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Sunday 26 February 2012

Del Boy And A Big Question

As some of us had known for a couple of days – don’t ask – Nicky Campbell’s The Big Questions today, which came from Cardiff, included James “saviour of Western civilisation” Delingpole among its guests. Yes, the same BBC that Del Boy routinely derides for not giving a voice to folks like him was, er, giving a voice to folks like him. And he was given a generous amount of airtime to spout his propaganda.

Del Boy sends George Monbiot to sleep

Things did not begin well, though, as Del asserted that the closure of the Murdoch Screws had been because of some kind of concerted campaign by the same BBC, which was in league with the deeply subversive Guardian. Brian Cathcart was on hand to deliver the slapdown, reminding Del Boy that the paper closed because of its own disgraceful behaviour and that the decision was made by its proprietors.

Sadly for those of pragmatic and reasoned disposition, this did not prove a mortal blow, and Delingpole came sneering back towards the end of the programme as the issue of climate change hove into view. In this, Del Boy was ably assisted by UKIP MEP John Bufton, whose website claims that in 1997 he wasSelected as a candidate UK Independence Party in the Westminster”. Deep joy!

Bufton is a fully paid-up member of the denialist tendency, and so he told that renewable energy was a scam, that scientists at the University of East Anglia had fiddled their figures (bodyswerving the enquiries that have since absolved all concerned of any wrongdoing), and that warming temperatures were part of a natural cycle, with human activity playing no part.

The thought that human appetite for mobility and movement of goods over the recent past might be playing a part was not allowed to enter. This softened the audience up – if only a little – for the return of Del Boy, who asserted that, as millions of refugees were not turning up on our doorsteps, climate change was not happening. He sneered again and rambled momentarily about Gaia worship.

Then he got his opening and ranted to some effect about the recent appearance of Richard Lindzen at a meeting at the Commons. Lindzen was hailed as one of the most wonderful scientists ever to walk the earth, though in fact he is a physicist who has held a contrarian view on climate change consistently for more than a decade and a half. This proves merely that he is of dissenting view.

But kudos to Del Boy for battling on and making his points, despite the programme airing on the hated BBC, which means that there was by definition some evil and malign leftist force that stopped him looking even more wonderful, and which he will reveal to the world as soon as he is able to fire off another suitably restrained missive to his bully pulpit at Telegraph blogs.

It won’t explain, though, why the audience wasn’t buying his product. As usual.

7 comments:

hengist mcstone said...

Lindzen also denies that smoking causes cancer, and testified on behalf of Big Tobacco at the US Senate

Anonymous said...

u do realise tht if u type del boy instead of dellingpole and henry cole instead of harry in your blog it does'nt effect their google rankings. u should of done this earlier!

Anonymous said...

Dick,

You missed the best two jokes in the program:
The good bishop claiming "the beacon beacons will be gone soon"
And Lembit Opik's "I have a scientific background, Antarctica is sinking!"

Tim Fenton said...

This post is about James Delingpole. Try to keep up.

Martin Lack said...

Fantastic stuff!

I was at the meeting in Westminster last Wednesday; and I do not recognise the description of Lindzen. His entire talk was an exercise in misdirection. I have sent Lindzen an 1800-word email asking for clarification and, despite being warned by him not to publish this, it went live on my 'Lack of Environment' blog today. But, since he cannot answer my questions without incriminating himself, he will undoubtedly just ignore me.

I do hope this programme is on iPlayer, i am so annoyed to have missed it.

Martin Lack said...

I have now watched the programme and the most glaring omission from the discussion on climate change was this:

If we carry on exploring for, exploiting, and burning all the Earth's fossil fuels we have no chance of avoiding genuinely catastrophic change. We must therefore invest and pursue all the renewable options we have (sun, wind, tides, energy from waste, etc). We must do this now; and we must decide to leave unconventional fossil fuels in the ground.

Anonymous said...

I can't make up my mind about Delingpole. Either the whole thing is an act, and he's really a Sasha Baron Cohen character, or he needs really serious psychiatric help.