This is an interesting analysis of the laws and behind the scenes posturing related to Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth and broadcasting rules. Lest anyone ever think that Wikipedian William Connolley limited his political activism to hacking climate related Wikipedia pages, this should dispell that idea. – Anthony
How the broadcasting regulator sidestepped An Inconvenient Truth
This story begins with Ofcom, the public authority that enforces broadcasting legislation in the UK, telling me that Al Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth (AIT) is not a ‘factual documentary’, and ends with them deciding that climate change – the subject of the film – is not a matter relating to current public policy. You may well wonder how this could have happened, and it will take some time to explain.
To start with, we need to go back to March 2007, when Channel 4 broadcast a film called The Great Global Warming Swindle (GGWS). This was Martin Durkin’s take on the arguments underlying global warming scepticism and it caused a furore in the environmental movement. In response, a group of warmist scientists and activists, including Sir John Houghton, William Connolly, Joe Smith, and Bob Ward, lodged a 176 page complaint with Ofcom. After sixteen months of deliberation, the regulator published a decision that made a couple of token criticisms of the film, but threw out most of the grounds for complaint. The warmists were very disappointed, but the decision made sense.
There were two sections of the Broadcasting Code, that GGWS risked falling foul of:
Section 2: Harm and Offence
2.2 Factual programmes or items or portrayals of factual matters must not materially mislead the audience.Section 5: Due Impartiality and Due Accuracy and Undue Prominence of Views and Opinions:
5.11 In addition to the rules above, due impartiality must be preserved on matters of major political and industrial controversy and major matters relating to current public policy by the person providing a service (listed above) in each programme or in clearly linked and timely programmes. (emphasis added)
5.12 In dealing with matters of major political and industrial controversy and major matters relating to current public policy an appropriately wide range of significant views must be included and given due weight in each programme or in clearly linked and timely programmes. Views and facts must not be misrepresented. (emphasis added)
Although Ofcom identified a minor error in one of the graphs used in the film – which was immediately corrected by the filmmakers before future distribution – they had no quarrel where Section 2.2 of the Code was concerned.
Concerning Section 5.11 and 5.12, Ofcom decided that, as it was clear to the audience that the opinions on climate change expressed in the film were those of a minority who took issue with mainstream, viewers had not been misled. They did find that the final section of the film, which explored the policy implications of assuming that anthropogenic global warming is taking place, had breached the Code to the extent of not providing ‘an appropriately wide range of significant views’.
The warmist media and blogoshere were horrified by Ofcom’s failure to slate The Great Global Warming Swindle, but Channel 4 was obviously relieved and launched a damage limitation exercise. In an interview soon after the decision was published, Hamish Mykura of Channel 4 announced that they would broadcast Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth as soon as it became available for television. That really interested me.
If the complaint against The Great Global Warming Swindle was rather flimsy, in spite of it’s great length and the vast team that had been put together to draft it, a devastating indictment of AIT already existed from a quite unimpeachable source; a judgement in the High Court. This established that AIT appeared to present the mainstream views on climate change accurately and impartially, but did not in fact do so, a very different matter from GGWS made no secret of where it stood in the climate debate.
If the film was broadcast without either substantial editing or providing additional output that would balance its propagandist content, then there would be a gross breach of the Broadcasting Code that Ofcom would be unable to ignore. Or so I thought.
Usually, when members of the public complain about a broadcast, they are relying on their interpretation of the programme’s content. In their view the broadcast was misleading, biased, inaccurate, unfair, obscene or offensive in some way, to the extent that it infringed the Broadcasting Code. On the other hand, the broadcaster is likely to argue that their programme was none of these things. Ofcom’s duty, as set out in legislation, is to reach an impartial and objective view of the programme content based on the available evidence, and then decide whether the Broadcasting Code has been complied with. No one would suggest that this is always an easy task, but in the case of AIT it should have been, for the following reason.
In early 2007, when hysteria surrounding the findings of the IPPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report on climate change was at it’s height, the Department of Education and Skills and DEFRA jointly issued a press release announcing that AIT was to be sent to every secondary school in England for use as a teaching aid. Subsequently, a school governor called Stuart Dimmock applied for Judicial Review of this decision in the High Court as he was concerned that the film contravened the terms of the Education Acts 1986 and 1996 (the Education Acts) which quite rightly ban the ‘promotion of partisan political views’ in schools, and also requires that when ‘political issues are brought to the attention of pupils’ then, so far as possible, they must ‘be offered a balanced presentation of opposing views’.
