Guido Blowing In The Wind

There can be no surer sign of the next target of those out there on the right than when the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog home in on it, in the process talking well, but lying badly, if only by omission. So it is that wind power - renewable energy - came under attack yesterday, on the flimsiest of pretexts.

Demonstrating their ability to cut and paste, the Fawkes massive took as their sermon an article in the Murdoch Sun which claimed “Monster £20million wind turbine knocked over by 50mph gusts as Storm Dudley sweeps in”. A wind turbine at the Pant-Y-Wal wind farm near Bridgend had collapsed during the assault of Storm Dudley.

This enabled The Great Guido to lay into wind power and promote something rather more environmentally damaging. “£20 Million UK Wind Turbine Knocked Over By Wind” they proclaimed, adding for good measure “As the UK battles an energy crisis, renewables are once again letting us down. Last night a £20 million wind turbine was felled in South Wales by Storm Dudley’s 50 mile per hour winds. You had one job …”.

Leaving aside that the winds may have been considerably in excess of 50mph, the Fawkes mob had a solution. “Fracking remains the one method of energy sourcing the government believes to be unfeasible”. Because it is unfeasible. But good to know that The Great Guido has signalled he is signed up to the assault on Net Zero.

The piece appears to have been read by the singularly unsavoury Andrew Pierce of the Daily Mail, who duly attempted to muddy the renewable waters. “A £2 million wind turbine was felled in South Wales by ... 50 mph winds. Why didn't we invest more in tidal power, bearing in mind we are an island”. What if he’s got a pointed stick?

What the gofers chez Fawkes, and Pierce, managed to miss is that since last Saturday, wind power has been routinely satisfying between 30% and 45% of UK grid electricity demand. Moreover, as one response to Pierce points out, “How many turbines are there? A: over 11,000 … How many fell down? A: 1 … So they are 99.999% reliable, you're telling us”. Also, high sided vehicles fall over in the wind, but we’re not banning them.

Meanwhile, news reached the Fawkes massive that copying and pasting the Sun claim that the offending wind turbine cost £20 million might have not been their finest hour, and mindful of the inconvenient fact that, as they claim to be journalists (ho ho ho) they should do a little research occasionally, someone discovered that the actual cost of a 2.5MW wind turbine was more in the region of £2 million. Monty Python Buying A Bed strikes again!

The problem is that not only does the post’s URL clearly show the number 20, but that Zelo Street took a screen shot just to be on the safe side. At least this time the Fawkes rabble have owned up: “A previous version of this article reported the wind turbine cost £20 million. We are told the price is more in the range of £2 million”.

Yes, because you’d just been copying and pasting and then calling it journalism. But good of Staines and his gofers to let us know that not only is the attack on Net Zero really happening, but also that they are signed up as full and enthusiastic participants.

So there will be more misinformed drivel in the near future. Another fine mess.

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Piers Morgan’s Royal Giveaway

One quality that the media establishment manages to display rather too often, and maybe without realising it beforehand, is a total lack of self-awareness. Much of this is part of the noise floor of press and broadcast to-and-fro, but on occasion, there is an outbreak so spectacular that it gets noticed. The response to Prince Andrew’s alleged £12 million payoff to Virginia Giuffre and her charity has provided the latest example.

And what's more, Ron ...

The idea that Andy should pay such a significant wad to someone he claims he never met, for something he also claims he didn’t do, is not high on the credibility scale, Royal or otherwise. So it has provided a soft target for the punditerati, not least former Screws and Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan, recently received back into the Cosa Rupra.

“Prince Andrew’s a snivelling little coward whose denials weren’t worth the paper they were written on - and he must now be stripped of all remaining titles & privileges” he howls, although this is not nearly as edgy as he wants you to think: Creepy Uncle Rupe hates the Royals, and one of his pundits giving them a kicking fits right in.

The host-to-be of The All-New Percy Moron Show rather let himself go as he tackled the subject of Andy and his Bung: “The British public is entitled to know who paid for Prince Andrew’s settlement given some of it may have come indirectly from taxpayer money. Outrageous if it’s true the Queen’s had to contribute towards silencing his accuser - how dare he put his mother in that position?” And then came the self-awareness failure.

