The politically correct James Delingpole

Davieboy

You leave our James alone.....

Oedipus Rex

Trouble is, the film was just too obvious - not good satire. But sense of humour is very individual (sort of cats versus dogs).

I reckon there is a bit more 'political correctness of the right' than is quite admitted. Worth looking into?

John Levett

"...though I don’t see what’s wrong with cutting carbon emissions, regardless of whether you sign up to AGW".

Here's a short list for you, Rod although please note that it's carbon dioxide (and our throats)that 10:10 and the other eco-fascists want us to cut.

1. if it's unneccessary to cut CO2, we don't need to pay vast sums to bankers to destroy our landscape with useless windmills;
2. if it's unneccessary to cut CO2,we don't need to pay £100s ROC charges on our utility bills;
3. if it's unneccessary to cut CO2, we don't have to further encourage our few remaining businesses to head to the more enlightened east where there's plenty of cheap,coal-fired energy;
4. if it's unneccessary to cut CO2, we could exploit our own coal reserves and enjoy cheaper fuel and a period of energy security;
5. if it's unneccessary to cut CO2, we could get rid of all those irritating little green taxes that seem to be added to every transaction these days...

I'm fed up now but you get the picture.

maxsceptic

So I suppose it be OK to show a propaganda film that depicts the blowing up of children who do not wholeheartedly agree with

- homosexuality
- multiculturalism
- the welfare state
- raising/donating money to a trendy charity
- comprehensive education
- equality irrespective of ability
- the absolute truth of the religion of your choice....

Or is this type of humour acceptable and specific only to Climate Change Deniers?

alan campbell

You are so right. Not quite such a cool and wry libertarian after all. Give him another 20 years and it will be impossible to tell the difference between Delingpole and Bruce Anderson. Anderson will probably be funnier.

Forest Fan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfnddMpzPsM

For those of you who haven't seen it.

Absolutely unbelievable!

Edward McLaughlin

Rod, either you or I have the word 'recidivist' wrong. The classroom kids only offend the one time, before they are - in your view hilariously - shredded.

Robert Taggart

Yo, Lupo, how do you feel about this attack upon your hero ? !

Tiberius

I haven't seen this film, but Richard Curtis gets on my pip anyway. He's made the same film at least four times, for goodness' sake. And Blackadder and even Mr Bean were at their best only when Ben Elton was involved in the writing.

As for JD, he's suffering from a common condition which derives from being unable to accept that David Cameron actually knows what he's doing.

porkbelly

Children being blown up and spattering their classmates with blood and gore - who wouldn't laugh themselves silly?

John Holland

Dear Rodney- rare examples of pc of the right? You obviously don't look at Melanie P's site too often, or the Mail, or etc., etc.
As a commie greeny evil plotter, I hated the film because I knew, from bitter experience, that most "Deniers" would explode with joy at the final proof that anyone suggesting a reduction of CO2 emissions LITERALLY wants to KILL EVERYBODY.

Check out Mel's site for the proof that I didn't over-estimate them. PC is not a preserve of the left.

Mitzcici

Maybe he just saw an incredible own goal and started dancing on the touchline!

James Murphy

Can't you meet him, Rod and put him right over an over-priced plate of fish and chips at some recherche joint - say, Bentleys?

Alexandrovich

Perhaps he's just fighting fire with fire.

Frank P

What is this - an incestuous faux controversy? Curtis Schmertis! Give o'er!

normanc

I'm not sure it's PC for someone to say that a film portraying fascists as fascists is unfunny but we all have our own opinions.

JD

Sorry Rod mate, but you're wrong on this...

the 10:10 video is simply the truth (as the libtards see it) wrapped up in a supposed joke. The righteous (for they are many) genuinely think that unbelievers should be killed.

Just look at the ramblings of James Hansen from the 70's when he was just an ordinairy communist and not head of NASA

Mossytoddler

It's not cartoon violence - it's very graphic. It made me think of violence from animal rights activists. I came away from it thinking that these green activists were going the same way. Like, maybe they're not seriously considering doing it, but it clearly gives them pleasure to fantasise about it. Total own goal, of course, and that makes it even more disturbing to watch - it's seriously mentally ill.

Sam Vega

Agreed. I have rarely seen such a confected and forced sense of outrage as over this film. Somewhere out there is an influential right-winger who missed the joke, and started a sycophantic and conformist snowball rolling.

Lee Jakeman

Sorry, Rod. You're talking crap.
James is right to lambast this appalling film.

daniel maris

"Self deprecatingly ironic"? Surely that could only be possible if it were admitted that AGW might possibly be wrong...but the whole point of teh film I thought was to assert that there was no such possibility.

