Nudging us to go green

Verity

As Steptoe Jr used to say, "Oh, Gawwwwd!"

Government by soundbite and a twinky little pr programme du jour. This is governance of a country we are talking about!

How about some big plans, set out in concrete, Del-boy Cameron? I'll give you some starters for 10:

1. A pledge to stop immigration from the Third World. Yes, that is a pledge to discriminate in favour of our own kind. A conconcurrent pledge to sluice out every illegal and send them back on big boats, after they've given DNA samples, had a retinal photograph taken and been microchipped.

2. A pledge for a referendum on the EUSSR. If the majority of people vote to get out, a pledge to begin political disengagement. A concurrent pledge to move closer to the Commonwealth and a post-Obama US.

3. A pledge to shut down, with no prior notice, every quango in the country.

4. A pledge to cut the public sector by one-third, including all the Nigerians inexplicably working in the Home Office.

5. A pledge to shut down marxist teachers' training colleges and return teaching to the teaching profession itself. School vouchers for parents to spend at the school of their choice.

6. A pledge to disenfranchise the welfare sector. A further pledge to stop giving the welfare sector cash and give them only food stamps and government tokens hygiene (soap, washing powder, cleaning items, etc) products. The government will pay the supermarkets direct for redeeming the stamps and tokens. Any supermarket found allowing purchase of other than designated items to be struck off and lose a big chunk of revenue permanently.

7. A pledge not to give out council flats to welfare recipients if there are working people waiting for accommodation. The welfare people should be housed in hostels with private bedrooms, but common lounges, common bathrooms and common kitchens.

8. Pledge to chop up and sell off the BBC, thus ending the Marxist imperialism of the airwaves.

9. A pledge to get shot of the current useless policing system and install elected chiefs.

10. Just to make a round 10, a pledge to outlaw the wearing of the burqa on public streets on grounds of elf in safety - it prevents the wearer from getting Vitamin D (or it may A - the sunlight one) leading to rickets and a diminished immune system. And outlaw first cousin marriages.

That's for Year One.

Philip Walker

So they take out a loan. What's the interest rate? What happens if the homeowner moves before the loan is paid off? Is the loan attached to the property, or to the consumer?

Tanuki

This 'nudge' stuff is nonsense. If Waitrose, Tesco, ASDA sign up to this sort of thing, how's it going to influence me? Will they refund me a percentage of the cost of the fuel for the chainsaw when I fell another tree from my forest to provide fuel?

I really can do without such hectoring "global warmist" nonsense.

Holly ......

Wait for it.....

Nicholas

Oh, God.

Lady Astor's son-in-law

Do you know anyone with solar panels or a window turbine?

Nobody is interested in this ecomentalist twaddle.

And if they were, they wouldn't vote Tory.

Frank P

The inter-tubes are throbbing with the AGW scam revelations and we get a post on green politics bullshit. The game is up James. Stop going la la la la la la! The game is f-u-c-k-i-n-g upppp!! Green is not the in colour. Nor are Red Blond(e)s. How about some True Blue debate? The election cometh and by the time the Christmas parties are over and done with and the drains of Westminster are running with Shampoo for the Drain; it will be on ya! Limber up, Jummy.

Hysteria

when will you (The Spectator) be covering the leaked CRU code issue in a dispassionate way?

The impact on public policy making should be dramatic - so why the silence?

David Ossitt

“Nudging us to go green”

Some of us do not believe in it, (the man made bit) some of us think that we are being mislead, some of us think that this is deliberate, a way to control us, a way to raise more taxes, another whip with which to flay us with.

We are not being nudged; we are being pushed and bullied, it is getting sinister, nasty and very unpleasant.

I wish that it would stop.

Rex Burr

How will the savings be assessed?
You can’t compare one year with the next because the weather may be very different and the pattern of energy use may change.
The cost of insulation if not paid immediately will require borrowing by someone. The savings on energy costs may not keep up with the interest charge.

JohnPage

Green tripe, don't even pretend it can be free!

TGF UKIP

James, this really is monstrously arrogant. We know from your previous posts that you are a conviction warmist but to continue with pieces like this just a few days after the revelations over the shenanigans CRU and their transatlantic co-conspirators is to treat CHers as fools. Moreover, your continuing campaign to promote the minuscule profile of Polly Clark convinces no one.

