s elected representatives would be in the driving seat.
We will not accept any such ultimatum or outcome.”
May tried to ram the Withdrawal Agreement, of which the backstop was an integral part, three times through Parliament, and would have tried a fourth if she had not been kicked out, even conspiring with the opposition to try and find a way to get it voted through.
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As I’ve recently mentioned at Bishop Hill, I’m currently reading “The Great Deception” (“The Secret History of the European Union”) by Christopher Booker and Richard North. I believe others have mentioned it recently on this website, but it’s purely a coincidence that more than one of us is reading it at the same time.
Anyway, I’m not yet half-way through, but have read enough to be appalled. It should be compulsory reading, and then maybe the scales might drop from a few remainer eyes. At the minimum, for those who might read it and still want to stay in the EU, it would be on the basis of understanding what the project is – AND ALWAYS HAS BEEN – about, rather than based on half-truths and wishful thinking.
Stay in, by all means, on an informed basis, but not on the basis of the mendacity that has perpetrated the project since before the UK joined the EEC.
What would be amusing, were it not so annoying, is the undemocratic way we joined, without the Tory Government responsible having included a firm commitment to join the EU in its 1970 election manifesto. Precious little Parliamentary time was devoted to something which had the most massive constitutional implications this country has witnessed for centuries; no recourse was had to the Courts by anyone disgruntled by it; Parliament was supine in giving away its powers; and when we did have a referendum in 1975 (following a failed treaty re-negotiation – sound familiar?) the yes (stay) camp spent 14 times as much on its campaign as the no (leave) camp managed to raise and spend. UK citizens received 2 official leaflets urging them to vote to stay, but only one urging them to vote to leave.
They tried similar tricks 3 years ago and expected the same result. IMO it’s the fact that their usual rigging of the system has failed, that has left the establishment in shocked melt-down.
It’s clear to me that the establishment has always been pro-EEC/EU, and has not, for the last half-century at least, batted for Britain in its dealings with that organisation. And still they conspire against their country.
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100% agree with all of that Mark. The Great Deception was a key milestone in the UK seeing the light.
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Alas, as I predicted 3 days ago, the EU looks very likely to use the Benn Act and the Courts to delay Brexit for a long enough period, making it a condition of the extension that the MPs vote to legislate for a second referendum, which will of course be rigged. Johnson has said he will not fight the next election on a no deal mandate, even though we are supposed to be out of the EU when the election takes place. If so, he has failed the British people and broken his promise to Leave on October 31st, deal or no deal. It’s intensely depressing, but I think the possibility of the UK ever being free of this evil prison empire is looking vanishingly small now. I hope I’m wrong and I hope Cummings pulls a rabbit out of his 4-D chess hat, but I’m guessing not. The whole thing makes me feel quite ill frankly.
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Jaime: Hope deferred makes the heart grow sick. Said long ago and true today with the EU – and indeed with climate, after the hopes raised by Climategate almost ten years ago. What the next section of my slow-moving post was about. I don’t have answers but I do have more residual hope with Cummings in the mix. We will have to wait and see.
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