Greg

'Self-depreciating ironic' only works when it comes from a source well known to be so, rather than from a smug, self-righteous source such as the Climate Change lobby. The zealots running the Global Warming campaign aren't exactly Rodney Dangerfield.

Simon Denis

We might have snarled with low, vengeful satisfaction to see the likes of Stern exploding, but we would not have laughed.

Laughter, contrary to much contemporary opinion, is essentially non-aggressive. The moment there is the hint of a sneer, the merest whiff of hatred, genuine mirth is extinguished. This is why so much that passes for "comedy" today is in fact depressingly dull. Think of the smug monsters of "alternative" comedy and compare them with the various drolls and clowns who once adorned our stage in paradoxically gracious clumsiness. Frankie Howerd, Tommy Cooper, Billy Dainty - the first people they laughed at - implicitly - were themselves. By implication, the same is true of Dame Edna - able to poke fun precisely because "herself" absurd. A self-consciously smooth git like Jimmy Carr cannot poke fun because he is unwilling to be ridiculous. He shimmers on to the stage and leads the audience in a sneerfest, in which their own secret opinions are doubtless roasted. Do they feel uplifted or forgiven or understood in the wake of such an experience? I think not. And yet such is the essential job of comedy, to expose and revel in our common human frailty and to turn the tables on the moral and the ideal by judging them - by weighing them in the balance, by measuring them against a standard of reality.

It is an essentially hard left conception of comedy as moralising hatred which condemned this beneficial jollity. So jokes which played about with the notion or circumstance of racial difference were deemed "racist" and effectively banned. How wrong! How horrible and priggish! Hearing Benny Hill or Peter Ustinov imitating German or Chinese accents did not stir up hatred for either Germany or China. It merely drew attention to the preposterous effects arising from their endeavours to speak English, without in any way detracting from those efforts.

You only have to look at the way in which Kenneth Williams is pastiched and contrast it with the great original to see the loss of warmth - yes, warmth - which comedy has suffered in the last thirty years. This is something on which it is difficult to theorise, but a direct comparison should make it plain.

This, then, was the weakness in Delingpole's argument. He deferred to the notion of "comedy" from which you, Mr Liddle, begin. The Curtis advertisement was truly a hideous, frightening, intolerant and despicable outrage, precisely because it confused laughter with self righteous hatred in a hard left way. It was W.H.Auden who pointed out that comic violence to be funny must not on any account be realistic. To laugh in the presence of pain or of well simulated pain shows an evil want of feeling. I repeat, an evil want of feeling. The truth of this was borne out for me when watching a modernistic production of a Feydeau farce some years ago in which the casual slapping and kicking doled out to various buffoons was made into deliberately disturbing injury. It killed the sense of fun stone dead.

I am surprised that, with what I have always seen as your feeling for common humanity, you do not see this, Mr Liddle.

Kate Powell

I disagree. When I first saw No Pressure, I thought it had been made by opponents of the Climate Change Brigade, opponents who were bravely expressing what many of us have been thinking--that these people are like Nazis.

Baron

you have a sick sense of humor if you find the film funny

ferdi

I would like to think that I have a keen sense of humor. But I saw nothing funny in the film and was puzzled by them. I mean I just returned from a pleasure trip. Took my mother-in-law to the airport.

Kennybhoy

Mossytoddler.

"It made me think of violence from animal rights activists..."

Precisely so.

Kennybhoy

First the dog's dinner that was "Rotterdammerung" and now this piece of nonsense. Are you up for a job with some libtard rag again Maister Liddle?

Jimmock

No Rod, JD has been hilarious on this nasty film. It's the context, stupid: blowing people up as the last refuge of totalitarians with their arguments in tatters. The film is indefensible; a blunderous ploy; a risible own goal. Why would Delingpole not rub their noses in it?

Jimmock

And plus, it's not a good idea to encourage pigs%*t thick environmental fanatics to commit terrorist acts.
as Michelle malkin points out here:
http://takimag.com/article/the_green_war_on_children
'Passionate' eco warriors have been conducting a homicidal campaign against certain scientists for some time.

Ordnance

If the children in the video had been Muslin what would the reaction of the Left be?

Eddie

I think some people object to the gore of this film (no problem with watching spoilt brats being blown up myself though - could watch it all day actually!) but others, rightly, object to the way this new green religion is being forced onto us all by the high priests of green hypocrisy.

The message is: either you agree that so-called 'climate change' is all man-made and will be solved by reducing carbon emissions, or you're worse than a nazi! History and science show that Man's activities are at most amplifying natural and constant climate change.

So I find the lies spouted by the priests of the church of green offensive and stupid and wrong. It's eco-bullying!

The best thing anyone can do for the climate is to NOT have children. I believe Richard Curtis has spawned four...children, that is, not massively overrated sentimental emo-porn girl movies...(I think there's five of them...)

