Apparently, Monckton is a member of the House of Lords, according to constitutional lawyer in England.
I don’t have a dog in this fight, I’m just in it for the popcorn sales. That said, here’s the plot summary.
A lot of the alarmist side of blogosphere (especially John Cook at SkS and Tim Lambert at Deltoid) spent a lot of time trying to distract from the science presented during Lord Monckton’s summer tour in Australia. Of course, Monckton himself made some ugly distractions at the outset, with a poorly chosen comparison of Ross Garnaut.
That row aside, basically as the tour went on, they didn’t like the message, so they attacked the man.
Here’s how the peerage title tiff got started. Responding to some small outrage in the southern hemisphere, and some emails that came his way as a result, Dave Beamish, Clerk of the UK Parliaments, posted up a letter on the House of Lords’ official website telling Lord Monckton not to call himself a member of the House of Lords. Trouble is, Dave had gotten it wrong.
Hundreds, perhaps thousands of articles, commentaries and blog postings were aimed at Monckton, for having answered an Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio interviewer in August 2011 by saying he was a member of the House of Lords, “but without the right to sit or vote”.
This is sort of like being an “ex US senator”. They enjoy certain rights and privileges of the once held office, like getting to use the library and automobile parking in the senate, but they don’t get to vote of course. In England, these sorts of privileges get passed down hereditarily, such as in Monckton’s case. While “hereditary US Senator” probably wouldn’t fly in the USA, England and its Monarchy has its ways of tradition that don’t translate to such expectations in other countries.
Monckton, on returning from Australia from his tour this autumn, consulted Hugh O’Donoghue, a leading constitutional lawyer at Carmelite Chambers, overlooking the River Thames just a mile downstream from the Houses of Parliament. His question: “Am I or am I not a member of the House of Lords?”
O’Donoghue, who specializes in difficult human-rights cases and Peerage law, spent months carefully researching Monckton’s question. He says Lord Monckton “was and is correct at all points”. The conclusion of his 11-page opinion (see PDF at bottom of this article) , reviewing 1000 years of Peerage law, is clear on the issue:
“Lord Monckton’s statement that he is a member of the House of Lords, albeit without the right to sit or vote, is unobjectionable. His claim is not a false or misleading claim. It is legitimate, proportionate, and reasonable. Likewise, Lord Monckton was correct when he wrote to the US Congress that ‘Letters Patent granting Peerages, and consequently membership [of the House of Lords], are the personal gift of the Monarch. Only a specific law can annul a grant. The 1999 Act was a general law.’ He legitimately drew attention to a parliamentary answer by no less a personage than the Leader of the House, making it plain that the Act was a general law and not a particular law that might have had the effect of revoking Letters Patent. We now have the recent authority of the High Court, in the Mereworth case, for Lord Monckton’s assertion that the 1999 Act did not revoke or annul his Letters Patent. Unless and until such revocation takes place, Lord Monckton remains a member of the House of Lords, and he is fully entitled to say so.”
Lord Monckton has sent copies of the Opinion by registered mail to the Lord Speaker (Baroness d’Souza) and to the chairman of the Privileges Committee (Lord Brabazon of Tara). I have a copy too.
Monckton said:
“I am awaiting with interest the response of the soi-disant ‘authorities’ at the House of Lords to Mr. O’Donoghue’s definitive statement of the law as he sees it. At the very least, it is surely clear that I am entitled, in what is supposed to be a free society, to speak freely about my point of view.
“Dave Beamish has made a prize ass of himself. This criminous clerk has brought the already-tarnished House of Lords and the ancient office of clericus Parliamentorum into further disrepute. His position is now untenable. He must resign at once, or be fired by the House. I was embarrassed by having had to deflect journalists’ questions about whether Dave has been in league with climate-extremist lobby groups. I was not and am not in a position to answer those questions.
“I hope that, for the sake of sparing further harm to elderly and vulnerable family members who have been getting hate-mail as a result of Dave’s unprecedented and extraordinary abuse of his office, the House ‘authorities’ – if that is the right word – will have the common courtesy and good sense to take down his offending and offensive letter from Parliament’s website and replace it with an apology.”
To people outside of England, who don’t deal in formal titles of hereditary peerage, this might look like an overblown egotistic row . But in England, such things are considered very important and are a tradition of position that affects families and reputations going back centuries.
