Time was, my heart was in my mouth every time a British woman was forced to play two or more shots in a game, waiting for the inevitable unforced error. Find a winner, finish the point off quickly, I said mentally. Katie Boulter has broken the mould. First at Eastbourne and now gloriously on Centre Court she has succeeded in out-rallying foreign players. Harmony Tan, who harried the great Serena Williams to defeat, will be a tough opponent, but I look forward to an exciting match.
Thursday, 30 June 2022
Wednesday, 29 June 2022
The Scots are owed a further referendum ...
. . . but they should still vote "no".
One suspects that the reason for Nicola Sturgeon's declaration today has as much to do with keeping the SNP in power in Holyrood and protecting her MPs as a genuine belief in the viability of an independent Scotland. However, the ground has shifted since the first independence referendum of 2014. That was conducted on the basis that the UK would remain in the EU. Indeed, a major argument - something that English unionists conveniently forget in the current debate - was that Scotland would be excluded from the EU if she became independent. The legal advice from EU bodies was that an independent Scotland would not be allowed to "inherit" membership but would have to apply to join. Spain for one, wary of encouraging splits from her own provinces, gave a clear indication that she would veto Scottish membership. Scotland clearly benefited more than England from EU membership and recognised the fact, as was shown in the later Brexit referendum, so it is a fair assumption that the danger of EU exclusion swung the 2014 vote against independence. For a long time, opinion soundings had shown that the decision was on a knife-edge, before the EU issue gained prominence.
Scottish voters were not to know that Tory machinations were already under way to achieve Brexit. So a second referendum where the ground rules are known is surely just. However, unless there is a clear indication from the EU that a Scottish application would be welcome, I suggest that Scots had better work with the devil that they know instead of the deep blue sea that they do not. The Scottish economy is in deficit and even if it could once rely on oil production to support it - which was debatable even at the time that independence was first mooted - it cannot now. The UK as a whole, member of the G7, is trusted to borrow at prevailing rates. Scotland almost certainly will not. EU contributor nations like France and Germany will not be happy to accept another debtor nation and one can expect Spain's resistance to continue.
Monday, 27 June 2022
Heart-warming news from Iraq
It does not compensate for the continuing break-downs in utility supply or the sporadic religion-inspired terror attacks, but at least the street scene in Iraq is becoming brighter and more inspirational. The mayor has clearly taken the hint from the unofficial graffiti relieving the concrete structures in the capital city by commissioning art works from Wijdan al-Majed, a 49-year-old artist and instructor at the Baghdad College of Fine Arts. She has taken inspiration not only from local heroes but also such influencers as Max Weber, the German sociologist. But you do not need to know who all the subjects of the murals are in order to enjoy the vibrant colours.
Sunday, 26 June 2022
International anti-drug abuse day
Repressive measures, which the current UK government is wedded to, have been ineffective. The time has surely come to follow the lead of more progressive nations.
Saturday, 25 June 2022
Kent Tory MP's role in denial of global warming
In February, Craig Mackinlay*, the MP for South Thanet, as chair of the Net Zero Scrutiny Group (NZSG) hired Harry Wilkinson, who is head of policy at the anonymously funded Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF). Wilkinson has said “the ‘climate crisis’ is a religious belief, nothing to do with science”. He was previously employed by GWPF founder and former chancellor Lord Nigel Lawson, who recently said climate change was “not a problem”.
Official rules, which give aides a 28-day window to register, mean Wilkinson has yet to be declared on the House of Commons register, despite having a parliamentary pass.
Wilkinson joins existing Mackinlay aide Ruth Lea, a trustee of the organisation until last year who has said people should “move on” from worrying about “climate change” and serves as an adviser to a bank run by a former Conservative Party treasurer. (Lea admits that global warming is occurring, but maintains that it is part of a natural cycle and nothing to do with human activity.)
Two other members of the NZSG, including former Brexit minister Steve Baker, also have connections to the GWPF.
The revelations, reported by the pressure group DeSmog, should deal “a fatal blow” to the credibility of the Net Zero Scrutiny Group, according to Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the London School of Economics’ Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, who warned that MPs should be wary of “regurgitating [GWPF] propaganda” and instead start thinking “rigorously” about the climate.
The NZSG, formed by Mackinlay and fellow Tory MP Steve Baker last year to oppose the UK’s net zero measures, finally revealed its 19 supporters last month in a letter to the Sunday Telegraph, which called for cuts to green taxes and increased fossil fuel production.