Let's face it - this little film was probably made with the intention of being banned and get all the free marketing eh... Well worth a watch online then. At least it can't be as dull as Richard Curtis's usual upper middle class hand-wringing self-obsessed whinings...

normanc

I'm not sure you've understood his article in which he basically says the piece is badly thought out and not in the least funny. (As an aside, if the piece genuinely is funny why did the website pull it then pursue a takedown policy? I don't recall Monty Python doing this)

Take any of the examples from maxsceptics list earlier in the thread and imagine the reaction from effected group. It would be 'This film is a disgrace, it offends us, the maker should be thrown in jail / beheaded / banned from ever making a film again / whatever'. That is political correctness.

JD saying 'This film is not only unfunny, they have foolishly let the mask slip' and rejoicing at this slip is not.

EyeSee

Context Rod, context. The reason it cannot possibly be funny is because the underlying ideology actually believes something like this would be OK. Why is it that key subjects in science cannot be challenged? The Theory of evolution is now touted as no such thing, it is irrefutable fact and no debate is allowed. Same with AGW. It is scientifically clear that CO2 is not the cause of any global climate change, just as it is true that our understanding of climate is still too primitive to know what does cause climate change. We don't know why it changed in the past, let alone what will happen in the future. It is why we are not allowed to debate it. There is no substance to the theory, but it is supported by two very different groups. There are the dreamy idealists who haven't gotten past the adolescent phase and the money men. The likes of Al Gore rabbit on about climate change, including bare faced lies and all the while are deeply involved in the carbon trading scam -his real interest. And the con seeps in everywhere. You called the problem 'carbon' Rod. Even the Warmists aren't claiming carbon is the problem, but carbon dioxide. They are just calling it carbon because it paints a better picture for those they seek to confuse. So, when you have no particular argument on your side, you win by being the most aggressive. It seems that the rationalists are not in fact the Holocaust deniers they are claimed to be, but rather the next inmates of those who wish they had the camps to get rid of the subhumans who don't agree with them. Funny the way modern movements seem to want mass extermination isn't it (Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot)? Well, when I say funny.....

rod liddle

But violent death is often used for comedy; the Chris Morris film, for example, had me laughing a lot. I accept the narrower point, that richard Curtis is a smug git.

rod liddle

Actually, while we're on with it, let me tell you what had me howling with laughter late last night, when I watched Dambusters for the first time in forty years. It was the scene in the tense ops room as they waited to hear the codeword the successful demolition of the dams. Absolute silence, everyone looking scared and worried and trepidatious. The phone rings, the bespectacled operator looks around the room with a huge grin on his face and shouts; "Its NIGGER! IT's NIGGER!" Everyone cheers.

Stuart Seacole Smith

The idea of the "PC of the right" is an interesting one.

I'm not sure it's truly analogous though, as what seems to be meant by it is rather the orthodoxies/ received wisdoms of the right.

The difference from Political Correctness as many might understand it, is that PC has been a deliberate attempt to take a certain set orthodoxies and make any objection to them somehow socially unacceptable. To my mind at least, this has mostly been the work of the left.

And on the sense of humour point, anyone who's had the misfortune to spend any time around hairy arsed lefty hooman rights/ wimmins rights/ workers rights gits knows exactly how much humour to expect from them.

DougS

Like Kate Powell, I too was well into the video before I realised that it wasn't aimed at the AGW lobby. The exploders came over as stupid, pathetic and ridiculous. How could Curtis have believed that a piece of rubbish like that could assist the eco-nutters' cause?

It's a mistake to try and take JD on over this one - unless of course you've got the backing of the 'hard men' at '10:10', using their two-fingered knuckle-duster symbol!

anne allan

Remember that a message has to be repeated seven times before your average Jo actually absorbs it.
So JD has to underline the basic message - Greenies hate human beings far more than they love the planet - several times for that fact to be realised.

Edward McLaughlin

ferdi

She'll only find her way back. They always do.

Eddie

Are you sure you heard that line on The Dambusters Rod?

I thought the PC gestapo at the beeb had made THAT WORD verbotten. I am sure I read somewhere that they'd cut the end scene where Nigger (the dog) gets run over - a bit silly if true because that was the mutt's name in real life! Maybe the code word was so central to the plot they couldn;t wipe it completely! Best the man at the end didn't shout 'Nigger! Nigger! Where are you Nigger?!' at the end of the film though!

But anyway, the BBC has (wrongly in my opinion) cut a lot of archive stuff for PC reasons in a rather Stalinist way - so no episode of the Goon Show that was called The Coon Show in in the archive - which actually took the mickey out of white British colonials anyway! And no scene in Only Fools and Horses when Del says to a worried-looking Rodney that after a nuclear Holocaust they won;t starve because 'there's bound to be a Paki shop open somewhere'.