Recently, first there was Neather and now this,with the gulf between you journo villagers and the rest of the Coffee House growing almost daily ever wider.

You lot appear to be taking us for granted even as your stature and credibility leeches away.

Robin Guenier

Hysteria is right. The leaked CRU email issue is seriously important.

These emails are potentially devastating. They strongly suggest that the small coterie of scientists, employed at public expense at the heart of the global "climate change" enterprise (essentially controlling and interpreting data used by the IPCC - and therefore responsible for justifying the hugely damaging measures being undertaken to "tackle climate change"), consists of people driven by secrecy, arrogance, intolerance of dissent and personal prejudice. If valid (and it certainly seems to be), that suggestion could undermine the entire dangerous AGW hypothesis. To clear the air and reinstate public faith in climate science, all CRU data and methodology must be made publicly available and subjected to independent review now. That’s precisely how science is supposed to be done and there's no reason why this should be any different. The crowds about to gather in Copenhagen would do well to take note.

strapworld

what makes me laug are the comments from such as Trevors Den who cannot abide any criticism of cameron and his lightweight Tory party.

Verity myself and many others have been consistent in our criticism of this shallow man who has no idea of leadership. But I suppose once a PR man always a PR man!

This green nonsense just gets my goat. I have seen, in the West Country, pwople place their rubbish in different boxes and bins and I know they all were thrown together and thrown in landfills. I kid you not! and that is Liberal Democrat country.

This is just an excuse to tax and fine people. Raising more money for councils to pay third rate executives massive salaries.

I do, as normal, agree with Verity but would love to see a Royal Commission on Policing. I fear for the future if call me dave gets his sticky hands on my old profession.

That said the Tories are just Labour who are just Tories and both are the Lib Dems who are everything you want them to be, even if it is different to your next door neighbour.

Sack the lot of them. Vote for another party but certainly not any of these lookalikes who have ruined our beloved country.

2trueblue

The new religion is of no interest to me, and I don't care what colour they give it. Climate change is a scam.

TGF UKIP

Another post censored but I guess I shouldn't be surprised. The Coffee House and the Speccie mirror the Cameron New Green Party more with every passing day.

Verity

Al Gore, a scion of an old tobacco plantation family, suddenly produced a book, well, a book with his name on it: "An Inconvenient Truth".

Global warming, man-made global warming, man-made climate change (it kept morphing as it kept failing to get traction with the voters) is the "climate science" Neathergate.

Like unwanted mass immigration from the Islamic Third World done with the purpose of hollowing out our British laws, our institutions and, indeed, our history in schools, it was being imposed as a weapon in the furtherance of the One Worlder agenda.

The control agenda.

And trying to cow the right with "moral" imprecations. "Racist". "Climate change denier" piggy-backing on "Holocaust denier". Etc.

Mass immigration from an aggressive desert belief system with the faux moral imperative of “global warming” as the perfect partner!

A long-term programme for working under the radar to slide away long held and natural rights of a citizenry.

The irony of watching these dual revelations being sluiced out at the same time! Too much fun!

Didn't work.

De Rigueur

Verity my dear,
Top of the page. And in top form.

Mr Forsyth,
Been wondering, perhaps unkindly to him, whether you are related to that other Forsyth who does that dancing programme?
Like TGF says the gap between you and your readers is growing wider by the day. How long can the Speccy sustain that one.

All political parties should be "Green" in the sense that green issues are not really political - just about a bit of sweeping up after ourselves. Climate Change, I shudder to use the words' has nothing to do with being clean and not leaving a mess. As my old mum used to say, it's chilly now the sun's gone in.

2trueblue

David Ossitt, I agree with you. Al Gore got the nobel prize andd it baffles me why. There were 19 inconsistancies in his 'theories' and is not allowed to be taught in schools. Now we know that 15,000 pages with raw data is being disregarded, on both sides of the atlantic, because it is inconvenient. It is a scam and until all the data is in the main domain and we have intelligent dialogue, governments will do as they want. This whole thing has gained traction because it will enable new taxes to be levied worldwide.