In short, Lord Monckton is not amused, less so at the boys down under than at the Clerk of Parliaments, Dave Beamish, in London. He adds in his letter:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Summary of Mr. O’Donoghue’s learned Opinion reads as follows:
“I am asked to consider whether The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley was correct when, in a recent radio interview in Australia, he answered the question ‘Are you a member of the House of Lords?’ by saying, ‘Yes, but without the right to sit or vote.’ My conclusion is that Lord Monckton’s answer was and is correct at all points. We have the authority of two Law Lords in the Privileges Committee that the meaning of the words ‘membership of the House’ in the Act is confined to the right to sit and vote. The implication is that in all other respects excluded Hereditary Peers remain members of the House. Also, the Letters Patent that created Peerages such as that of Monckton of Brenchley have not been revoked, and we have the recent authority both of the Leader of the House and of the High Court for that. Though the House of Lords Act 1999 purported to remove ‘membership of the House of Lords’ from excluded Hereditary Peers including Lord Monckton’s late father, its constitutionality is questionable. Peerages entail membership of the House. Lord Monckton is correct to state that he does not at present have the right to sit or vote, though if the 1999 Act is unconstitutional the excluded Hereditary Peers are unlawfully excluded. Therefore, Lord Monckton remains a Member not only of the Peerage but also of the House of Lords, save only that he cannot for now sit or vote there, and he was and is fully entitled to say so.”
The ancient common-law offense of wilful misfeasance in a public office gives the citizen the right of redress against a defalcating public official who might otherwise persist in his crime with impunity. In the present case, the rap-sheet might read as follows:
“You, Dave Beamish, Clerk of the Parliaments, of the House of Lords, London, SW1A 0PW, are charged with wilful misfeasance in a public office, contrary to common law, in that, on a date unknown in July or August 2011, in London, you did knowingly and without lawful excuse cause to be posted on the House of Lords’ official website a letter to The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley falsely stating that the said Viscount Monckton of Brenchley is not entitled to say that he is a member of the House of Lords, and that upon repeated request to desist you wilfully and harmfully persisted in the said misfeasance.”
Section 21 of the Data Protection Act 1998 creates the offense of unlawfully processing unregistered data. Here, the rap-sheet might read:
“You, Dave Beamish, Clerk of the Parliaments, of the House of Lords, London, SW1A 0PW, are charged with unlawfully processing unregistered data, contrary to Section 21, Data Protection Act 1998, in that, on a date unknown in July or August 2011, in London, you did knowingly, harmfully and without lawful excuse cause sensitive personal information about The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley to be published on the House of Lords’ official website.”
Article 8-1 of the European Human Rights Convention, enacted by the Human Rights Act 1998 in the UK, gives everyone “the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence” and states plainly that (except on grounds manifestly inapplicable here) “there shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right”.
Under Freedom of Information law the disclosure of the Clerk’s letter to Monckton is a misfeasance at least fourfold. The Act prohibits disclosure of the Clerk’s letter in that the disclosure is a breach of an enactment (the Human Rights Act); and a breach of a Community obligation (the EU has adopted the human rights convention); and the Act exempts disclosures of sensitive personal information (the Clerk could have given his opinion about excluded Hereditary Peers without mentioning Monckton by name); and exempts disclosures of confidential information (it was calculated to cause harm). Breaches of the Human Rights Act and of the FOIA do not give rise to offenses, but are actionable in damages, as is libel. A complaint has gone to the UK’s Information Commissioner. Furthermore, as Hugh O’Donoghue’s Opinion says: “Lord Monckton may legitimately raise not only the matter but also the manner of the conduct of officials of the House with the Privileges Committee.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lord Monckton is quite skilled in oratory skewering. Thus, I had to look up “defalcating”. It has roots in the bankruptcy code. I think he’s implying Mr. Beamish was/is morally bankrupt.
In short, don’t mock the Monck for his title. Here’s the PDF of the legal opinion:
O’Donoghue-lords-opinion (PDF 335k)
Don’t mock him … or debate him. You will lose. He must be one of the world’s best debators.
I did a double-take on that word: defalcating. Mind you, it seems to bear a close relationship to what is going on here.
Good old Monckton!! I hope he pursues this one because the abuse directed at both him and his family members was utterly unnecessary.