Surely PC is both left and right, though? Anyone can be a sanctimonious puritanical self-righteous prat, after all!

Stuart Seacole Smith

Eddie 12.06: if you think about it, I doubt you would define Political Correctness in terms relating only to the idea that "...Anyone can be a sanctimonious puritanical self-righteous prat, after all!"... would you?

If only it were true that PC attitudes were limited to sanctimonious prat-dom, it wouldn't be a problem if that were the case.

But it's a much harder to pin down, and much more insidious phenomenon than that. It ends up stifling debate, and aggressively seeks to make people afraid of voicing their opinions on various verboten, but important, themes.

And despite Rod's interesting attempt to suggest that this is a six of one and half a dozen of the other sot of thing to the left and the right, I remain to be convinced.

And for the record, I didn't think Curtis' 10-10 film was funny. Just a bit stupid and unpleasant. But each to his own I suppose.

John Holland

To all the people here who believe the Greens are homocidal Fascist thugs, and it seems to be most of you, what do you think of the regular death-threats that many climate scientists (Nazis, I know) receive?

I imagine the response is either that they're lying about them, or that they deserve them for, er, being Nazis.

Take a look at a US anti-AGW site sometime, and you'll see what blind dumb hatred is.
Of course you all can, and no doubt will, insist that it's a clear divide between decent, kind and honest sceptics and psycopathic, sneering and hateful eco-terrorists (including David "worse than Hitler" Attenborough); it is this idiotic blind partisanship, this dumb "my side/your side" tripe that makes 99.9% of AGW posts so tediously pointless.

Why don't you throw rotten fruit at your computers, it's more fun.

Dr Michael Grave

Mr Liddle

Sometimes (though not often) you are really thick.

Fred Taylor

I quite approve of 10:10 but I really hated the film. Seemed sick to me. But to each his own (sigh) ...

toad

James is 'one of the funniest writers in the country' and 'a good mate of yours', but you beg to differ over 'that film'' I, personally found it rather nasty and unfunny. Had it been Mobiot and Stern it would still not have been funny, though slightly more satisfying. Your article was not an 'ad hom' on James but was designed to elicit 'comment', in this you have succeeded admirably and I trust that James, whose very popular DT blog has 'comment' as its lifeblood, will see it that way.

Jonathan Anthony

Nah. You missed the point there Rod....

No Pressure is all about the rather nasty - not to mention Nazi - idea that if you don't agree with us, a bloody death is too good for you. Even if you're 10 years old. Hilarious. And only an organisation as hideously self-righteous as 10:10 would get it so wrong by making such a film.

The film must have been directed with a Polanskian subtlety because I for one didn't see an ounce of self-deprecation there. What I did see was, a woefully unfunny, horribly smug vanity project by Curtis & Co. that backfired horribly.

Don't forget, regardless of James' supposed spleen, the real outrage came from climate activists who saw the whole enterprise as an horrendous own-goal. Which is why they took it down.

'Mr' Oedipus Rex

@ John Holland

Good post - this is where the 'right wing PC' label becomes appropriate.
If we want to categorise PC as being self-righteous, humourless, having an inability to challenge your own assumptions, obsessed with language, obsessed with race, and so on & on, it exists fervently in certain right wing schools of thought. The manifestation of the two (left and right) is akin to a Rorsach blot - opposed but mirroring each other.
The 10:10 film was crass in my opinion but I don't find AGW proponents much more intolerant than the nay sayers (particularly when either or both of the camps have little or no specialised scientific knowledge)
As for humour, it's almost laughable when someone who disagrees resorts to the 'Mr Liddle' pomposity of address.

Tom B

Well I suppose some folk are trying to save Curtis' blushes by claiming this was all terribly ironic, not to be taken seriously, etc. Sorry, not buying it. The Greenies are an interfering menace much of the time. The film was dreadful, patronising and intolerant in its message, so to hell with them.

Delingpole is right to take offence.

Daniel Lionsden

Nice piece of trolling, mr Liddle. Your best yet.
You managed to persuade even the sceptics here that you actually meant the twaddle you wrote.

TheClitheroeEuclid

Rod, please leave Boy Delingpole alone. This unpleasant film deserves all the criticism it gets.
And in the near future, when you're being prodded by a man in a military uniform with a big stick to stand up for the EU anthem, you'll regret not complaining as loudly and as long as possible about everything these devious crooks are getting up to.

John Steadman

Rod, don't you think that since we are being destroyed - by the second - by political correctness of the Left, it is a bit of an indulgence to waste a good column on the supposed political correctness of the Right?
My roots are Geordie and Labour - but I feel the time has come to abandon tribal loyalty, and even even-handedness, to rail against the excesses of the loony liberal ascendancy. So let's give this Curtis stuff a good kicking, "self-deprecating" irony - whatever that means - aside.

