Wednesday, December 02, 2009

Indy Tries to Split Tories Over Climate Change

The Independent is trying to whip up a storm this morning over Conservative policy on climate change. Having observed how it has ripped the Australian Liberal Party apart, The Indy now spies an opportunity to encourage the British Conservative Party to do the same. Let me tell them. It ain't gonna happen, for one simple reason. Malcolm Turnbull, the now deposed Australian Liberal leader, was unpopular with all parts of his party and couldn't take them with him. Even his bitterest enemies would have to admit that David Cameron is master of all he surveys with the Conservative Party. Of course there are different strands of opinion on this subject in the party - it wouldbe odd if there weren't. But the front bench position is settled, and those of us who are more sceptical accept that. David Davis has written an article today in The Independent which concludes...
To date, too many discussions on this matter have degenerated into infantile mud-slinging and virulent name-calling. It is simply unacceptable for one side to describe the other as deniers, with its deliberate holocaust connotations, and the other side to essentially call their opponents liars. This issue is too important for the argument to be reduced to the level of an adolescent political spat, and it is time we engaged in this debate on a properly adult level.

I hope everyone can agree on that.

29 comments:

Twig said...

The level of grass roots support for David Cameron's position is clear for all to see based on the positive comments his Blue Blog posting received.

Time Team Special - Britain's Drowned World - Tony Robertson

Carry on Dave you're doing a great job.

Anonymous said...

But Iain, if "split" means you have amongst you people of diametrically opposing views who believe in totally different courses of action you are "split."

On Climate Change, and not a little else.

The "E" word springs to mind.

Unknown said...

Well it's harder than that Iain unfortunately.

Certainly the levels of rudeness & abuse do need taking straight out of the discussion but it really is a bit like debating whether tobacco causes cancer: It's that clear cut.

It worries me enormously that Conservatives are rushing to positions of climate change "denial" (if someone can come up with a better word then please do for the equivalent of claiming black is white or that a cat is a dog.)

Which bit of screwing up our grandchildren's legacy is conservative? This inheritance is much more important than the cash that the tax cut would bring.

The leadership recognises that you have to be blue and green and the activist base needs to follow.

Colin said...

The clever thing for the Tories (all of them) to do on this, is merely to insist on total transparency, in relation to all raw and modified data.

The parallels with their conduct in the run up to the Iraq fiasco are prescient here. For the love of god, let's not have them hitch their horses to the AGW bandwagon, only for there to be significant doubt cast, thereby preventing them from evolving policy, as required. Their stupidity on Iraq has severely hampered them and has set them apart from mainstream public opinion. A different approach then would have stood them in good stead now.

Nobody in their right mind can go along with the shenanigans - real or perceived, that have been highlighted by the release of the CRU data.

Anonymous said...

I dont understand the media in this country - they report utterly rubbish stories with little truth but say NOTHING about the one eyed idiot in No.10 who has ruined the economy amungst the other damage he is delibratly inflicting.

DD is a mere backbencher after all! Good job Labour backbenchers dont get reported on what they say - I am sure Milburn, Byers and Clarke have a few choice things to say at the moment!

What is wrong with these people on the left? Do they not understand what Labour have done to this country.

If the Labour party supported by the Lib Dems get in I will support a military coup and there will be rioting - they just keep damming up judgement day as they have with anti-democratic voting pacts and dodgy postal voting. There are some serious hacked off people out there and I am one of them!

Ralph Hancock said...

While I agree that most of what appears on the front page of the Independent has no relation to reality at all -- and while I might concede that Cameron is master within the Conservative party -- he has alienated a large number of Conservative voters, and his lead in the polls is slipping. You yourself, Iain, are detached from him on climate change. I am detached from him on Europe, and have lost any belief in anything he says, and am not going to vote for him. I may be only one small and foolish person, but I think there are rather a lot of people who feel similarly. And there is little point in being masterful if not enough people vote for you.

Anonymous said...

Better then that no arguments/discussions take place is the sub-text. Since there has been virtually no public debate because the MSM will not permit it, the mudslinging has been decidedly one-sided - viz: e-mails from Jones et al.

It is an important matter we get being told this climate change stuff, ditto the EU, and the Tories need to be threatened with a split to get Team Cameron listening and responding to the People and their order of priorities, rather than dwelling on their own and putting those first.