After the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph claimed “The Duke of York will keep his remaining titles after settling his sexual abuse civil case”, Morgan indicated his displeasure. “Nonsense. If you pay an accuser $12 million to avoid being held accountable for your actions in court, you renounce your right to any titles”. Er, HELLO?

There can be only one inference: paying off to avoid going to court means guilty. So Evan Harris, who you can tell as he’s a doctor, had a question. “Who's going to break the news to [Piers Morgan] that the Mirror, to avoid being held accountable in court, have paid out far more than $12m in confidential sums to victims of phone-hacking (& other illegality) by the Daily Mirror when he was Editor?” Writer Dan Waddell was on the same page.

“He’ll be livid when he finds out how much the Mirror has paid out in confidential settlements for phone hacking when he was editor”. Meanwhile, Professor Steven Barnett of the University of Westminster had a question about Morgan’s new berth. “Interesting question for [Piers Morgan] to address, perhaps in a column for his new employer who, um, has also paid out many multiples of $12m”. To avoid going to court. Again.

Indeed, the Tweeter known as Sun Apology juxtaposed the paper’s front page with a headline from the Guardian, asking yet another of those difficult questions. “Hi [The Sun]. Are you suggesting it looks incredibly dodgy to be paying millions of ££ and settling out of court while making no admission of guilt?” Maybe Piers Morgan can tell us.

But good of him to be so unswerving in the view that paying off an accuser to avoid going to court means the party doing the paying off is guilty. And should be treated accordingly.

Not sure what Rupe and his lawyers will think, though. Still, details, eh?

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Camilla Tominey Meets Reality

Those who have complained about articles published by the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph know all too well how difficult it is to get any kind of concession out of the paper. So when someone does get a “correction”, it means the complainant had a very sound case. Thus it was for Jonathan Portes, Professor of Economics at King’s College London, who has caused the Tel’s complaints people to yield in just ten days.

This is my article here, and as you can see, it's complete shite

What happened to provoke his complaint can be put directly: “Associate Editor” Camilla Tominey, formerly Royal reporter for the Express, had authored a piece which was published on February 4 and headlined “University fat cats have abandoned students … Shocking research suggests the majority of colleges are continuing with virtual lectures despite the retreat of Covid”. More shocking was the lack of veracity in her copy.

Specifically, she told of Paul Wiltshire: “In July last year, he was staggered to learn that both of his sons’ universities did not intend to deliver any in-person lectures for the first term”. That was not true. And Portes said so. “This is a straightforward lie from [Camilla Tominey]. I and most of my [Kings College London colleagues have [been] giving in person lectures since last September. If she has any integrity she'll correct and apologise”.

He added, for good measure, “Indeed, [Camilla Tominey’s] *own reply* makes it clear she was lying about what KCL actually said (that some modules would be in person, some mixed, some online)”. So did she do the decent thing, withdraw and apologise? You jest. Instead, she sent Portes a copy email. Except the email didn’t look right.

From “Joseph Wiltshire”, it read “My name is Joseph Wiltshire. I am a 2nd year history student at Kings College London. I had no in-person lectures for his first term at Kings 21-22”. “I had no in-person lectures for HIS first term”? But there was more.

Portes provided his own proof. "Dear [Camilla Tominey] … Here is the email I received on August 8, 2021 … I taught *in person* in September 2021”. What say Ms Tominey? “Let me know when you’re retracting your defamatory smear [Jonathan Portes]. Thanks … (Being a man of ‘integrity’ and all that. Also curious why you decided to shoot the honest messenger? Because I’m on [The Telegraph] ?)”. Honest messenger, eh?

But meanwhile, Portes had complained to IPSO, which appears to have signalled to the Tel’s complaints people that their usual approach, of in-your-face denial and refusal to budge, might not work. Because not even IPSO would back the Tel when it was quite clear that KCL”did not intend to deliver any in-person lectures for the first term” was untrue.

And so it came to pass that the Tel issued one of those rarities: a correction, conceding that “In July last year, he was staggered to learn that both of his sons’ universities did not intend to deliver any in-person lectures for the first term” “may have given the impression that KCL was not delivering any in-person lectures across all courses”.