Dr Kevin Law

John Holland suggests 99.9% of posts on AGW are pointless (ie he hates it because we 'deniers' wont accept the warmists argumnents and lies at face value)

so here's an idea john - stop posting your pro AGW diatribes. then thats one less pointless AGW post i will have to read.

Erasmus de F.

It is a sick person who finds any humor in blowing up school kids who don't follow the party line regarding global warming...climate change...climage disruptions. I did however find the picture of Rod Liddle hillarious.

rod liddle

Daniel Lionsden: thank you for your post. I don't remotely understand what you're talking about. Why not have a quiet night in with your missus? Just take it easy, kick your heels back a bit.

The rest: As I say, I like JD enormously and consider him a good friend. I just think, on this issue, he - and most of you - are being po-faced for political reasons.

Banana Wrangler

Rod you are entitled to your opinion about the 10:10 film and James Delingpoles sense of humour.
However he did say you support Millwall, I'm sorry but that was too much for me Millwall of all teams, there is little hope for you I'm afraid.

Amanda Has Alligators

Porkbelly and Mossytoddler are right on, spot on, bang on. Every other kind of on.

Rod is wrong.

Ding dong!

Edward McLaughlin

A couple of posters here make the case that PC is a tendency which is just as prevalent in right quarters as it is in the left.

It isn't. It is wholly a product of the left which, having recognised it as a defunct process, is keen to try and distance itself from any responsibility.

There are of course ways of thinking which the right espouses, but these have always been offered, never insisted upon people.

No doubt, 'Son of PC' is on a leftist drawing board right now.

Michael Roberts

Greg, 11.20 last night.

'self depreciating'. Thank you.

I thought it was just me.

Pedant and proud.

Pete Davies

I completely agree

He howled like toddler for weeks over one slightly tasteless video.

His stable of paranoid right wing morons that he keeps below his Telgraph Blog pronounced it to be some sort of startling revalation of the existence of a violent eco-fascist conspiracy - rather than a silly joke.

Utter over-reaction, and it has greatly lessened my respect for JD

Amanda Has Alligators

Pete Davies:
1) I doubt that your respect for Delingpole can have been very high in the first place;
2) I suspect he can live without your respect.
Cheers!

maddy1

@eyesee The Theory of evolution is now touted as no such thing, it is irrefutable fact and no debate is allowed

Eyesee surely you can distinguish between one of the greatest theorems the world has ever seen and AGW. They call it a theorem for scientific politeness sake but we will be waiting a long time for its demise!

biggestaspidistra

The film exposes the fascism of the left. No-one's surprised by the fascism of the right.

Steve

The film wasn't funny - FACT!

Although I agree that the outrage by JD etc is misjudged or even possibly feigned for effect. It should just be simply said that Richard Curtis can't do South Park type humour. I don't know why Rod Liddle thinks he can, maybe because he lives in Media London and there is some sort of collective brain rot going on there? Just listen to most of the new R4 'comedy' shows that get commisioned for the 6:30 slot to realise it. I thought 10:10 was about as funny as Jim Daivdson, that is to say not funny at all. I'll be the first to admit my lack of guffawing empathy may come from snobbish disdain of the class of people involved in both cases.

Hugh Davis

Not my comment, but JD's:
".. The sad thing here is that both Liddle and Gilligan are journalists I very much admire: proper, courageous, counterintuitive journalists who do their research, are never afraid to speak truth to power and write with verve and conviction. One day, I’m sure, they’ll come round to appreciate what many readers of this blog already do – that the Climate Change circus represents possibly the greatest outbreak of mass hysteria in history, that it’s probably the worst pseudoscientific scandal in history and that it’s being used as an excuse to impose on us the biggest bill in history. It’s a story that is worth proper investigation and the sooner the cause of truth and justice has the likes of Liddle and Gilligan fully onside, the better for us all".

EyeSee

maddy1. Evolution as Darwin has it has a lot of flaws, but people like Dawkins don't want any debate because they use it as a plank to 'prove' that God is non-existent and their religion is right. Think about it; evolution by adaptation, it doesn't work. It is clear that animals would die out waiting for the correct adaptation. Darwin's study of finches says it all. Some grew stronger beaks due to competition for food. Grew stronger beaks, or some were accidentally born with stronger beaks and that was the clincher? I believe in evolution all right, just not the complete Darwin. I think there is a feedback mechanism that allows a necessary change to occur quickly, almost as if it becomes coded into the DNA for subsequent generations, a bit like instinct. I rant a bit to myself on this on seedfeeder.blogspot.com if you are interested.

Wily Seacole Trout

BORING .... can we have a new blog now please?