No one who has seen AIT could seriously suggest that it is anything other than a ‘partisan’ film, and that it does not even attempt to offer ‘a balanced presentation of opposing views’. So to this extent, the judgement handed down by Mr Justice Burton in October 2007 was not surprising. He found that showing the film in schools must be a breach of the Education Acts unless Guidance Notes were issued to teachers to ensured that pupils were made aware of the purpose of the film, and that it contained misleading information about the scientific evidence for man-made global warming. In reaching this decision it was necessary for Mr Justice Burton to consider the film’s content in some detail, and his findings were clearly set out in his judgement. These were unambiguous and damning.
Read the rest at Harmless Sky:
How the broadcasting regulator sidestepped An Inconvenient Truth
Marc Bolan sang “You can’t fool the children of the revolution” and he was right.
I was born in 1967(the summer of love) and think AGW is a load of crap.
Using the theory of reverse psychology.Whatever AGW garbage teachers choose to throw at kids,they will often adopt the opposite opinion.
Nothing like a greased up middle age man in a suit(Al Gore) to put kids off a subject.
“blogoshere”, well some need the wool sheared from their eyes, but I don’t think that’s what you intended.
I was appalled when it was suggested then implemented as compulsory veiwing for schoolchildren here in Australia. But the more I thought about it, the better it seemed. There is still a healthy distrust of authority here and when such an obviously biased propaganda piece makes the rounds there will be an inevitable backlash of resentment. In the short term it is worrisome but I think in the long term their exaggerations and inaccuracies will be an inconvenient thorn in their side.
(and not to be a grammar denier, but you also have ‘IPPCC’ in there)
I am, at present, half-way through the saga that TonyN endured. To say that it is Kafkaesque as well as daunting leads me to conclude that TonyN is somewhat masochistic or one stubborn SOB. Either way, I continue to read of his travails with interest and am in no way surprised by the priggish and obtuse manner in which his more than reasonable requests were handled by the broadcasting bureaucracy.
I am looking forward to learning of a successful conclusion to his endeavors but I fear that the ending will not be to my liking.
Thanks WUWT for illuminating the condition. ‘AIT’ is still openly touted, here, by the current Scottish Government as an endorsed ‘resource’ deemed representative not only of the ‘science’, but a keystone for national (and UK) energy policy. Such is the determination of future policy that some £200 billion is forecast spend for the switch to ‘renewables’ – chiefly on/offshore wind – over the ensuing decade. The European Union headlong drive towards de-carbonisation is signed-off, whilst we increasingly rely upon Russian-derived trans-nationally piped gas.
Energy rationing in the UK is a prospect not too distant, but, hey, those smart French nuclear engineers saw this one thirty miles off whilst the greenie brigade succoured politico’s under the pretense of pseudo-science aka ‘environmental economics’.
[I’ve self-snipped the rest]
I thought Ofcom got this one spot on. Gore’s film is apocalyptic fiction of the same sort as the film that showed directly before it. Ofcom’s ruling is that AIT is fiction, not a documentary. That’s good enough for me.
Al Gore needs to Return the 2007 Academy Award for “Best Documentary Feature”.
from the link to the full story above:”
“This informed me that Ofcom had ‘reviewed this matter’ – which given the timeline seemed most improbable – and no breach of the Code had taken place. But it was the justification for this decision that made my eyes pop:
… “An Inconvenient Truth, is a film rather than a factual documentary and as such does not attract the requirements of due impartiality under [Section 5 of] the Code. Also, as a film, the expectations of the audience would be unlikely to regard the content of a film in the same way as a documentary transmitted by a public service broadcaster.”
I believe Ofcom, who a while back banned the ads in the UK of night-time scare storys being told to a girl by her dad showing drowning pets and “nasty black C02 monsters” in the sky etc was derestricted and is being broadcast again.