Mackinlay has previously said the NZSG is using research in its campaigns that is sourced from the GWPF, which was founded with the purpose of combating “extremely damaging and harmful policies” designed to tackle climate change.
Steve Baker, the MP for Wycombe, joined the GWPF as a trustee last May and Lord Peter Lilley, another NZSG member, is a former trustee of the charity. Both attended its annual lecture at the end of November, where US scientist Professor Steve Koonin questioned the scientific consensus around the climate crisis.
The GWPF’s main source of income is through donations, but it does not disclose its funding sources. However, a handful of donors have been revealed over the years, including Michael Hintze, a hedge-fund manager and major Tory donor; Neil Record, chairman of the free-market Institute of Economic Affairs; and Lord Nigel Vinson, co-founder of the Centre for Policy Studies think tank.
‘Gesture Politics’
The NZSG claims to accept climate science and Mackinlay recently said he is “not a climate-change denier”. But his two taxpayer-funded aides have both regularly challenged mainstream climate science.
Wilkinson has previously criticised BBC coverage of climate change as “alarmist”. He stated in 2018 that the idea “global warming can be somehow ‘irreversible’ is pure propaganda; the climate has always been changing and it always will”. Wilkinson has also said that a temperature rise of more than two degrees is “not inherently dangerous”.
Wilkinson is regularly invited to speak about climate policy in right-leaning media, including on television and radio channel GB News and talkRADIO. In the past year he has tweeted that “the ‘climate crisis’ is a religious belief, nothing to do with science” and that anyone who believes all forms of extreme weather are getting worse because of climate change is a “climate change denier”.
He was one of at least 11 climate science deniers who attended the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, during which he falsely claimed the conference was being powered by diesel generators, a move environmental experts described as “desperate”.
A spokesperson for the parliamentary commissioner for standards confirmed to DeSmog that Wilkinson had joined Mackinlay’s team in January, though he is not listed in the most recent official register. As parliamentary staff have 28 days to register, Wilkinson will likely feature in the next entry in early March.
Parliamentary records show Wilkinson worked simultaneously as a research assistant to Lord Lawson and as a researcher at the Global Warming Policy Foundation from November 2015 until last June, when Lawson went on leave.
In October 2019 he was promoted to head of policy at GWPF, and is now also head of policy at the newly-launched Net Zero Watch (NZW), run by the campaign wing of the GWPF, the Global Warming Policy Forum.
Shortly after DeSmog approached him for comment, Wilkinson tweeted that he was “pleased to be able to take a position in Craig Mackinlay’s office” and confirmed he would continue working at Net Zero Watch while in the role.
He added that it was an “enormous privilege to work with Lord Lawson, who continues to be an inspiration and has achieved so much in public life”.
Bob Ward said the revelation of Wilkinson’s new post “explains why Mr Mackinlay, Mr Baker and their fellow campaigners against net zero have been parroting the media releases from the lobbying arm of the Global Warming Policy Foundation.
“It should deal a fatal blow to the credibility of the so-called Net Zero Scrutiny Group, which now appears to be just the Parliamentary office of the Foundation,” he told DeSmog.
Doug Parr, policy director at Greenpeace UK, added: “That an organisation so consistently wrong on matters of global significance is now right at the heart of Parliament shows how wrong their supporters are too. Any right-thinking politician who wants not to be wrong should avoid them. And those who don’t, are saying a lot about themselves and their interest in evidence.”
‘Move On’
Wilkinson is joining political economist Ruth Lea on Mackinlay’s team. Lea has worked for the South Thanet MP since at least February 2017, according to available records.
The former civil servant and vocal Brexit supporter was a trustee of the Global Warming Policy Foundation from 2019-21. In 2019, Lea wrote a GWPF pamphlet called “Carbon Futility”, in which she called the UK’s net zero target “futile gesture politics” and said the Paris Agreement was “doomed to failure”. She also took aim at UN climate science body the IPCC, describing its “forecasting record” as “poor” and accusing it of “overestimating the degree of global warming”.
In response to a 2020 Met Office report which found that 2019 was the 12th warmest year since 1884, Lea tweeted: “Oh yes, and temperatures fluctuate. Time the climate alarmists cooled down”.
She also dismissed the need for the 2021 COP26 climate summit, telling her Twitter followers to “move on” from “climate change”. In June, she described a Climate Change Committee report warning that the UK was unprepared for climate chaos as “ludicrous scaremongering”.