So Ms Tominey will get no “retraction” of any “defamatory smear”, because it wasn’t. And it has nothing to do with the paper for which she writes - it’s just another example of bad journalism, another hack who, in days gone by, would not have been let in the Tel’s door.

Ms Tominey would do well to research more, and deny less. But don’t hold your breath.

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Ryanair Twitter Feed PWNS GB News

Almost alone among airlines, low cost carrier Ryanair takes a highly combative PR stance, as a perusal of their press releases shows very clearly. This extends to their Twitter feed, and after all, this is no more than the exercise of their right to free speech, dissenting or otherwise. But Ryanair’s exercise of free speech has gone down very badly with those out on the right who claim to be champions of, er, free speech.

What's that, Calvin? You need something for that burn?

The latest right-wing snowflake meltdown was set in train yesterday afternoon, after the BBC Twitter feed had posted out “Novak Djokovic: I’m not anti-vax but will sacrifice trophies if told to get jab”. The Ryanair feed snapped back “We’re not an airline but we do fly planes”, demonstrating that, for them, no publicity is bad publicity.

This snippet of information was lost on Calvin Robinson, host at Gammon Broadcasting News (“Bacon’s News Channel”), who made the fateful error not only of engaging with the Ryanair feed, but also taking the whole thing seriously, which the latter certainly weren’t. “To be fair, you barely manage that. Stick to poor quality budget travel, leave the politics to others” he sneered, thus showing he does not understand the concept of free speech.

And so it came to pass that the Ryanair feed gave as good as it got: “Stick to poor quality broadcasting, leave the politics to others”. BOOM! OUCH!! What did Calvin Robinson do in response? What would a sensible person have done? What would Nietzsche have done?

Ah, but Robinson and his pals at GB News do not operate on that lofty intellectual plateau. So The Great Man threw a mardy strop instead. “When did brands get so political? Ryanair tried to dump on Novak Djokovic, now they’re trying to initiate a pile-on in my direction. Interesting tactic for a commercial airline. Bold PR move, attacking customers on social media”. Waaah! Waaah!! NOT FAIR!!! And then it got worse. A lot worse.

Robinson’s fellow GB News hosts piled in on his behalf. Like Darren Grimes: “I’ve been through a fair bit in life. I’m proud to say that flying with Ryanair isn’t one of them”. And the deeply unpleasant Dan Wootton: “RyanAir is another great example of a business with no idea of the views of their customers. Their uber woke social media bods should focus on flying and keep their student politics to themselves Only positive is it means I’ll never have to take one of their shoddy flights again”. WHAT IS FUCKING WOKE ABOUT RYANAIR?

Dan Speaks Your Weight, take 94. But all their whining did was to drum up business for Ryanair: “fly with us and you won’t have to sit anywhere near Dazza Grimes or Desperate Dan Wootton”. It couldn’t get even worse than that, could it? It could. And it did.

Wootton hosted a segment called Union Jackass. And there was Robinson, whining about how rotten Ryanair had started a pile-on against poor little him. Except they hadn’t. Still, on they went, digging themselves in deeper: “'Stick to flying and leave the politics at the door’ … Dan Wootton picks Ryanair as today's Union Jackass after they criticised Novak Djokovic for choosing to not get the vaccine”. Wrong. After they ridiculed his pal Calvin.

GB News’ free speech warriors showed that free speech is OK, providing they do it. When someone else exercises the same right and GB News’ hosts end up looking humourless, stupid and out of touch, that’s bad. Snowflakes and hypocrites. And next to no viewers.

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Oliver Dowden SELLS THE PASS

Last May, Indy100 told readers that “59% of Britons don’t know what the term ‘woke’ means, YouGov survey finds". From his latest public appearance, it is clear that Oliver Dowden, now co-chairman of the Tory Party, is one of them. That much is worrying: what is worse is the body before which Dowden chose to parade his ignorance.

Oliver Dowden. Claims to be a credible politician

Because his chosen platform was that provided by the Heritage Foundation. That’s the outfit based in Washington, DC, that promotes climate change denial, more restrictive voting laws, and is hostile to what it calls Critical Race Theory instruction. It has promoted false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 US Presidential Election. It is far-right.