Vaclav Klaus was correct when he identified the silencing of dissent as a gigantic alarm bell. “The debate is over” is a red flag for anyone who has experienced this type of government control. Do NOT tell me what to think. I will digest the information and decide for myself. I will express my conclusion using my ability to vote. Freedom was too hard fought to allow this type of control back into the free world. Following DaveUK’s lead, I will quote Joni Mitchell -“You don’t know what you got ’til it’s gone”. I know she was singing about the forest, but this phrase covers many bases, freedom included. It is appalling to hear people like David Suzuki, Robert Kennedy Jr., James Cameron, etc. call for the internment of climate dissenters. A VERY slippery slope indeed. The danger is obvious to those who know and understand history. Lest We Forget.
The latest offering from Martin Durkin is about British debt
4.8 trillion pounds. I don’t know how deep the rest of the western world is in hock, but the “de-carbonisation” of the western world will really hurt.
Talk about telling the truth in a lie.
They admitted the purpose was to make the public aware of global warming, something not proven. The intent was to gain support for legislation.
So where is the public interest served and where are the interests of politicians served.
This is political manipulation and in short their answers were gibberish.
ggws
Offcom:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jul/21/climatechange.carbonemissions
…However, it said there was no requirement under the broadcasting code to make such programmes with “due accuracy”.
This meant that the regulator could only assess the complaints under a different rule: that such programmes must not “mislead the audience so as to cause harm or offence”. This set the bar high, Ofcom said.
It grouped the complaints about factual accuracy into four categories:
· The use of graphs
· The distortion of the science of climate change
· The argument that global warming is used by campaigners to reverse economic growth
· The credibility of the programme’s contributors – some of whom have been linked to the fossil fuel industry.
On the first two points, Ofcom judged that the programme did not go far enough to cause harm or offence.
It said the third was justified under the right to freedom of expression and was not misleading.
On the credibility of the programme’s contributors, Ofcom said such programmes did not have to disclose potential conflicts of interest, and that, in not mentioning them, the programme did not mislead.
On the charge of misleading by omission, Ofcom said it was clear that the programme was attacking a well known, mainstream view, and that viewers would have known this. There is no obligation on such programmes to include a wide range of views.
Finding: Despite “some concerns about aspects of this programme as regards the portrayal of factual matters” Ofcom said that “Channel 4 had the right to show this programme provided it remained within the code”. Despite “certain reservations”, Ofcom said it did.
Impartiality
…
Finding: Breach of rules 5.11 and 5.12, covering impartiality.
David King
…The regulator found that statements about King in the programme “amounted to a significant allegation about his scientific views and credibility” to which he had not been given the opportunity to respond. It also ruled that King did not say things attributed to him in the programme – …
Finding: Breach of rule 7.1, covering fairness.
IPCC
On the IPCC, Ofcom partly upheld the complaint of unfair treatment. It said the programme made a number of “serious allegations” against the organisation and failed to provide a proper opportunity to respond. …
Finding: Breach of rule 7.1, covering fairness.
Carl Wunsch
….It also found that viewers would have been left with the impression that he agreed with the premise of the programme, despite him expressing views that supported the scientific consensus that were edited out.
However, Ofcom threw out a complaint that his comments about the presence of carbon dioxide in the ocean were edited in an unfair way.
Finding: Breach of rule 7.1, covering fairness.
Thanks TonyN.
They all – all the climate scientists, all the “journalists”, all the “activists” at WWF, FoE, etc, etc, all the politicians, broadcasters, policy makers and once respected journals and academies have been shown the facts.
Someone stole all the pension funds. All of them.
The ONLY way, currently available/visible, to make amends is to shift $trillions around the planet in the name of saving us from one of life’s vital ingredients.
It matters not who ends up with the spoils (who benefits at all, in fact), who gets power, who gets shafted, who gets dead, who gets nothing or who gets it all. The churning of such vast wealth is enough. Forex, devaluation and inflation will do the heavy lifting.
They have been promised that their careers, income and, most importantly, their pensions will be saved along with Gaia.
This is what we fight. It may not look like it, but this is where the inertia came from to sustain that dream, so contrary to reality, which with the passing seasons everyone (un-invested) is waking from.
Nothing climatically is any different now than it was for Isambard Kingdom Brunel and his peers. It may have been a tad colder.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Devon_Railway_sea_wall
Trifling matters such as truth, verifiability or Nature herself will not stop them I fear.
Are cases taken on contingency in the UK? This one is a slam dunk.