Little point getting rid of Labour if we perish under EU oligarchy and Left-wing World government.

Anonymous said...

the front bench position may be settled Iain, but that doesn't mean it is right. In all the hoo-ha I wonder how many of our movers and shakers have actually understood what has come out of the CRU scandal......? very few i suspect. It is not the emails that are really important, damning though some of them are....its the code, and assorted comments in the harry read me.....these people were trying to recreate their own figures ...and they CAN'T.....their own source code and their own data sets and they can't get the same answers.....so they then proceed to do a sort of golden shot(for those old enough to remember!)...left a bit up a bit down a bit fire! and when that doesn't work they try again ....with a different set of figures. At one point in the code there are comments that with the latest fudge they have managed to get within .5 degree of the figures they are trying to reproduce, and this is considered encouraging......but even the most alarmist of these eco-religioun zealots are working on an increase of .8 degree over the last 150 years......so more than half of their own warming gets lost on reruns of the code.....

there are duplicate data sets with the same name on different areas of the databases and no-one knows which one should be used, they are using data from sites now in the middle of urban conurbations even though they deny it in public(which of course will lead to higher temperatures), they are mapping areas of the globe over each other because their gridding isn't consistent, they have made adjustments to raw data that now cannot be reversed because they have 'lost' the originals......it just goes on.

never mind the fact that they have consistently refused to share the data they are using.......now why might that be? If i were totally confident that my analysis was correct what reason would i have for not letting any else attempt to refute it? One request is refused on the grounds that so much work has gone in to it, and the scientist will only try to make it look bad so he can't have access!

but is any of this sinking in .....has anyone actually confronted Cameron with this...or has he just been vaguely briefed that there is a little fuss over statistics that no-one quite understands.........I wish it were the former but strongly suspect it is the latter.....
and the politicians are too scared of public reaction to recant now in any case......but this is too important to be left to lie in the 'too difficult ' box.

Iain, it is down to people like you, who have personal day to day contact with these would be leaders to push this.....have you written to cameron asking what his reaction is to this? I think you should......and when he comes back with some soapy non-commital reply(which he will) go at it again......until he is forced to confront the inconvenient truth.....

Unsworth said...

I'm sorry, The Independent couldn't even whip up a cappucino.

Who reads it anyway?

Anonymous said...

the front bench position may be settled Iain, but that doesn't mean it is right. In all the hoo-ha I wonder how many of our movers and shakers have actually understood what has come out of the CRU scandal......? very few i suspect. It is not the emails that are really important, damning though some of them are....its the code, and assorted comments in the harry read me.....these people were trying to recreate their own figures ...and they CAN'T.....their own source code and their own data sets and they can't get the same answers.....so they then proceed to do a sort of golden shot(for those old enough to remember!)...left a bit up a bit down a bit fire! and when that doesn't work they try again ....with a different set of figures. At one point in the code there are comments that with the latest fudge they have managed to get within .5 degree of the figures they are trying to reproduce, and this is considered encouraging......but even the most alarmist of these eco-religioun zealots are working on an increase of .8 degree over the last 150 years......so more than half of their own warming gets lost on reruns of the code.....

there are duplicate data sets with the same name on different areas of the databases and no-one knows which one should be used, they are using data from sites now in the middle of urban conurbations even though they deny it in public(which of course will lead to higher temperatures), they are mapping areas of the globe over each other because their gridding isn't consistent, they have made adjustments to raw data that now cannot be reversed because they have 'lost' the originals......it just goes on.

never mind the fact that they have consistently refused to share the data they are using.......now why might that be? If i were totally confident that my analysis was correct what reason would i have for not letting any else attempt to refute it? One request is refused on the grounds that so much work has gone in to it, and the scientist will only try to make it look bad so he can't have access!

but is any of this sinking in .....has anyone actually confronted Cameron with this...or has he just been vaguely briefed that there is a little fuss over statistics that no-one quite understands.........I wish it were the former but strongly suspect it is the latter.....
and the politicians are too scared of public reaction to recant now in any case......but this is too important to be left to lie in the 'too difficult ' box.

Iain, it is down to people like you, who have personal day to day contact with these would be leaders to push this.....have you written to cameron asking what his reaction is to this? I think you should......and when he comes back with some soapy non-commital reply(which he will) go at it again......until he is forced to confront the inconvenient truth.....