Lea currently sits on the advisory council of the TaxPayers’ alliance, a group that has frequently opposed government measures to combat climate change and is based at the same Westminster address on Tufton Street as the GWPF.
Lea has served as an economic adviser to Arbuthnot Banking Group since 2007. The private bank’s chair and former CEO Henry Angest is a major donor to the Conservative Party, where he has previously served as treasurer. Angest, a strong supporter of Brexit, has donated to both the Freedom Association, which has promoted climate science denial, and the TaxPayers’ Alliance.
Asked by DeSmog to comment on her links to the Foundation, Lea said: “I have been associated with the GWPF and fully support its aims”. She added that she was “not a climate change denier”.
Lack of Transparency
Wilkinson’s appointment also highlights the need for greater transparency about the GWPF and parliamentary access more generally, said Tom Brake, director of campaign group Unlock Democracy and former Liberal Democrat MP for Carshalton and Wallington.
“Parliament and the public are entitled to full disclosure about people who have access to Parliament,” Brake told DeSmog.
“Mr Wilkinson is head of policy at the Global Warming Policy Foundation. This foundation is known for its forthright views on climate change and its less than forthright explanations about who funds it. If Mr Wilkinson is going to be pushing their line in parliament, we should know who is behind the GWPF.”
Brake also called for greater transparency in parliament through linking registration and the issuing of a pass. “A simple solution would be to register an individual and issue their pass simultaneously. That way, there will be no time lag between the two – and immediate transparency.”
Official rules, which give aides a 28-day window to register, mean Wilkinson has yet to be declared on the House of Commons register, despite having a parliamentary pass.
Wilkinson joins existing Mackinlay aide Ruth Lea, a trustee of the organisation until last year who has said people should “move on” from worrying about “climate change” and serves as an adviser to a bank run by a former Conservative Party treasurer. (Lea admits that global warming is occurring, but maintains that it is part of a natural cycle and nothing to do with human activity.)
Two other members of the NZSG, including former Brexit minister Steve Baker, also have connections to the GWPF.
The revelations, reported by the pressure group DeSmog, should deal “a fatal blow” to the credibility of the Net Zero Scrutiny Group, according to Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the London School of Economics’ Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, who warned that MPs should be wary of “regurgitating [GWPF] propaganda” and instead start thinking “rigorously” about the climate.
The NZSG, formed by Mackinlay and fellow Tory MP Steve Baker last year to oppose the UK’s net zero measures, finally revealed its 19 supporters last month in a letter to the Sunday Telegraph, which called for cuts to green taxes and increased fossil fuel production.
Mackinlay has previously said the NZSG is using research in its campaigns that is sourced from the GWPF, which was founded with the purpose of combating “extremely damaging and harmful policies” designed to tackle climate change.
Steve Baker, the MP for Wycombe, joined the GWPF as a trustee last May and Lord Peter Lilley, another NZSG member, is a former trustee of the charity. Both attended its annual lecture at the end of November, where US scientist Professor Steve Koonin questioned the scientific consensus around the climate crisis.
The GWPF’s main source of income is through donations, but it does not disclose its funding sources. However, a handful of donors have been revealed over the years, including Michael Hintze, a hedge-fund manager and major Tory donor; Neil Record, chairman of the free-market Institute of Economic Affairs; and Lord Nigel Vinson, co-founder of the Centre for Policy Studies think tank.
‘Gesture Politics’
The NZSG claims to accept climate science and Mackinlay recently said he is “not a climate-change denier”. But his two taxpayer-funded aides have both regularly challenged mainstream climate science.
Wilkinson has previously criticised BBC coverage of climate change as “alarmist”. He stated in 2018 that the idea “global warming can be somehow ‘irreversible’ is pure propaganda; the climate has always been changing and it always will”. Wilkinson has also said that a temperature rise of more than two degrees is “not inherently dangerous”.
Wilkinson is regularly invited to speak about climate policy in right-leaning media, including on television and radio channel GB News and talkRADIO. In the past year he has tweeted that “the ‘climate crisis’ is a religious belief, nothing to do with science” and that anyone who believes all forms of extreme weather are getting worse because of climate change is a “climate change denier”.
He was one of at least 11 climate science deniers who attended the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, during which he falsely claimed the conference was being powered by diesel generators, a move environmental experts described as “desperate”.
A spokesperson for the parliamentary commissioner for standards confirmed to DeSmog that Wilkinson had joined Mackinlay’s team in January, though he is not listed in the most recent official register. As parliamentary staff have 28 days to register, Wilkinson will likely feature in the next entry in early March.