To be fair to Mr Beamish, it would appear that he’s only continuing a tiff that started with his predecessor Sir Michael Pownall. Beamish says that Pownall had written to Monckton in 2010 (twice) asking him to cease and desist. Perhaps Beamish & Pownall should have checked their facts. Personally, I’d have hoped that Beamish might have made *very* certain of his facts before publishing that letter…
At least as legitimate as the claim to “Nobel-ity” by the huge retinue of puffery-prone clerks and spotlight-seekers whose names might have been mentioned in some IPCC document or other.
but will the MSM acknowledge this finding? doubtful. the damage was done in australia at the time of his visit, and short-term success is sufficient for “The CAGW Cause”.
While Lord Monckton can be a pompous [noun of your choice, several fit], I will never challenge him on his use of language.
On this side of the puddle we have US 1st Circuit Judge Selya (Puerto Rico and the northeast US) with a substantial vocabulary. He wrote the opinion in one of my wife’s first cases, and at first she thought he was mocking her. I looked at some of his other opinions and concluded he always wrote like that. I feel sorry for the Puerto Rico parties! No need to keep a link, I just search for Werme and a word like palsgrave, tamisage, or apodictic. (BTW, it is apodictic that climate changes.) Hmm, Firefox’s spell check likes none of them.
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=search&case=/data2/circs/1st/951982.html
While it is true that hereditary peerages granted by the Sovereign anything up to a millenium or so ago continue to be passed down from generation to generation, very few have been created since WW2.
The 1999 Act removed the right of most of these hereditary peers to vote on legislation.
Perrages created these days are referered to as Life Peerages and die with the recipient. ie they do not pass to the next generation.
Don’t mock the monck lest he make a monkey of thee.
As a person with relatives having a peerage in England and the Netherlands and knowing how they value them: “I love it!”
Absolutely splendiforous!
I do so hope that all the alarmists who have wrongfully scorned and libelled the good Viscount will publicly apologise.
Good. Lord. The point is that Monckton – Lord or not, and it seems that ludicrous tiff is now ‘settled’ – has a better grasp of the actual science than the actual scientists themselves.
This is the Mereworth verdict. Funny how it has been used until now (as in David Beamish’s letter) to prove Monckton was not a member of the House of Lords, and now it can be used to prove he is.
The important bits in the verdict concern the meaning of the House of Lords Act 1999, as interpreted by Mr Justice Lewinson:
Note how Beamish’s quote of Lewinson is a tad different:
I can see trouble approaching Beamish…
Congrats to Lord Monckton for an excellent and fact-backed smackdown of those trying to tar his name and damage his credibility.
If they are so upset at Monckton that they’ve denigrated to accusing him of lying about ancestry and titles, then it’s a sure sign the Lord Monckton is doing something right!
My only brush with the Peerage was a pleasant night’s drinking session with a noble lord in a back street bar in Belfast about 20 years ago.
That word is del*ciously close and I’m quite sure Monckton relishes that point. He’s taught me a few words too, mendacious being one I too now relish.
I like several things about Monckton – first, I’ve seen him very courteous and helpful to those who treat him with courtesy; second, he can apologize, as he did over the issue alluded to; third, he is a brilliant mathematician, fully able to use IPCC maths against itself to tie it up in knots; fourth, he is passionate and brilliantly clear about the levels of corruption we see in the sorry caricature of Science that Climate Science has become.
All qualities that belong to a title that has been truly earned.
What our friends in the US may be unaware of is that the “House of Lords” is no longer a house of peers and bishops. To stop it being used by the nobility interfering in legislation, parties have for years stacked it with their own creatures. Thus some of the oddities that can and do sit and vote in the Lords. I dont think an unelected hereditary lord should be allowed to vote on legislation and undoubtedly Lord Monckton has no wish for it either, but the Lords needs to be reformed on more democratic lines. Australia’s senate for example?
I like the way he slips in the link between Beamish and climate extremists by denying all knowledge of such a link. Quiet but deadly.
“But in England, such things are considered very important…”
I really wouldn’t go overboard in ascribing awe of the aristocracy to everyone in England (as you put it). Apart from people who can’t stand the whole rigmarole, a lot of people view the aristocracy as being quaint in a crumbling stately home way but would rather they weren’t still partly running the show.
I appreciate that Monckton has a lot to contribute individually but his (over) trading on his peerage does him more harm than good in the UK when it comes to being taken seriously. We generally prefer the aristos who aren’t pushy about it and especially hope for a little more humility from the hereditary types who have unearned privilege.