................................. said...

Good to see you now back the Party's policy on climate change, Iain...

David Blake said...

David Cameron is master of all he surveys simply because the Tories are aching for power.

Give them a biggish majority and the splits will start to appear pretty soon - on Europe, climate change, immigration for example.

The Independent story may be a bit over the top, but there's a good deal of truth in it.

Vulpus_rex said...

Yes, yes unity and discipline on the front bench all very interesting - but the fact is AGW is a great big pile of steaming hogwash and Dave should really have the guts to say it.

Doesn't make him un-green, just honest.

Anonymous said...

Frankly, the antics of the CRU at the University of East Anglia have been pathetic in response to the crisis. The antics of the media in suppressing the story have also been a sorry spectacle. The more both these things go on, the more people will be driven into the "sceptic" camp. Both sides have an interest in getting all this out into the open and discussing in a grown-up way.

Unfortunately global warming has now become an extremely powerful world religion and it uses all the tactics that religions have used in the past to suppress dissent/ lack of orthodoxy.

If David C doesn't react to this properly, he could be left looking irrelevant as the controversy grows.

John said...

You are correct Ian

The Labour party have seen the best way to beat us is to divide and conquer. We have had Europe, Zac and now Climate Change. Of course people have different points of view, but do not let the Labour spin doctors split us, or we will HAND THE NEXT ELECTION TO LABOUR.

Anonymous said...

Cameron and the tories are wrong on global warming and the comments relating to the fiddled UEA data are testament to this.

But all the mainstream is wrong. And as pointed out - insisting on transparency and independence is the correct stance. the whole point is that there is no clear and imminent danger. We have time ample time to check and settle the science.

The great opportunity for global warming for the likes of Brown is that it offers a great opportunity for more taxes on the middle class. That should be the tory dividing line.

It is of course absurd to complain that Cameron has alienated 'some' tories. The Tory party is a broad church and whatever stance the leader takes will alienate some one.
The nutjobs need to get a life and stop relying on people like me to vote to keep Brown out

No Society said...

My deep seated hope is that the only reason Cameron is conforming to (i)this false ideology and (ii)the Lisbon fraud, is to get into office and rid this country of Fifth Columnist government. If it is not part of a bigger more intelligent and robust strategic purpose then the Conservative Party are finished.The country will revolt of that i am sure.Even leafy Kent apologists will rally.

Boy on a bike said...

You've got to remember that the Liberals down here are only two years on from losing office. Think of where the Tories were two years after Major got the boot.

I think the base was just fed up with Turnbull being Labor-lite, and they finally blew a fuse like never before. Conservatives do tend to have principles, and they get really cut up when those principles are ignored, trampled on and disparaged (things Turnbull did in spades).

The party has had an almighty stoush, but it's come out of it stronger and more united and more virile than it has been in years. People are really fired up. Abbott is a fighter.

When I see the political landscape now, I am reminded of Patton's speech before D-Day when he told his troops "We're not just going to shoot the bastards, we're going to cut out their living guts and use them to grease the treads on our tanks." Labor have had it easy until now - and now they are about to cop it big time.

Times are about to get interesting.

Barnacle Bill said...

Colin I fully agree with you about the Iraq war and the Conservatives swallowing hook, line and sinker all TB's lies has rather dented their credibility in the eyes of the ordinary public.
I think in light of the CRU story DC should say all bets are off until peer review is done on the CRU findings.
Better to sit on the fence for awhile than fall off onto the wrong side!

Road_Hog said...

As Twig has said, look at the comments on the Blue Blog and you'll find that the Tories are united on climate change, in fact virtually all of the comments condemn it as a pile of steaming poo and an excuse to raise taxes.

Cameron has to take an unbiased and honest view on this and kick it into the long grass until we've had some proper above board peer review reports. Otherwise he's about to his lead slip even more in the polls. It's about time he got out into the real world and spoke to people or failing that he could read some of the blogs.

neil craig said...

Well I can't agree that it is improper to call people who have deliberately "juggled" alleged scientific evidence to "hide the decline" liars. They have clearly lied so what else can they be called?

As to whether it is wrong for anybody to say that the Conservative's Emperor has no clothes on this matter (& his cast iron promises) - I'm afraid that that is becoming increasingly obvious to everybody & it is inevitable that it will be pointed out. Better a change now than later.