They are so short sighted because our whole future depends on grown up, intelligent, open debate rather than knee-jerk reaction. Labour have already cast the dye and have put our economic future, short and long term in jeapordy, by signing us up to a worldwide scam. We should get on and secure our energy policy without being dictated to by an inaccurate and unproven set of rules. We will not get out of this reccession by being held to ransom by other countries for our fuel. This government have done nothing apart form the wind farms, and that is where the blame lies. I am totally against windfarms as they produce very little and the data on their actual carbon footprint has never been assesed properly. The amount of cement to put them in situ has a huge carbem footprrint, what are the maintainance issues, etc. The reason for this is that an overwhelming number of the advisors on the committee for alternative energy had direct interests in windfarms!

Strapworld and Verity, Cameron is not there now, he has not set the bar level.
This has been set by the current lot and we have had 12yrs of lies, non delivery on every level and general destruction of the UK. If we get a hung parliment or Labour again, then we are doomed.
Name calling etc is not constructive and that is the job of this gutter government who do it very well, they don't need your help.

Simon Orr

To all those above that seem to be implying that the CRU leaks mean that energy is no longer an issue worth even thinking about.

What about the pensioners who can access this scheme to save them money, allow them to heat their homes properly and maybe reduce our scandalously high winter related death rate (10000+)?

What about lowering our energy requirements so that when, not if Russia decides to play politics with gas we aren't so exposed?

You worry so much about a few facist-commy academics in east anglia but not about dying pensioners or the Kremlin. Great.

2trueblue

Simon Orr, there is already a scheme in place to give the elderley free insulation. This new scheme means they have to pay now and get back the money later. This does not seem such a good deal.

No one is denying that there is a shortage of fuel security, or that fuel itself is a problem.
We have a bunch of idiots in power who have done nothing to ensure that we can even have the lights on, never mind regenerate a country to climb out of reccession.

I am fed up with the scam which has now become a religion and that actually has not done one thing yet to fix the problems that the bloggers here are talking about, yet it has huge amounts spent on it. It enables the government to blame 'climate change'for everything from lack of proper risk evaluation of building on flood plains, infastructure, maintaining the drainage systems, and generally looking after what we can actually do. They prefer pie in the sky dialogue and ignoring any data that does not fit their agenda. We can have no real dialogue if we are lied to, and not just on this issue, and this government have spent 12.5yrs spinning their so called 'facts'.

Verity

Here's another thing about these two programmes - mass immigration from the undeveloped world and the "global warming" punishment for the developed world ... the sly perpetrators of these two assaults on the West have ramped up the action in the light of the rapid development of China and India, which have a combined population of around 2.4bn.

They want all the things we have, and them. have the mental wherewithal to get tem. And they're not going to sacrifice the development of their countries to please a bunch of thuggish commies.

The the "global warming - technology is BAD" scamsters and the world-without-borders thugs have to work really fast.

Verity

Apologies for the appalling typing above. I was working within the nasty little comment box and couldn't refer back and forth.

Simon Orr

2trueblue, there are on average 7500 winter-related deaths a year in those too young to claim free insulation in the current system.

I loath envirotholocism as much as the next rational person, but this just seems like a good idea whatever your beliefs about climate.

Holly ......

....Told ya...

Marcher Baron

At least if you dig in green manure it improves the soil. I can't see this improving anything.

Verity

Melanie Phillips refers to "green totalitarianism" which is spot on. It is a totalitarian philsophy - with an agenda.

2trueblue

Simon Orr, I have little faith in any government scheme, they are usually so badly run and access is not always easy. I accept the point on the age issue. We also need real effort and input into the insulation issues and common sense on waste that is endemic in our culture.

The real problem that has been created through lack of any planning for our fuel needs is that we are now paying more for gas and electricity that our other EU fellow travellers, and we lack security of supply.
There is little benefit in belonging to any union where our needs are not met. When Russia turns the tap down we are last in line!

Frank P

Mark Steyn once again implicitly put's the Speccie (and the rest of the MSM) to shame:

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NWI1MDg3ODM4OWU2MDE4MGI2NGU3MWYzNDcxN2RmMjE=