Lord Monckton vs Senator Gore
Integrity vs other stuff
England will handle itself but Tim Lambert of Deltoid blog and John Cook of SkepticalScience.com (opposite in meaning for added deception of the public), you men and your brethren owe a huge apology to Christopher Monckton, if you even are men. Time to crawl out of your respective AGW catacombs and issue them now. Many are waiting….
(and most Australians now know Lord Monckton was right about the fascism, for now they have it)
Dave Beamish, Clerk of the UK Parliaments
================================
A government official, and his followers, not even as smart as a bag of hammers…..
….no surprise here
In response to an act of defalcation, might we expect a bit of defenestration?
Hey! Can I use this here?
Bloody brilliant!!!
Jolly good job on the blighters!
[ I dono exactly what that means – I read Harry Potter 🙂 ]
Steve Crook says:
November 20, 2011 at 4:15 pm
“To be fair to Mr Beamish, it would appear that he’s only continuing a tiff that started with his predecessor Sir Michael Pownall.”
So, you have outlined a conspiracy now, have you? Can FOIA pick up the emails between these two louts, to get to the bottom of the libelous and sordid affair? Not only the act, but conspiracy to commit the acts?
Frankly I don’t give a damn. I have had the honor of being born in a country that escaped British rule over 200 years ago , and even though I have British ancestry as recently as my father, we don’t go in for that sort of thing.
However, Lord or Mr Monckton is most often right in his points on global warming and that certainly should be noted.
Speaking of unelected potentates:
Tucci78,
You can toss that nonsense right out the window. Besides…you should stop by LG and weigh in on Ozboy’s article about Atlas Shrugged (I’m sure you read it).
Lord Moncton has slain the Jabberwock of Lords. Who is beamish now?
Caterwauling 0pp0nents of Monckton have only his ancestry to complain about. Shows how low they’ve sunk and how precious little they have in their defense. (Notice I spelled “0pp0nents” with two zeros, which is completely fitting in this situation albeit a tad redundant.)
“Don’t mock the Monck”
If someone goes fishing for a reaction from Lord Monckton, is that a Monckfish?
“Criminous” is excellent as well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutions_of_Clarendon
“The Constitutions’ primary goal was to deal with the controversial issue of “criminous clerks,” or clergy who had committed a serious crime but escaped justice …”
Slightly loose usage, as it seemed to apply to clerics. Regardless, I bet it had them scrabbling for their dictionaries.
Don’t be misled by the title. He’s not a snob. In Australia, Lord Monckton is a friend to ordinary workers and the less well-off for his opposition, conducted at his own expense, against crazy carbon taxes and emissions trading schemes.
@artwest: November 20, 2011 at 4:54 pm
Monckton is perfectly within his rights to use his title – this article is all about the malfeasance of a public servant in besmirching Monckton and denying that right (publicly). That you have some baggage concerning the use of a title is your problem, but is nothing to do with the point of this article.
You know when “they” have no answer or science the retreat is into personal attack smear and diversion. I’m glad that Lord Monckton has taken them on and I hope forces a retraction.
But remember they have a vicious track record of threats and encouragement to inflict grievous bodily harm, on those who do not toe the line of CAGW, 10/10 style wishful thinking, as they reach for the red button to rid themselves of inconvenient people.
In this funny world, don’t be surprised if Beamish is knighted for his efforts in support of British Parliamentary procedures or given a medal as a sop to being bested. They might even elevate him to sit in the House of Lords along with the other politically appointed hacks and self servers rewarded by government.
Anyway, well done Lord Monckton, Pike/Petard inserted, elevate/hoist, now see them twist and turn (squirm)!!
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
November 20, 2011 at 6:13 pm
“Don’t mock the Monck”
If someone goes fishing for a reaction from Lord Monckton, is that a Monckfish?>>>
No…that would be a Fishermonck. And they would fish with Monckbait.
The analogy breaks down when one considers that getting a “bight” is rather painfull as Fishermonck Beamish has learned.
Anthony wrote;
“Apparently, Monckton is a member of the House of Lords, according to ’a’ (sic) constitutional lawyer in England.”
Not being a constitutional lawyer (nor particularly desiring to be one) I will accept the judgment of the quoted lawyer.
So if the good Lord Monckton wishes to be addressed properly he should be afforded this simple courtesy.