So what did he have to tell them? Standing before what looked like an ironing board, he airily regaled his audience with gems like “Today, a social media mob can cancel you merely because you have dared to challenge one of the left’s fashionable nostrums … so conservatives themselves must find the confidence to mount a vigorous defence of the value of a free society”. In other words, poorly reasoned horseshit.

Ignoring the inconvenient fact that “Cancel Culture” is an invention of the right, a strawman to be wheeled out and knocked down, he doubled down with “We cannot be complacent about defending our values against this painful woke psychodrama. It will take courage to resist it. Too many have fallen for the idea it is kind or virtuous to submit to these self-righteous dogmas. It is not”. Dogmas that do not exist. And WOKE WOKE WOKE.

This was received enthusiastically by the deeply unpleasant Zac Goldsmith, and also serving Tory MPs like Simon Clarke. None of those out there on the right noticed that their bedfellows - the right-leaning part of our free and fearless press, right-wing voices in the broadcast media, and other right-wing groups - are far more effective at getting their opponents “cancelled”, to use Dowden’s happy phrase, than anything the left can muster.

Dowden clearly does not know what “Woke” means. But he does know it can be compared to Maoism. So he and his fellow Tories can play the victim while beating up on those who have the audacity to oppose them. It was so obvious it led to Armando Iannucci delivering a cynical comeback: “It’s terribly woke of you to try muting the BBC and Channel 4 because you don’t like what they report”. LBC host James O’Brien was on the same page.

“Speaking at the Heritage Foundation because there are so few secretly-funded hard right ‘think tanks’ in the U.K. that he had to find an American one … It’s easy to mock Oliver but 12 years of Tory government culminating in an 80-seat majority built on the jingoistic lies of Brexit & led by the most blatantly dishonest British politician in living memory clearly validates his insistence that people like him are the real victims”. OUCH!

More seriously, Miqdaad Versi noted the HF “hosted some of the biggest Islamophobes in the world”. Jessica Simor QC told Clarke “moral relativism is what allows you to claim that the PM does not lie”. Labour MP Chris Bryant mused “This Oliver Dowden speech is about as vacuous as can be. But it’s also dangerous. It implies we should all just tug the forelock to authoritarian views of the world. Liberty comes in many dimensions”.

And Jolyon Maugham summed up. “‘Do not challenge the continuing right of people like me to rule in our own interests’: Oliver Dowden translated”. Got it in one.

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Met Police Federation TONE DEAF

No organisation has demonstrated not merely in the recent past, but historically, that it is a by-word for institutional corruption, racism, gratuitous violence against the public, homophobia, sexism, misogyny and an inability to learn from its mistakes, because it also cannot admit there is a problem, more than the Metropolitan Police.

It was, therefore, not a surprise when London Mayor Sadiq Khan declared that not only did the force have to do better, but that he no longer had confidence in Cressida Dick to effect the necessary change. So what would the sensible course of action have been? What would a decent and professional outfit have done? What would Nietzsche have done?

Ah, but the Met Police Federation does not operate on that intellectual level. And so it came to pass, as the BBC has reported, that “The Met Police Federation has declared it has ‘no faith’ in Sadiq Khan after the ‘very public ousting’ of Dame Cressida Dick as commissioner … Chairman Ken Marsh warned that the atmosphere among Met Police officers was at ‘rock bottom’”. Chairman Ken Marsh self awareness failure there.

He added that Khan’s remarks had “undermined the professional, dedicated and incredibly difficult work of tens of thousands of hard-working and brave police officers from across the capital … We have let the mayor's office know in no uncertain terms how our brave and diligent colleagues deserve better … Officers in London feel saddened and angry that the commissioner, Cressida Dick, has been pushed out in the way she has”.

Getting out a king-sized onion, he went on “She was reforming. She was changing. The culture is changing … We are deeply disappointed with the actions of the mayor”. And to that I call bullshit. Moreover, I couldn’t give a rat’s arse about his disappointment.