Old Slaughter

"faux left libtard bien pensant arseholes who swarm around the internet like sea lice around a sewage outlet pipe"

If I get nothing else from this day on Earth it will still be a good one.

Old Slaughter

Rod,

I am glad that somebody I consider an ally has made this point. Some, who normally delight in humour and bad taste, have been a little precious about this one. People who rail against the modern love affair with 'offence' claim to be offended.

However, I am not sure JD is really doing that.

I cannot claim to be an expert on comedy, although I do realise that Richard Curtis' ability to write a gag in inversely proportional to his age. But there was simply no gag there.

"But violent death is often used for comedy"
Yes it is, usually as some form of joke though. Not simply that the violent death in itself is funny for its own sake. Problem with the 10:10 thing was that there was no joke other than, 'no pressure' but really there is pressure because they will kill you. Ha ha. It is not only school boy, but it is from a very unfunny school boy.

There was no irony, no secondary let alone tertiary meaning. It was based solely on the comfy notion that the orthodoxy is so obvious that anyone not following it was disposable.

Chris Morris is indeed a master of poor taste, but he is satirising the same comfy nonsense you so expertly dismantle so often.

The reason I find the 10:10 thing so infuriating, and I do, is that it is so self-assured that its audiance will all think one way and that expectation is a given. It reminds me once again that so often those claiming to fight prejudice the loudest are so often the most blind to their own prejudices.

Richard Curtis has not been funny for a decade and I am sure the next comic relief will once again prove it.

PS: I await the dog scenes in the Dambusters remake with interest.

John Holland

Dr Kevin- you prove my point dismally well.
I havn't posted any "pro-AGW rants"; all I've done (here anyway) is try to question the hysterical and blinkered nature of so many of these posts, i.e., the constant suggestion that intolerance, scientific ignorance and sneering are to be found only on the 'enemy',pro-AGW, side.

The fact that you see this as me "hating it when we don't accept the lies at face value" just illustrates how incapable you seem to be of treating the issue as anything more than a dumb scrap. Have you ever read a "sceptic" post, no matter how idiotic, that you didn't agree with?

You're right about one thing- I should stop wasting my time here and leave you to the simple satisfactions of your conspiracy theories and your persecution complex.

GaryO

Is James Delingpole somebody important? When did this happen?

Anyway, the whole AGM business is crap. Can we now move on please.

John Holland

EyeSee- isn't your idea essentially Lamarkism?
The theory that adaptive changes in an individual, e.g. increased muscle mass or a stronger beak (can a beak become stronger?) will become encoded in the DNA seems unlikely somehow- I guess I should read your blog.

I don't understand why, though, this affects Dawkin's atheism one way or the other.

Bill Rees

Rod, you wrote, "I saw the film and thought it quite funny, and nicely done and even self-deprecatingly ironic."

I saw it, and was Delingpoled. Maybe I'm not very bright, but can you explain how it was "quite funny" and "self-deprecatingly ironic."

I just didn't get it, for humour reasons, I hasten to add, rather than political ones.

Or can we get Mr Curtis on this website, or even into the Speccy, to explain what he was up to on this occasion.

Amanda Has Alligators

John Holland sez: ...makes 99.9% of AGW posts so tediously pointless.

Interesting how someone supposedly too superior to throw the baby out with the bath water does just exactly that. Nearly 100% of posts, John? Why -- have you read 'em all? If you claim to hate the extremism of kettles then try not to sound like the pot.

eyesee

@John Holland

Dawkins uses the Theory of Evolution as a support for his contention that God doesn't exist as it proves there is no need for a creator. He doesn't feel it is HIS atheism, it is that you are wrong if have a religious belief, and he is evangelical in his fervour. Which is where the similarity to the AGW nutters comes in.

Oedipus Rex

Edward McLaughlin - "There are of course ways of thinking which the right espouses, but these have always been offered, never insisted upon people."

Nearly choked on my chips reading that!
Try taking up John Holland's suggestion and visit some right wing websites - maybe start with those in the USA. What you'll see is not some sort of genteel 'offering' of considered opinion; rather rabid and vitriolic hate, threats of violence, and so on, all totally imbecilic and humorless.

Closer to home, I have had to tolerate patronising and sneering condescension from cloth headed, usually privately educated, right wing dick heads who believe that having just about grasped the laws of supply & demand are in a position to hold forth on the greater meaning of life. It, 'Right PC', has different content but is in effect the same problematic characteristics as 'Left PC'

As I posted before:
PC shows "an inability to challenge your own assumptions".

Try it sometime.

John Holland

Amanda- yes, it was an exaggeration.
It's maybe 10% less. Maybe more, who knows.
If you think that is comparable to the relentless equating on this site of those arguing for a reduction of CO2 emissions to the perpetrators of the Holocaust, then you've proved me wrong.

Sorry for lacking a sense of proportion.