There is also, or should be, the national interest. Britain loses hundreds of billions as an absolute minimum figure, annually to eco-fascism. It should be noted that we are currently in the recession they have called for & it isn't that great. It might be better to have a government that doesn't want that.

Colin is right. The Conservatives should call for a public enquiry (a real one) on the subject with evidence under oath. Alarmists could not fault them for that & it requires no official change of direction. When the enquiry proves it is a pack of lies there can be no objection to changing. That is what enquiries are for - to allow politicians to maintain their dignity while changing horses.

Jimmy said...

"Even his bitterest enemies would have to admit that David Cameron is master of all he surveys with the Conservative Party."

You really believe this?

Anonymous said...

Warning bells should have been ringing at Conservative HQ after the Glasgow NE by-election where Labour succeeded in controlling the agenda for debate and so won on their own terms. Brown is not to be underestimated and neither is Mandelson's ability to pull the strings with the media. David Cameron better start getting on top of his game soon or Labour are going to steal the next general election right out from under his nose.

OldSlaughter said...

We are Tories. We will always disagree. That is the point. Individualism is why we have always been a broad church. It is why anybody can be a conservative.

It amuses me no end when 'party splits' are raised as negative aspects where as 300 jobsworths unthinkingly following the Great Leader's diktats to the letter are somehow considered the right sort to have in a representative democracy. Jokes.

Maturity is in holding opposing views and reconciling. It is only the mindless that form whichever consensus is most expedient and then personally abuse those which beg to differ.

"The Conservative Party, the only one still asking questions"

Stick that on a campaign poster. Sod the lemmings, the sycophants and power hungry.

Animal Magic said...

I hope everyone can agree on that.

We may be able to live with DC being a bit green and for some difference of opinion on the issue. It really all depends on how much a Tory government are willing to invest in buying carbon credits. If the answer is £0M then I don't care how green he is.

cassandra said...

Cameron and his team have bought into the man made global warming/anti CO2 Jihad, they are fully paid up members of the AAM cult based as we now know on fraud and lies and dirty tricks.
They backed the wrong horse didnt they, even as details emerged about the scale of the fraud involved the Cameron team was unveiling flagship policies based on the AAM fraud, hows that for political acumen eh?

The Tories should be running at around fifty percent average in the polls and he aint!
Cameron is a dead weight dragging the Tory party to a hung parliament, David Davis would be leading a victorious steam roller at this point, the party backed the wrong horse and I am sorry but the effort to suppress the evidence of grassroots rebellion and voter coolness cannot last.
Cameron and Turnbull are in fact near identical cases in how not to lead a party, they sold out their party core values and ride roughshod over their core voters and natural supporters in a vain attempt to win an election on the back of the hatred for the other guy.
The lid on unrest cannot be kept on forever, sooner or later the party are going to rue the day they let Blair lite in the front door and sooner or later the party will be showing him the back door, better get the business over with now rather than face disaster in May?
I predict a delegation of the grey suited men arriving at Chez Cameron within a couple of months and we know what a visit like that means dont we?

happiness said...

When the Tories supported the Iraq war, I lost a lot of faith. It seemed to me that they supported it because they were afraid they'd be seen as weak not to, when they should have been doing a proper opposition job, listening to the UN inspectors, and refusing to vote with the government. Several times the tories have supported the government (post offices anybody?) when they could have made a stand but for political reasons they chose not to. The little faith I had left was lost when Dave waffled on the referendum. It appears to me there is a watermelon tendency in the tory ranks. Is it for real or is it a considered decision to woo lefty voters? Whatever, my cynic blood says meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Don't get fooled again.

neil craig said...

It seems to me Cameron has made 3 very major mistakes -
1 - Pulling the Tories onto the global warming/Green bandwagon, just as the wheels were going shoogly.
2 - Ignoring the economy, the biggest single issue in almost any election
3 - Making & breaking a "cast iron" referendum promise.

All of them are major failures of electoral tactics. Unlike many electoral questions they are even more important in government. I think the Tories will still win because Labour & the LibDims are so dreadful but I hope when they do the MPs & cabinet, which contains many people far more competent than him, will ride herd on him.

OldSlaughter said...

"David Davis would be leading a victorious steam roller at this point."

Spot on Cassandra.