Two days ago, the Guardian published a story (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/mar/24/ofcom-complaints-climate-change-denial-talktv-talk-radio) (“Ofcom to investigate complaints of climate change denial for first time since 2017 – Exclusive: UK regulator makes U-turn over TalkTV and TalkRadio complaints after claims it let some broadcasters ‘spout dangerous climate lies’”) about a letter from the Good Law Project on behalf of Stop Funding Heat, which has apparently induced Ofcom to re-open investigations into Talk TV and Talk Radio’s coverage of climate change issues. According to the Guardian: ““Rightwing channels have been allowed to spout dangerous climate lies, unchecked, for too long,” said a GLP spokesperson.”).

Stop Funding Heat and Stop Funding Hate seem to be linked organisations owned by Reliable Media whose website is rather opaque and short on information as to who they are. It is a company limited by guarantee, and its statutory filings at Companies House can be found here. It is certainly effective, and seems to have a disproportionately high profile for what appears to be a very small company. According to its most recent filed accounts (made up to 31^st July 2024) its current assets at that date were just £107,940, and it employed an average of just two people through the year (as it had the year before). The directors all seem to be well-meaning people, liberal types with whom I might be pleased to spend an evening down the pub. They are concerned about lies being spread about climate change. And I share their concern. Where I part company is that they seem to be concerned only about some lies. You never see organisations such as theirs (or the Good Law Project, which is acting on their behalf) calling out the never-ending propaganda in the Guardian, say, which may contain a sliver of truth and a lot of exaggeration. That, it appears is because regardless of the nature of the Guardian’s reporting, it is aimed at making us all very concerned about climate change. And as the Stop Funding, Heat website claims, “Now climate change is already harming people. And so are misleading media stories. Every month counts.” [their emphasis]. So inaccurate reporting by the Guardian will always be unchallenged by Reliable Media, Stop Funding Heat, and the Good Law Project, because they all endorse the Guardian’s agenda, and the Guardian can always be relied upon to produce an article about their activities and reports. It’s all delightfully and mutually reinforcing. What’s not to like?

The problem, as I see it, is who gets to decide what the truth is. There are often shades of grey. The scientific consensus can be wrong, and it has changed in the past regarding various topics. As Paul Homewood says in his piece about this story:

This is a chilling suppression of free speech. “Truth” is fine, but who decides what is true and what is not? OFCOM? The Government? BBC? UN?

It doesn’t end there, however. Church leaders are also getting in on the act. Another Guardian article today is headed “Church leaders criticise Christian owner of GB News over channel’s climate attacks – Exclusive: Paul Marshall also challenged over his own ‘misleading’ statements and £1.8bn of fossil fuel investments in his hedge fund”. It’s all starting to feel like a co-ordinated campaign to ensure that we can’t have a debate about climate change or about the policy response to it. I think the Church leaders might do well to contemplate Pastor Martin Niemöller’s words:

First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me

Am I over-dramatising? Perhaps, yes, at this stage. But for those of us who are sceptical about climate change, the extent to which it’s always portrayed as a crisis and unequivocally bad, and also about the policy response to it, where there must surely be room for intelligent and fair-minded debate, these attempts to close down the debate are deeply concerning. The letter itself can be read here. The letter starts by invoking the campaigns of William Wilberforce against the slave trade and Florence Nightingale to improve sanitary conditions and the care of patients. Calling for change over others’ attempts to defend the status quo, has often driven positive social change, they argue. True enough, but it doesn’t seem to occur to them that today in the UK the status quo is net zero and climate orthodoxy. Those of us challenging the damage caused by net zero to our economy and environment, its further impoverishing of the poorest in society – we are the ones for calling for change. Ed Miliband, the Guardian, Stop Funding Heat, the signatories of the letter, the Good Law Project, and all the rest of them, they are the defenders of the status quo. But they son’t see it that way. Instead we get this:

In 2026, British Christians are again calling for change – this time for an end to the fossil fuel era and a rapid scaling up of climate solutions such as renewable energy, which neither pollutes our air nor overheats our planet and is cheaper than fossil fuels.

Which is more than a little ironic, since renewable energy in the UK is adding to our bills and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Nor does it avoid pollution – far from it. And arguably we’re offshoring the UK’s emissions to countries like China, with the result that global emissions are rising, not falling, all thanks to UK’s net zero policies.

So the view of the truth contemplated by the authors of the letter is certainly not the same as mine. I may be wrong, but so might they be. But they can’t even contemplate that this might be so:

Grounding our advocacy is not a shared commitment to a political party or economic philosophy – in fact, we represent a range of political views and Christian traditions – but a shared commitment to the truth, which we believe finds its fullness in Jesus Christ.