Amanda Has Alligators

Actually, John, in my experience the hysterical slanderous cry of 'Holocaust denier' comes from a fanatic or two equating it with 'AGW denial'. Skeptics and AGW whistleblowers never even mention the Holocaust, as it has no relevance whatsoever to the questions of whether a) human activity has a significant effect on world temperatures; b) those temperatures in turn have a significant effect on life on Earth; c) there is any feasible non-crippling action the West could take if a) and b) were true, with a certainty of remedying a) and b). The answer to all these questions is 'No'. For giving such an answer, the Left and the pro-faux-AGW camp want to vilify us.

John Holland

EyeSee- yes, I see that Dawkins' atheism and his evolutionary ideas are co-determining, I just don't understand why your variation of evolutionary theory should be any less amenable to atheism.

As for Dawkins' similarity to AGW "nutters", you could also, daringly, compare his evangelicalism to, er, religious Evangelicals. You know, the reasonable, rational folk who don't just say you're wrong for disagreeing, they condemn you to an eternity in Hell.

As usual, though, that would threaten to cloud the nice "my side = fair-minded and lovely, your side = dribbling evil psycho" narrative. Which would be no fun at all.

Osred

Yippee! -2 tonight and we're on course for a winter of top sledging fun.

Baron

and another thing Rod, shall I tell you what’s wrong with your “I don’t see what’s wrong with cutting carbon emissions, regardless of whether you sign up to AGW’?

human activity, driving, flying, steel bashing, cooking and the rest of the stuff generating CO2 account for FOUR percent of the planet’s aggregate carbon discharge. Do you hear this? Just 4 miserly percent. If we all dropped dead, the seven billion of us, the reduction in the CO2 release would be barely noticed.

to suggest that we should all cut 10% of the 4% i.e. to lower our carbon footprint to 3.6% will do a fat lot of good to anything, it’s on the margins, it’s noise. Our blowing against a hurricane would be more productive that the idiocy of 10-10.

what frightens ain’t that some freak somewhere came up with the idea, but that so many others subscribe to it. Madness, undiluted, wholesale madness.

Frank P

Well Rodders, you and James got the necessary hits with this piece of 'controversy'. Now stop taking the piss and you can share the cost of the next round.

EyeSee

@John Holland
At the risk of turning Rod's blog into personal correspondence, yes I agree everyone who insists they are right is a problem. I like being 'right' as much as the next man but only if what I say stands up. I call AGW nutters by this full name, referring only to the ones who do not allow debate or contrary views, not those who just have a point of view and will discuss it. Dawkins similarly cannot content himself with being an atheist, he must insult and demean those who believe in God. Me, I can't be sure so I don't pontificate.

I hadn't heard of Lamarckism, so have done a little research. Very interesting. My own thoughts were just that, based on what little I know not stacking up with what I'm told is correct and not debatable, any more. I don't know much, but like to think of myself as a curious person (something that others take wrong I feel, in confirming).

John Holland

Amanda- the answer isn't "no", it's "I don't think it is".
As for the holocaust, I agree that the term 'denier' is pretty repugnent. But just scan the posts- references to Greens as Nazis are standard; someone on Mel. Phillip's blog recently compared the situation of 'sceptics' (a silly word also for people so often rippling with certainty) to that of the Jews in Hitler's Germany.
So all calm and rational thought there, then.

EyeSee- no doubt you read that Lamarck was Stalin's favoured evolutionary theorist. Not a good sign for the religeous angle.

Edward McLaughlin

Oedipus Rex

The leftist PC brigade is an institution, the like of which has no right wing equivalent.

Try as much as you like to invent an ameliorating balance - there isn't one. Ask anyone the simple question: 'List 5 things which are PC'

Tot up every return which you could call right wing. It won't take you very long.

PC belongs to, and is a product of, the Left. And I hope they have a very happy retirement.

EyeSee

John Holland - and so we are back to the subject Rod started with. That Lamarck was favoured by Stalin has no bearing on Lamarck. The AGW nutters similarly seek to pervert ideas that may have started innocently elsewhere. Indeed it is clear many of their goals and objectives echo Stalin by method. PC however, is just a Marxist idea to ban debate.

Bill Corr

When will someone make a comedy clip about chuckling Big Oil executives drowning baby polar bears one by one?

Now, THAT would be funny!

Readers, search out 'Al Gore's Penguin Army' on YouTube and reflect that this leaden-footed and not-at-all-clever spoof was actually paid for by our environmentally-conscious and deeply-caring chums at ... BIG OIL!