Once the “climate scientists” who have derided Lord Monckton have demonstrated that they are in fact “scientists” I might just consider their foolish decrees that they can predict the weather coming upon us in a century or so with a bit of weight. Until then, they appear to be little more than a huge heaping mass of living, breathing HUBRIS.
This comes from a family member that had forefathers here in the the USA back during that little kerfuffle known as the Revolutionary War. Seems to me we kind of discarded that whole PEERAGE THING on this side of the pond. Instead we went with the;
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
version of things.
It seems to have worked pretty well for more than 250 years….
Cheers, Kevin.
[SNIP: First, read the WUWT site policy here. Second, your comments are off-topic, but if you provide verifying links they will be allowed. Third, anti-American sentiments on an American-based blog are dumb and distracting. Stick to the thread.
-REP]
I think maybe right about now it’s Squeemish Beamish
Here’s my free advice to anyone who aspires to go the distance with His Lordship in the intellectual arena: Get your facts straight. Otherwise Christopher will eat your lunch, to use a quaint colonial expression. That’s doubly true when his good name is an issue. And don’t you dare make fun of his charming Irish accent!
Now this is pure comedy. My mockery of Monckton has zero to do with his peerage claim. A lawyer, whom he pays, says he’s a member of the House of Lords? The question is: What took Monckton so long to find an advocate willing to take his money? First, I couldn’t care less if he’s “officially” a member, or not, although it’s quite clear that none of the voting members want anything to do with Christopher. And, no, his situation isn’t like being an ex-Senator – he never had the right to vote. Just read his comments on this matter. They are so predictable and of the same style and tenor used in his GW arguments … pure, and widely recognized as, unadulterated BS. What’s important is that he’s been exposed for what he is. A title doesn’t fix that.
I personally find the whole title thing rather off-putting, but if it’s important to Monckton, then congrats on having the “Lord” thang verified and his opponents taken down a notch. I’ve learned a lot from him.
“And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!’
He chortled in his joy.”
Now and then there’s a fool such as I
I am proud of Lord Monckton. Not because an alleged defect has been purged, but for the aplomb and humility that he has demonstrated through-out. How many here would have been able to maintain their cool, while under such venomous, ad hominem abuse.
He is a great ambassador for skeptics and we are fortunate to have him. The Viscount has singlehandedly caused many people to re-examine the actual science behind CO2 CAGW. His science may not be perfect, but he is light years beyond A.Gore.
I wish I could strip Mann’s Medal and give it to Monckton. GK
I have to say that all one can really conclude from this legal opinion is that the issue is debatable. The various laws governing peerage would seem to be inconsistent and conflicting. You could say it is a “right royal mess”.
In any case what is not debatable in my opinion is that whether or not Monckton is a member of the House of Lords is completely irrelevant to the validity of the views he espouses on issues such a climate change.
Poor Jack Greer, all he can do is mock, call one names and in the face of evidence contrary to his beliefs claim BS.
In my moderately republican yoof, I had a discussion about the Lords with my mum. She pointed out that the system wasn’t perfect, but it had evolved to do a reasonable job protecting the nation against the power of Kings for 800 years or so. She invoked what we now know as the Law of Unintended Consequences.
Mum was right.
In the Peer’s favour, there is something to be said for those who can hold unpopular opinions (rightly or wrongly) without fear of electoral backlash, or worse, punishment by political apparatchiks.
I wonder; if Lord M will stop “pretending” to be a member of the House of Lords will Jimmy Hansen stop pretending to be a climate scientist?
Lord Monckton in my mind is a solid character, he’s a friendly guy with a sharp intellectual mind and loves to roll his sleeves-up to get stuck-into the debated argument at hand, the mans good qualities don’t change because of speculative opinions on his heritage, this should never had even be an issue.
Monckton has made a good impression with me and it has nothing to do with his peerage/heritage, and good for him 🙂
How ingenuous of you. The whole point of this discussion is the fact that, instead of responding to the substance of his arguments, Monckton’s critics prefer to attack him personally on whatever grounds, including his heritage and even his appearance. I have no doubt that this issue is the last thing he wants to discuss. Perhaps you could get things back on course by disputing some his scienfic arguments. I’m sure he’d be delighted to respond.
artwest says:
November 20, 2011 at 4:54 pm
You mean humility from hereditary types like say the Artist Currently Known as Prince? Humility? Or the notoriously humble Queen?