Parliamentary records show Wilkinson worked simultaneously as a research assistant to Lord Lawson and as a researcher at the Global Warming Policy Foundation from November 2015 until last June, when Lawson went on leave.
In October 2019 he was promoted to head of policy at GWPF, and is now also head of policy at the newly-launched Net Zero Watch (NZW), run by the campaign wing of the GWPF, the Global Warming Policy Forum.
Shortly after DeSmog approached him for comment, Wilkinson tweeted that he was “pleased to be able to take a position in Craig Mackinlay’s office” and confirmed he would continue working at Net Zero Watch while in the role.
He added that it was an “enormous privilege to work with Lord Lawson, who continues to be an inspiration and has achieved so much in public life”.
Bob Ward said the revelation of Wilkinson’s new post “explains why Mr Mackinlay, Mr Baker and their fellow campaigners against net zero have been parroting the media releases from the lobbying arm of the Global Warming Policy Foundation.
“It should deal a fatal blow to the credibility of the so-called Net Zero Scrutiny Group, which now appears to be just the Parliamentary office of the Foundation,” he told DeSmog.
Doug Parr, policy director at Greenpeace UK, added: “That an organisation so consistently wrong on matters of global significance is now right at the heart of Parliament shows how wrong their supporters are too. Any right-thinking politician who wants not to be wrong should avoid them. And those who don’t, are saying a lot about themselves and their interest in evidence.”
‘Move On’
Wilkinson is joining political economist Ruth Lea on Mackinlay’s team. Lea has worked for the South Thanet MP since at least February 2017, according to available records.
The former civil servant and vocal Brexit supporter was a trustee of the Global Warming Policy Foundation from 2019-21. In 2019, Lea wrote a GWPF pamphlet called “Carbon Futility”, in which she called the UK’s net zero target “futile gesture politics” and said the Paris Agreement was “doomed to failure”. She also took aim at UN climate science body the IPCC, describing its “forecasting record” as “poor” and accusing it of “overestimating the degree of global warming”.
In response to a 2020 Met Office report which found that 2019 was the 12th warmest year since 1884, Lea tweeted: “Oh yes, and temperatures fluctuate. Time the climate alarmists cooled down”.
She also dismissed the need for the 2021 COP26 climate summit, telling her Twitter followers to “move on” from “climate change”. In June, she described a Climate Change Committee report warning that the UK was unprepared for climate chaos as “ludicrous scaremongering”.
Lea currently sits on the advisory council of the TaxPayers’ alliance, a group that has frequently opposed government measures to combat climate change and is based at the same Westminster address on Tufton Street as the GWPF.
Lea has served as an economic adviser to Arbuthnot Banking Group since 2007. The private bank’s chair and former CEO Henry Angest is a major donor to the Conservative Party, where he has previously served as treasurer. Angest, a strong supporter of Brexit, has donated to both the Freedom Association, which has promoted climate science denial, and the TaxPayers’ Alliance.
Asked by DeSmog to comment on her links to the Foundation, Lea said: “I have been associated with the GWPF and fully support its aims”. She added that she was “not a climate change denier”.
Lack of Transparency
Wilkinson’s appointment also highlights the need for greater transparency about the GWPF and parliamentary access more generally, said Tom Brake, director of campaign group Unlock Democracy and former Liberal Democrat MP for Carshalton and Wallington.
“Parliament and the public are entitled to full disclosure about people who have access to Parliament,” Brake told DeSmog.
“Mr Wilkinson is head of policy at the Global Warming Policy Foundation. This foundation is known for its forthright views on climate change and its less than forthright explanations about who funds it. If Mr Wilkinson is going to be pushing their line in parliament, we should know who is behind the GWPF.”
Brake also called for greater transparency in parliament through linking registration and the issuing of a pass. “A simple solution would be to register an individual and issue their pass simultaneously. That way, there will be no time lag between the two – and immediate transparency.”
* (The Tory MP had benefited from the notorious Conservative party RoadTrip campaign in 2015, which saw his agent, a Conservative apparatchik, convicted of overspending their expense allowance.)
Friday, 24 June 2022
Tiverton and Honiton: those Tory excuses
The scale of yesterday's by-election win needs emphasising. These are the detailed figures, as reported by Devon Live:
KEY EVENT
How Tiverton and Honiton voted - results in full
Full results of Tiverton and Honiton by-election.
Liberal Democrat gain from Conservatives.