=============
I guess the OfCom decision means you Brits don’t have to follow Algore’s public policy advice – since he hasn’t provided any.
I should not be greatly surprised though. Governments are not exactly well known for critical thinking. This is especially so regarding matters of great importance to public policy, such as the ESA listing of polar bears or the EPA endangerment finding here in US.
The British gov has so much invested, has and will impose so much inconvenience on its citizens that they won’t be able to admit at any time that they were wrong. I live in California and in two months we’ll start goose stepping into a carbon free future. Maybe I can get a job driving around making sure people aren’t warming themselves about a fire, or bbqing on the 4th. I look great in brown! Long live CARB.
TonyN deserves our admiratrion for his persistence. He writes of many interesting things at his blog Harmless Sky and has a reputation for delving into dark corners.
I gave a talk at a school once at the request of a teacher who wanted their pupils to hear an alternative voice. I have recounted this story elsewhere (the children thought that 90% of the atmosphere was comprised of Co2 which had all come from man) but happily the audience (10/11 year old British children) had never heard of Al Gore and as one commentator here put it would not have taken kindly to a video starring a greased up middle aged man in a suit.
tonyb
Henry Galt
The link you referenced goes to the South Devon sea wall which my house overlooks. The sea level has not changed at all in the 150 years since the wall was built.
tonyb
“An Inconvenient Truth” is as factual as that other fictional warmist’s production “The Day After Tomorrow”.
Unfortunately OFCOM is part of the MSM team and their purpose is to act a filter to stop un-political programs being broadcast. However, our courts are one of the last bastions preventing this sort of propaganda – at least until EU law replaces it.
It is the responsibility of all parents to monitor what their children are being subjected to at school and teach them the art of critical thinking and inquiry.
This sinister account is indicative of pressure applied to Ofcom from EU non-elected bureaucrats, who have their own agenda, one major concern being their continued drive to exercise AGW propaganda. TV is obviously one of their strongest methods, and the last thing they want is to be denied access.
My response left at Tony N’s blog:
Tony, well done, dogged persistence on your part has exposed the bare backside of OFCOM in this case.
I seem to remember in the case of TGGWS (The great global warming swindle) OFCOM decided that since the complainants were so sure that the facts of AGW were true, the programe therefore wasn’t about a controversial subject which OFCOM had to rule on. I had to laugh.
There was much hue and cry from the warmists that OFCOM was using a technical point to absolve themselves of responsibility in the matter.
Could it be that OFCOM just likes to run a fairly laissez faire system as far as possible and felt that since it let C4 off the hook for screening a skeptical take on global warming they were justified in doing the same for C4 when they screened a pro AGW piece too?
Could it be that OFCOM think it in general better that the public makes up it’s own mind on the question of whether content of a film is balanced rather than being nannied by injunctive health warnings tacked onto the front end of programes?
If so, they must be a little uncomfortable with their own attitude towards their raison d’etre, but in classic doublethink mode, they’ll get over it somehow. 😉
===========================
Another thought is that screening it back to back with another fantasy disaster movie (day after tomorrow) was a bit of subtle tongue in cheek irony from C4.
And allow me to point out one other fault in Al Gore’s film, in addition to all the science errors. Starting at the 1 hour 12 minute 55 second point, Gore shows the “reposition global warming as theory rather than fact” phrase full screen, which is an unsupported accusation that skeptic scientists are under an industry directive to fabricate papers and assessments opposing AGW. This accusation and the people surrounding its origins are worthy of serious investigation, please see my article “How an Enviro-Advocacy Group Propped Up Global Warming in the MSM – A Nov 2 Election Connection” http://bigjournalism.com/rcook/2010/11/02/how-an-enviro-advocacy-group-propped-up-global-warming-in-the-msm-a-nov-2-election-connection/
tonyb says:
November 13, 2010 at 10:03 am
I gave a talk at a school once at the request of a teacher who wanted their pupils to hear an alternative voice. I have recounted this story elsewhere (the children thought that 90% of the atmosphere was comprised of Co2 which had all come from man)….
It also occurs to me that the average AGWer doesn’t know how little the claimed warming has already been and over what time period, not to mention the proximity of the Little Ice Age. If I get a chance one-on-one, I’m going to ask them. I’m thinking they might be somewhat surprised to find out.