I love watching UK folks tie themselves in knots regarding their love/hate for the aristos … priceless.
w.
Willis:
So you don’t think it’s even funnier that we in America indulge our faux aristo-Camelot fantasies? Have you ever been to pseudo-America Keenedy-land in Martha’s Vineyard?
At least the UK aristos have an historical past to base their claims on. We had twice as many TV viewers of the recent British wedding than the whole rest of the world combined.
Go figure…
Christopher Monckton’s, excellent skewering of the befuddled and bemused clerk Dave Beamish; it would have been a sight to behold the look upon Dave Beamish’s drained defacing as he read the legal opinion and realized the full grasp of his mounting doom with Lord Monckton’s eloquent rise from the ashes beaming back into the House of Lords, albeit without the right to vote or sit (yet).
[;)]
R. Shearer says:
November 20, 2011 at 8:13 pm
Poor Jack Greer, all he can do is mock, call one names and in the face of evidence contrary to his beliefs claim BS.
Yes I agree; “in small minds the fish of little thoughts cause great comotion.”
Jack Greer says
“They are so predictable and of the same style and tenor used in his GW arguments … pure, and widely recognized as, unadulterated BS. What’s important is that he’s been exposed for what he is. A title doesn’t fix that.”
* * *
Well, Mr. Greer, would you care to elaborate on this, as in, ” be specific”? I’m sure Lord Monckton would be happy to debate with you.
And I think WUWT reader’s would love the exchange, because the last smackdown Monckton gave was brilliant.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/09/18/monckton-answers-a-troll/
For my 15 minutes of fame, I was with Lord Monckton in Australia on at least one of the occasions where he made his claim expressed above. Afterwards, we chatted about this and that, then I mentioned his fancy neck tie, which contained the chemical elements of the Periodic Table. Now Lord Monckton does not claim to be a chemist (whereas I majored in Chemistry); so when I asked him if the tie was related to the Tom Lehrer song “The Elements” (1959) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYW50F42ss8
I was very impresed when he rattled through it without even a pause. There are over 100 elements in the song. This is a formidable feat, a formidable memory. The Lord not a person with whom to disagree lightly. I readily concede that his genius IQ exceeds my genius IQ.
@artwest: thank you so much. That there is an entire thread discussing this, rather than the scientific claims of the man, is absurd. And it’s funny how the people with hangups accuse you of having a hangup for not being hung up on this nonsense.
Why would any sane person debate Monckton, or anyone else that had absolutely every one of the salient facts on their side? One needs suicidal or, at minimum, self-debasing tendencies to monkey with the Monckster.
Jack Greer says:
November 20, 2011 at 7:44 pm
You’re right–everybody is taking your response in jest (at best).
Do you have any references or sources that support your accuasation that “none of the voting members want anything to do with Christopher” or are you just dreaming that up because you’re in league with the “climsci” that Monckton eats for breakfast (and lunch, and dinner) in debates?
Funny, you’re right about what Monckton said about never having the right to vote, but what’s really strange is that you’d equate this to the “tenor used in his GW argument” which he has never lost with any opponent, by the way, so if you equate that to “BS” then you don’t understand your own analogy or have a different meaning for “BS” than most peope have).
Again, you’re right–Monckton has been exposed for exactly what he is–the most effective force there is against all the lies and deception the CAGW forces perpetrate on an unsuspecting and trusting citizenry. But again, the old paradigm is changing–due partly to how effective Lord Monckton (sorry, but the title stays) is in debating what he sees as one of the greatest frauds ever perpetrated on mankind, and partly because posts like yours are just as transparently fraudulent and fun to refute. Belittling Monckton simply provides me with a great forum to say:
“Truth, contrary to your goals, fixes far more than you want it to, title or no title.”
Marcus McSpartacus says:
November 20, 2011 at 8:59 pm
Oh, please… enlighten us. Otherwise, you are just as bad as Jack Greer in his drivel.
You do realize this is just a refutation of those “climsci” who have nothing of substance to discuss with Lord Monckton and so they settle on the gutter snipe approach just like you. (In other words, Lord Monckton is stating the truth whereas his detractors are not. So is the truth of no value to you, whatever the level? Or are you just tired of Lord Monckton beating your side of the debates?)
Sooooo,
Lord Monckton may not sit, but he is confirmed a Lord in good ‘standing’!
};>)
Go the Monck, absolutely spiflicated Beamish.