Richard Foord (LD) 22,537 (52.91%, +38.14%)
Helen Hurford (C) 16,393 (38.49%, -21.72%)
Liz Pole (Lab) 1,562 (3.67%, -15.88%)
Gill Westcott (Green) 1,064 (2.50%, -1.34%)
Andy Foan (Reform) 481 (1.13%)
Ben Walker (UKIP) 241 (0.57%, -1.06%)
Jordan Donoghue-Morgan (Heritage) 167 (0.39%)
Frankie Rufolo (FB) 146 (0.34%)
LD maj 6,144 (14.43%)
29.93% swing C to LD
Electorate 81,661; Turnout 42,591 (52.16%, -19.71%)
2019: C maj 24,239 (40.66%) – Turnout 59,613 (71.86%)
Parish (C) 35,893 (60.21%); Pole (Lab) 11,654 (19.55%); Timperley (LD) 8,807 (14.77%); Reed (Green) 2,291 (3.84%); Dennis (UKIP) 968 (1.62%)
"This is just mid-term blues"
The scale of the reversal is extraordinary, far beyond the normal swing against an incumbent government. Moreover, the size of the turnout suggests that the Lib Dems win was achieved not just by Conservative voters staying at home, but by many actively switching their vote."The Lib Dems have a fantastic by-election machine which will not be there for a general election"
True, but we know from workers on the ground that the Tories also threw all their resources into this campaign, knowing how significant this particular contest was. They will be unable to replicate this at a general election either, especially as funding will dwindle. Tories will be seen as losers, and business does not like to back losers. Their Russian oligarch chums may stay loyal, of course, but will their grubby money be sufficient?Perhaps this particular constituency may revert to Conservative hands at a general election. But look where it is situated. The south-west of England is a traditional Liberal stronghold. The Conservative gains in 2015 on the back of a dubious disinformation campaign from 2010 onwards will, on the evidence of the Tiverton and Honiton reversal, be seen as an anomaly and a whole slew of Cornish and Devon seats will come back to the Liberal Democrat fold.
(Labour can expect a complementary swing back in the "Red Wall" seats, of which Wakefield was one. The Tories won these on a specious promise to stop immigration. It is clear that traditional working-class voters have looked at the post-2019 evidence that nothing has changed in that respect and are returning to the fold.)
"In 1991 we lost two by-elections on the same day but went on to win the 1992 general election"
But it took a change of leader from the divisive Margaret Thatcher to the apparently affable and trustworthy John Major to achieve this. Is the Nasty Party of today ready to make a similar shift? Is there an untainted leader in waiting?On a slightly mischievous note . . .
The election of a male Lib Dem breaks the trend of recent by-election successes and helps to redress the gender balance in the parliamentary party. Ed Davey, Alistair Carmichael, Tim Farron and Jamie Stone need feel less laagered by the sisterhood.
And, of course, "just for a bit of fun" as Peter Snow would say, I just had to feed the Tiverton and Honiton percentages into an electoral forecasting engine. On this basis, at a general election Lib Dems with 406 seats would have no trouble forming a government with the Conservatives on 222 forming the opposition and the rest practically nowhere. One can dream!
Thursday, 23 June 2022
Afghanistan, the unhappy country
It says a lot about our conservative, nationalistic BBC news division that the lead item on Breakfast this morning, and one that dominated the rest of the bulletin was the rail strike in England and Wales. The thousand and more people who died in the earthquake which struck the provinces of Paktika and Khost in Afghanistan yesterday were felt to be of no concern to a domestic audience.
Wednesday, 22 June 2022
The Tennant canal
Since my last post on this subject, the situation has got worse. The Save The Tennant Canal blog reports that "[the canal was after 2008] supplied by a River Weir which partially collapsed in February 2015. On June 29, 2018, the Port Tennant Canal company and NRW [Natural Resources Wales] installed water pumps to restore some supply from River Neath to the Tennant canal at Aberdulais after hot weather and low flow conditions. But since early July 2021, the pumps have been switched off and all machinery removed from the site. This unforgivable move cuts the Tennant canal’s main source of water."
Neath Port Talbot council has until now failed to realise the benefits to tourism and to property values of a healthy viable canal system, never mind the ecological and leisure benefits to residents. The hope is that the new coalition running the county borough has a wider vision than the previous blinkered administration, but it will no doubt bolster their support if people convey their feelings to their local councillor and MP.
The blog quoted above also contains useful links to organisations which have the canal's future at heart.
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