Crossopter at 8:42 am: “Energy rationing in the UK is a prospect not too distant, but, hey, those smart French nuclear engineers saw this one thirty miles … ”
According to the World Nuclear Association, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam has more nuclear reactors on order or proposed (14) than the UK (13).
The USA has 21 on order or proposed while China – no surprise here – beats everyone with 39 on order and 120 reactors proposed (169 total).
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/reactors.html
M White said: “4.8 trillion pounds. I don’t know how deep the rest of the western world is in hock, but the “de-carbonisation” of the western world will really hurt.”
First, I’m sorry to say that the BBC Channel 4 film clip “has been blocked for showing in my country [USA] on copyright grounds.” Indeed? Who owns the copyright in my country? Seems like the BBC should have that right, but I find no copy available here.
As for national debt, I was surprised to hear that British debt is so high. That’s in the same ballpark as USA debt ($13 trillion, soon to be $14 trillion) , measured against GDP and population, even after our disastrous 50% increase in debt since 2006.
I would love to see Martin Durkin’s analysis. National debt and jobs have become the top economic issues in the USA.
Here are the year 2000 figures on GDP/GNP.
http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/gnp.html
One focus point in the über hobnob hippie’s movie was the rising sea level due to melting ice and glaciers right.
Due to melting ice is debunked.
Yes I know glaciers are mostly made up of ice but the alarmist apparently don’t. However, I remember reading about glaciers half a year ago or so and surfed to that organization’s site that counts glaciers and apparently they have counted more ‘an a hundred frakking thousand glaciers, but they’ve only cataloged about 5% or some such and not all of them 5% is melting since one part is growing and another part is static.
So when the movie tries to scare with the whole ice and glacier melt catastrophe it’s really a non issue since the ice melt is debunked and they can only prove less then 5% of the glaciers are melting which is quite natural an good what with we’d really have a frakking huge problem if them glaciers didn’t melt at all.
What’s really ironic though is that the climate hippie communists themselves even, that are supposed to be all that with nature and what not, don’t seem to grasp or understand that the world is actually that big to be able to house more than a hundred thousand glaciers or that they know next to nothing about almost non of them even with satellites.
It was none other than Al Gore who hosted the 1989 Club of Rome meeting in Washington DC, only a year or so before the First Global Revolution was published indicating ‘global warming’ was a serious crisis. Here is an exact quote…..
“In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.”
From: http://earthlinggb.wordpress.com/2010/08/13/the-little-righteous-lib-dems-the-duped-holier-than-thou-crew/
tonyb says:
November 13, 2010 at 10:05 am
Henry Galt
The link you referenced goes to the South Devon sea wall which my house overlooks. The sea level has not changed at all in the 150 years since the wall was built.
This was one of the things that first turned me “sceptic”.
I’ve kept a boat on the River Dart in Devon in recent years and noticed that many of the seawall and wharf levels are exactly as they have been for centuries. In fact the crusaders sailed from a creek called Warfleet in Dartmouth around 1000 years ago and the Mayflower dropped by for running repairs on their way to the good old US of A. If you study the old stonework and where they positioned the old steps, mooring rings etc – it’s quite obvious that they’re within inches of where they were centuries ago.
I also keep a little boat on an island in the Eastern mediterranean where I refuel at a 150 year old stone wharf where the high water level clearly sits where it always has.
Bob Carter here in Oz just alerted us (thurs 11 Nov 2010) in an article in the ‘Australian’ newspaper titled “Inconvenient Nonsense Infiltrates the Classroom”. Apparently he says Gore’s film is to be included in the new English curriculum in a “bid to teach students on environmental sustainability across all subjects”. Carter provides a scathing commentary on this proposal and it has also caused some readers to be outraged. Carter says at least its not being included in the science subjects.
He also points to a recent forum broadcast by the ABC radio with some environmental journalists. “Stellar contributions made by the journalists involved included the notions that carbon dioxide is a pollutant, that 97 percent of climate scientists agree that dangerous human-cause global warming is happening, and that there is no real debate about climate change.” Those questioning CC orthodox where referred to as denialists, fruitcakes, clowns and fools who had “invaded the ABC” according to to those in the forum. Giving them airtime was said to “attack the essence of journalism”. Carter laments “if the persons invovlved in the forum were Australia’s top environmental journalists, then God help us all.”