I write as a sceptical Climate Change Denier and may Gaia have mercy on my soul.

smiley ken

what's wrong with cutting carbon dioxide emissions is that they are a proxy for energy prices. We have socialised our labour force to the point where they no longer compete internationally in most heavy industry and manufacturing processes. Now the climate wackos have legislated for us to have the world's highest energy prices (wait, Scotland's will be higher).
THAT'S what's wrong with it. DOH!!
That's why us deniers want to see the evidence. Why don't you?

maddy1

@EyeSee
October 19th, 2010 11:12am

Fair enough Eyesee, no offence intended!

SusanHill

Of course a film showing children being blown up, for whatever reason, is not FUNNY.How could such a thing conceivably be so? Never mind the rubbish spewed out by luvvies like Curtis,never mind the eco-fascists.. well, for the moment never mind them. James was absolutely right and the vast majority of people who saw the film did not think it funny either.

rod liddle

But I thought it WAS funny, SusanHill, so where does that leave you?

Iestyn Tyddyn Adi

You disgust me Rod

RalphieGM

Let's make funny of terrorists holding your kids hostage then blowing them up. Actually happened in Russia. So it's not funny at all.

Martin A

Yes, a teacher killing young children who did not concur with her views by exploding them.

Absolutely hilarious!

And calling kids who don't buy into the teacher's baloney "recidivist"? Do you even know what the word means?

Lysistrata

“No Pressure” really was not funny, Rod. And one can be a left wing libertarian, my dear, and still find it not funny. What has happened to your thinking? I am worried about you.

I have been considering why I first thought this piece of shit must be satire, (and incidentally comparing it with the previous “Ciggy Busters” piece of shit). And why I was so convinced that it must be a joke that I stepped in to post a warning to some friends who were taking it seriously. And why I was that very fool I warned against.

Both short films are claimed by their makers to be very funny, both are claimed to be “edgy” and modern and have shock value, and both are supposed to be challenging behavioural norms using humour. However, both also have a driving single-issue message behind them which the makers believe in, and which single message appears to be unrelated to any wider moral or political experience or viewpoint. They just can’t see that others may have a valid but different point of view. Excusable and understandable in the youngsters who were led to make Ciggy Busters, but unforgivable in the adults behind No Pressure. And boy, has it backfired on them.

So what was the problem? How did I read the film so wrongly when I watched it?

I think the answer is that I watched it as a lifelong anti-authoritarian and libertarian, with a long cultural history of watching satirical creations from “Oh What a Lovely War” and “If” through to “Bird and Fortune” and even “The Mighty Boosh” and online “The Daily Mash”. I expect satire to challenge the status quo and figures in authority who claim to be better than us. It can also be self-mocking, which single-issue people are seldom able to be. Ciggy Busters obviously didn’t do this, and No Pressure didn’t do this either. But I thought originally it did.

So, we go straight to the opening scene of “No Pressure”, of a classroom with the authority figure of a rather gushing teacher with a cliched script psychologically bullying her pupils into toeing the latest eco-line. This had me instinctively on the side of the kids and chuckling at how well the filmmakers had done to get that type of passive-aggressive slightly hysterical teacher so wickedly right. And then when the minority of kids refused to be bullied and to put their hands up, I thought “good for them!”. And when the teacher then blew up the non-compliant pupils, I thought - wow, that’s really edgy, that is showing the true colours of this supposedly liberal do-gooder.

The following scene, with the northern football coach who won’t have his authority challenged, echoed this absolutely, and didn’t change my mind.

And the next scene where the boss harangues his workers with the most brilliant parody of management-speak since Drop the Dead Donkey, and again his smiley passive-aggressive stance, had me in hoots. And sure enough, he too showed his true colours by blowing up the minority of staff who weren’t too frightened to agree with him.

The final newsreader scene, ok, I get the joke by now. But hey, it uses Gillian Anderson. Too good to waste. But they do!

Very funny. Excellent parody, I thought. Lot of money put into it too - good scripts, excellent film technique, flawless sound quality. I agree totally with someone who posted amongst the hundreds of t’interweb comments that “It’s almost like a Chris Morris satire on Climate Changer Campaigners!”.

And - it wasn’t satire? WTF?

You see, proper satire would have shown Richard Curtis speaking dreadfully earnestly and in cliches straight to camera about carbon reduction. It would have cut away occasionally to show the type of car he drove up in. It would have shown loving aerial shots of his three houses, and of him and several of his glamorously edgy luvvie friends revving up their 4x4s. It would have shown Gillian Anderson learning her lines while saying “You really want me to say this shit?” while lounging by her various swimming pools, and flying round America, and importing expensive non-animal-tested face creams from Tibet. It would have shown photos of the members of Radiohead as schoolboys when they attended Abingdon School, an exclusive boys-only public school in Oxfordshire....

...well, you get the idea. Now THAT’S funny. That’s satire. That's showing us against them.

Rod, what's happened to your mind?

Lungfish

@lystrata- slightly confused, but go on.