Their letter, by the way, is addressed to Sir Paul Marshall, also a practising Christian (for the record, I’m not), and they have targeted him because of his “portfolio of media holdings (UnHerd, GB News, The Spectator)”. Alarmingly (to the authors of the letter, I suspect), these are “outlets which shape the thinking of millions of people and have a significant impact on our public discourse and politics.” Heaven forbid that people might have access to an alternative source of opinions other than the establishment-approved orthodoxy. This isn’t the Age of the Enlightenment, you know! What next? People being allowed to consider ideas for themselves, instead of having everything explained to them through an approved conduit. Who do you think you are? Martin Luther?

It’s good that you broadcast our views, they say, but not so good that you allow other opinions to be shared with the public:

While we applaud the decision by GB News to air the National Emergency Briefing – a series of talks from experts, delivered late last year from Methodist Central Hall, on the current and future impacts of the climate crisis – we also lament that, according to researchers, GB News platformed 953 attacks on climate science and climate action in the run-up to, and aftermath of, the 2024 general election.

That comment is footnoted by a reference to a report written by desmog (yes, that De Smog). As Desmog admits on its website:

DeSmog UK Ltd is predominantly funded by charitable and philanthropic trusts, including The Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, Polden Puckham Charitable Foundation, Climate Emergency Collaboration Group and The Minor Foundation.

As most organisations do, it has an agenda. The idea that the authors of the letter cite (on more than one occasion) via footnotes to back up their claims, the work of an activist organisation funded by other activist organisations, while stressing their unswerving commitment to the truth, is more than a little ironic. As is their attack on Sir Paul Marshall’s interests:

We are also concerned by reporting which indicates that, as of 2023, your hedge fund had £1.8 billion invested in fossil fuels. If you have personal financial interests in fossil fuels, we ask, in the spirit of transparency, that you declare these interests before making public statements about the climate crisis and what our collective response to it should be.

Irony knows no limits. The authors of the letter make no reference to the investments overseen by the Church Commissioners. Their endowment of more than £11 billion exceeds by some margin the amount of the hedge fund said to be invested in fossil fuels. Some at least of the Church Commissioner’s money is invested (one assumes to make more money) in renewable energy projects:

As of YE2024, our exposure to solutions-focused funds, direct real assets and publicly listed companies focused on environmental solutions added up to more than £920 million.

And this:

Agreements in place to explore lithium extraction in South Durham that could provide up to 20% of the UK’s future requirements.

There are plenty of investments in similar vein. Funny they don’t mention these interests in their letter. And they’re only interested in interests being declared if they’re interest in fossil fuels – interests in renewables aren’t worth mentioning, apparently:

Likewise, we would ask that GB News presenters and guests, as well as contributors to The Spectator or UnHerd, might also, in the spirit of transparency and in the interest of honest debate, declare any personal interests in fossil fuels up front (on air or in print/online) prior to engaging in any discussion related to climate, energy, the natural world or decarbonisation.

They genuinely seem to be completely unaware that their arguments cut both ways. In their eyes, there can only be one truth. It must be a bit tricky for them, then, to be in competition with another religion, which they also seem fervently to support.

What else?

We also note with dismay that, according to researchers [De Smog again], GB News presenters have made dozens of inaccurate or misleading statements about climate change alongside platforming a think-tank which has in the past been funded by the fossil fuel industry.

The horror! And what are the statements that have upset them so much? Well, there are these:

…your assertion that decarbonisation (‘net zero’) is ‘leading the way in wrecking our industrial base’, ‘impoverishing our people’ and ‘sacrificing our energy security’…

Those are all opinions that I hold, and I hold them in all sincerity. I believe they are backed up by facts, and that they represent the truth. Are the authors of the letter really claiming that such views not only have no place in polite society, they should be censored from the mainstream media? Perhaps so:

We are concerned that these statements are misleading. As many economists and experts have shown, decarbonisation is a huge growth opportunity which will save trillions of dollars in the long-term alongside improving our health and wellbeing and contributing to the UK’s national security.

But many economists and experts (e.g. Kathryn Porter, David Turver, Gordon Hughes, and to an extent at least, Sir Dieter Helm) profoundly disagree with the claims being made by the authors of the letter. But even if they didn’t, alternative views about a profoundly and critically important policy, impacting as id does indeed on the economy, on the health of the environment, and on national security, must be allowed to be heard.

These are dark days. Censorship is knocking at the door. It must be resisted, and true liberal values restored.