The Real Deniers

Bishop Hill has highlighted this extraordinary, extraordinarily complacent and utterly dishonest press conference by someone who I believe is one of the most corrupt individuals on the face of the earth.


I recognise that Bishop Hill's blog is a serious, wonderful, scholarly front line against the industrial level scam that is climate change. But mine isn't. I'm a private blogger who just has his view, and little else.

In this case my view is pretty simple: you can't engage in a serious debate about anything with people who are palpably as dishonest (and that's proved) as Pachauri. That he's still part of the IPCC network is bad enough; that he's still its leader tells you all you need to know about the depth of the corruption associated with that institution.

But it goes further than that. I see this as an emergent behaviour of a political class. We see every day the same kind of casual, habitual, insulting assaults on the rationality of ordinary people by this Labour government. We hear, for instance, the laughable lie that Labour will increase spending this year, at the same time as liars like Mandelson are simultaneously announcing massive public spending cuts this year. We hear, as well, that this disastrous government has wasted untold billions of notional future money trying to curtail housing repossessions. And yet, though the previous Tory government spent nothing (because they wisely knew that such an effort would be futile) to that aim, this government has managed to waste billions and still has seen more people lose their houses than in 1995, the low point of the last recession that was soon followed by extraordinary, and sustainable, sound growth - until the excellent Clarke was replaced by the moron Brown, that is.

The reasoning is hilarious, as well. On the one hand you have a Labour housing minister suggesting that a family losing its home is a 'good thing' (but which shouldn't have happened with the billions spent, should it?) - and in that displaying a level of high-handed, out-of-touch complacent incompetence Ken Clarke never could have been (and never has been, even by Brown) accused of. And on the other, you have this extraordinary, angels-on-a-pinhead, nonsensical Labour counterfactual - "If we hadn't spent all your money - and your children's money - then it would have been twice as bad as it was in 1995." Oh yeah? Who says!

With the former, minor housing minister dumbness, you can put that down to the old "don't really give a shit" factor. But with the latter - with the Brown/Mandelson mixed, though equally dumb, messages, you are faced with a level of economic, political and basic dishonesty that will delay any recovery in this nation almost as long as a continuing Labour government would. Two things: first, spending all that money has achieved nothing on the issue of repossessions, and second, all that meaningless expenditure has guaranteed a double-dip recession - with all the further attendant pain for mortgage-holders and savers alike.

Brown caused this recession and Brown's utter incompetence and dishonesty is prolonging it. On inheriting Ken Clarke's golden legacy he was heard to comment, as well everyone knows:" You want me to write a fucking thank-you note?"

Like Pachauri, another Labour creation, his lies have finally caught up with him, but he's still in total denial about it (again, like Pachauri).

Tell you what, where Brown failed to send Clarke a thank-you note for leaving him with a Golden Legacy (achieved by hard work, honesty and wisdom), when Brown is finally ejected from the office he never earned, Clarke should send him a note of his own - and it should be polite. Something like: "thank God you're out of all our lives. Thanks for the double dip recession (you moron). Don't expect a peerage."

I think Ken Clarke would be pretty justified in sending a note almost identical to that one, but with a little more swearing.

Clarke-Mandelson

It's not exactly Frost-Nixon (not least because Jon "Red" Snow is involved, letting Mandelbum basically do whatever he likes), but it is compelling, and it is a complete victory for the most effective, honest and no-nonsense post-war Chancellor of the Exchequer this country has ever had. That'd be Ken Clarke.
Part 1:

Part 2:


Smart people and people who remember will understand why Clarke won that confrontation hands down. Everyone else won't be certain. They won't know, for example, that Mandelson is one of the most dishonest men ever to have held - been fired from (because of that dishonesty) - held again - and been fired from again (again, because of his habitual dishonesty) - a cabinet post. But nonetheless, despite his desperate record of deceit, he now holds the second highest office in this land - to which he has never been elected. I'm astounded Ken Clarke gave him an audience.

Mandelson is the epitome of (New) Labour - but is, sadly, proof that Labour, even after its monumental lies, failures and inadequacies, are nonetheless still dangerous. Mandelson - and Labour - will stop at nothing to stay in charge of a country that no longer wants them, and an economy that desperately needs them gone.

Ken Clarke is a man that demands - commands - your support. And, regardless of his strange, undying European fetish, he still totally deserves it.

Ken Clarke's Price

Decent speech from the seasoned campaigner and half-decent former chancellor. I still don't trust him, though, and with good reason. Do you?

I just wonder what his price is for loyalty. It must be high and European.

To me, you see, loyalty has no price, so (forgive the minor straw man) I just don't trust him. I don't think Cameron does either, so he will be a problem.

If only Clarke would grow the hell up - about everything. Or defect to the French.

The report in the Telegraph is good, you see:

Clarke said: “The burden of red tape and quangos is a millstone around Britain’s neck, stifling our economic recovery and playing havoc with our public services too.

“We need the right kind of regulation, based on giving people the responsibility to make judgements not forcing them to tick boxes and fill in endless forms.

“Under a Labour Government the regulatory burden has got out of control – costing more than £77 billion at the last count.

“It’s high time the Government got off people’s backs and started helping them instead. These new policies are the biggest and most serious attempt to lighten the load and I hope they're the spark that lights the bonfire of red tape."

The proposals include plans for a “star chamber” committee to ensure all new regulations are balanced by cuts to old laws on a "one in, one out" basis, a “sunset clause” for all regulatory quangos, forcing them to justify their existence after a period of time, and inviting the public to nominate unpopular rules for review and possible scrapping.

But most of that red tape comes from effing Brussels, Ken! Where's your head at, mate? Where's your head at.