Carter later notes why “are we so willing to tolerate the abuse of educational indoctrination of out children and the deliberate limitation on the scope of media discussions they will be exposed to as adults? If allowed in Australian schools at all, (Gores film) belongs not alongside Jane Austen and Tim Winton, nor with Charles Darwin and Richard Feynman, but with the works of authors such as Jules Verne and H. G. Wells in the science-fiction section of the library.”
re post by:
I wasn’t aware of that gem from Gore’s film… in addition to your points Russell, I’d like to add that from a science standpoint it’s utterly ludicrous. AGW doesn’t even rise out of the realm of hypothesis to the status of a theory – nowhere near.
From the public standpoint, ‘theory v. fact’ may make sense, but its just more dumbing down of the population by using terms incorrectly, in a film that claims to be the ultimate presentation of ‘real science.’
It’s a crying shame.
re post by: M White says: November 13, 2010 at 9:16 am
What is the actual title of the film? The copyright blocks by country are because of reciprocal agreements between nations.
Red-Green Schadenfreude: The Dog Did It.
Rating: PG.
http://beta.images.theglobeandmail.com/archive/01004/solar-web_jpeg_1004502cl-3.jpg
“An event designed to showcase a new era of renewable energy vehicles was brought to a sudden halt when one of the automobiles collided with a bicycle.”
““It’s like a dog running off the curb right in front of you. You can’t stop.””
Dog saved by CO2 indulgences:
“Greenhouse gas emissions created by the race, from flights by participants or shipping cars, are being offset through investments in renewable energy projects.”
…-
“Vancouver cyclist hurt after colliding with solar-powered car”
“The Zero Emissions Race, which kicked off nearly three months ago in Switzerland, was in Vancouver on Friday for the lone Canadian leg of its tour.
Don Chandler, spokesman for the Vancouver Electric Vehicle Association, said things were rolling right along until a cyclist rode off the sidewalk and into the renewable-energy vehicle’s path.”
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/vancouver-cyclist-hurt-after-colliding-with-solar-powered-car/article1797709/
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/mt/mt-comments.cgi
walt man:
Even with the length of my post there were aspects of the saga that I did not include, among them Ofcom’s attempts to draw parallels between AIT and TGGWS. This is not possible. One film was clearly an attempt to give opposition to the orthodox view on AGW a voice. The other was an exercise in proclaiming the orthodox view while, as Mr Justice Burton said, departing from the mainstream view as represented by the IPCC’s AR4.
The only thing that the two films have in common is that they are both about climate change, a point that Ofcom was unable or unwilling to grasp.
The article ends with a call for money but does not give a way to donate. Can anyone tell me how to leave money to help pursue legal action?
Channel 4/M.Durkin:
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/britains-trillion-pound-horror-story/4od
How to win a discussion with supporters of AGW:
Ask them “what is the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere at the moment”.
1. about 40%
2. about 4%
3. about 0.4 %
4. about 0.04 %
Most of them say 4%.
When you tell them the answer they admit that they have not looked at the science at all.
Then ask them about the percentage of methane (0.00017%) and nitrous oxide (0.000003%)!
I’d say it belongs in the propaganda section, not science fiction since the purpose of the film’s
liesexaggerationsdistortionserrors was toindoctrinatesway viewer opinions to support a political viewpoint.Just sayin’.
M.Durkin Channel 4 Documentary states that Britian’s public sector is bigger than the private sector. Some 56% of GDP is provided by the state through taxation and borrowing. Hence a debt of £4.8 trillion ($7.3 trillion) when you take pension requirements into account. The UK government is in a downward spiral unless it unburdens society of the the state dramatically and introduce a flat rate of tax, no VAT, capital gains etc. The Peoples Republic of China has half as less government interference than the UK.
Last one out of Britian please turn off the lights.
The last of my ancestors to immigrate to the United States emigrated from England 170 years ago. They brought the whole family of three generations. They did so to escape the confiscatory policies that was impoverishing the family without an opportunity to participate in the policymaking. Now their descendants participate in the policymaking. and they just participated in delivering a setbacck on November 2nd to the people attempting to bring the liberty destroying disease from the Old World.