On a personal level, Cressida Dick has messed up big time, starting with approving the murder of Jean Charles de Menezes - a totally innocent man - and going on by obstructing the Daniel Morgan Panel Inquiry, then overseeing a heavy handed response to those holding a vigil for Sarah Everard - murdered by one of her own officers - while doing not unadjacent to bugger all about systematic lawbreaking in and around Downing Street.

The culture unearthed at the Met’s Charing Cross Police Station, where “Officers were found to have joked about rape and exchanged offensive social media messages, leading to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) to make 15 recommendations … the IOPC said: ‘We believe these incidents are not isolated’”, was inexcusable.

In response, the public at large has wasted no time in passing severely adverse comment on Ken Marsh’s tone-deaf whingefest. Many have pointed out that Londoners get the chance to vote out the Mayor, while they can’t directly get rid of the Met Commissioner, and can’t get rid of the Met Police Federation and its whining chairman at all.

Worse, it has been obvious for some time that the Met is institutionally deficient in a whole host of areas. But there can be no change unless and until there is an admission that the force has a problem. Carping about the Mayor is not a move in the right direction. Nor is it in the interests of Marsh’s “brave and diligent colleagues”. He needs to listen to the public. You know, his CUSTOMERS.

We The People pay for the Police. And We The People demand better. Deal with it.

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Campaign For Common Sense ISN’T

All those groups who get their copy into the papers and online information sources, but whose names are seriously misleading, are mostly well known. The so-called Taxpayers’ Alliance isn’t an alliance of taxpayers, the Global Warming Policy Foundation exists only to rubbish the idea of global warming, and the Renewable Energy Foundation likewise attacks the renewable energy industry. Then there’s the Campaign for Common Sense.

Not long on the scene, this body has got its copy recycled by the usual press suspects, such as the Mail and Express, on a regular basis. The Mail, for instance, told us last May “Sir Keir Starmer's Labour Party is out of touch with public opinion on woke issues, a Mail on Sunday poll has found. The survey revealed that the party was overwhelmingly associated with support for politically correct issues - such as pulling down statues of historical figures - that are not backed by voters”. Yes, the meaning of Woke wrong again.

Whose survey is this? “The poll, conducted by JL Partners for the Campaign For Common Sense”. And their spokesman? “Mark Lehain, director for the Campaign for Common Sense, said: 'The results of this poll show the vast majority of British public are tolerant, fair-minded and moderate people who are not interested in divisive identity politics’”.

So far, so useful not only to the right-wing press, but also the Tories. It was the same story pushed by the Express last February. “A NEW report has revealed that ‘dodgy data’ is being used to distort the diversity debate in Britain … The study by the Campaign for Common Sense (CCS) has looked at how figures are exaggerated when claims about ethnic disparities in the workplace are made. It finds that data is being used to make false comparisons, creating a sense of wider disparity within society than may actually exist”.

And who was on hand to give a comment? “Mark Lehain, director of CCS, said”. No shit, Sherlock. And now this “Campaign” has been given a plug by the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog. “Unilever faced a protest outside its headquarters this morning … organised by the Campaign for Common Sense which has urged the Unilever brand Ben and Jerry’s to stop virtue signalling”. Has it now?

It sounds like Tory propaganda, because it is Tory propaganda: Mark Lehain might have resigned as a director of the Campaign for Common Sense Limited, but is still an active director of Advantage Schools Limited, whose address is the Bedford Free School. Holding that thought, here’s the Guardian in the run-up to the 2019 General Election.

“‘It’s not been easy being a Tory in education over the last few years,’ says [Mark] Lehain, a former maths teacher, with a sigh. A torchbearer for the Conservatives’ academy and free school policy, he founded and led one of the first free secondary schools - the Bedford free school - then left to head up PTE, the Parents and Teachers for Excellence group, which campaigns for stricter discipline and more facts in the curriculum. He stepped down last month to pursue another campaign”. He was standing for Parliament.

For the Tories. In Newcastle-upon-Tyne North, a long way from Bedford. He lost. So this self-confessed Tory has followed groups like the TPA in pushing right-wing copy to willing media outlets. The Campaign for Common Sense is just another Tory front.

That’s one of those “more facts” he’s not admitting. Another Tory non-disclosure.

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