“To people outside of England, who don’t deal in formal titles of hereditary peerage, this might look like an overblown egotistic row.”
——
Oh, it looks much worse than that. Those of us of “common” stock can only look forward to the day that placing such a title as “Lord” before your name will give one such pretense of puffery that you’ll be rightfully laughed at and quietly dismissed as a relic of a thankfully by-gone era.
This is as good an occasion as any for Larry’s stoopid question of the day. Aside from Clarendon, about which I did not know before today, I wasn’t aware that England had a constitution.
Yet I’ve read terms like constitutional and unconstitutional in this thread. Does Clarendon plus the later Magna Carta count as the whole constitution? What’s up with that?
Moral bankruptcy is a widespread phenomenon but, alas, not a legal concept.
@Geoff Sherrington
My brother always used to ask before a performance if there were any Tom Lehrer fans in the audience. There was always one. He would say, “There is always at least one of you sickos out there!” Then he would perform a selection of one or two of Tom’s masterful ditties. He could also perform ‘The Elements’. I never mastered that one but used the approach (and tune) to fit more than 120 countries into a UN Day song. We were raised playing the first 10″ LP (“An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer”) and went on to learn all of them through “The Vatican Rag” on “1965 – That was the Year That Was”.
His musical support on the latter album for Vatican II was probably the closest he got to mentioning royalty. He was, of course, also a skilled mathematician so he would be on Lord Monckton’s side and singing from the same hymn book.
My mother’s preference naming politicos was one of the sings from the Mikado:
“I’ve got a little list.
I’ve got a little list.
And there’s none of them’d be missed,
There’s none…of…them’d…be…missed!”
Still seems appropriate.
England has a constitution. It is just we never got round to writing it all down on one bit of paper. Ours is a rat-bag collection of laws, conventions and judgements. Unfortunately by not collating it we are open to “slippage” in it with our political masters making it up as they go along. But fortunately by not collating it we have a flexibility to ensure the system lasts and an absence of an abundance of constitutional lawyers.
bubbagyro says:
November 20, 2011 at 8:34 pm
Have you taken up telepathy? How would you know what I “don’t think”?
We’re a nation of anglophiles. We also have seven times as many TVs as the UK …
w.
‘This is as good an occasion as any for Larry’s stoopid question of the day. Aside from Clarendon, about which I did not know before today, I wasn’t aware that England had a constitution.’
The UK has a constitution – what it doesn’t have is a single, independent document called “the constitution” (or something similar). Instead there are multiple laws that deal with constitutional matters (the make up of parliament, laws of sucession, the powers of the monarch etc).
Arguably your actual statement is correct that ENGLAND doesn’t have a constitution, in so far as that particular nation doesn’t have the same legal existances as Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – but that is a whole other constitutional argument.
As for Monckton he is manifestly a peer and he manifestly does not have a seat in the House of Lords. If he somehow manages to find a legal case for asserting that he is a member of the House of Lords who just happens not to have any of the rights or privileges or status that comes with being a member of the House of Lords then his previous assertions are merely deeply misleading rather than technically false.
Remember that Monckton is also a long-time Eurosceptic, another sinister supranational plan foisted by unelected technocrats on an unwilling population, which is also beginning to unravel.
NyqOnly says:
November 20, 2011 at 11:03 pm
…
Don’t be a sour puss. Your ramblings Crass (what ever that means) and just far off topic and boring.
Public castigation is the least that Beamish deserves.
Lord Monckton deserves not just an apology, but compensation out of Beamish’s personal resources for the unlawful attempt to deny Lord Monckton the rightful use of his title and claim to entitlements accorded the Lord.
It looks an unlawful attempt at deprivation of the rights of an individual.
Peerage, etc. is irrelevant from that perspective.
NyqOnly says:
November 20, 2011 at 11:03 pm
…
Don’t be a sour puss. Your ramblings are Crass (what ever that means) and just far off topic and boring.
Well, now. They have managed to take the discussion completely off track, haven’t they? We are no longer focused on the climate but on someone’s right to claim membership in the House of Lords.
The tactics of the political left are to always attack the messenger if they can not argue the message and force the messenger to devote time and resources responding to the personal attack which gets the focus off of the actual message that was trying to be communicated.
Maurizio Morabito (omnologos) says: November 20, 2011 at 4:38 pm
I agree, his not quoting ‘in extenso’ (it’s catching) is significant. It seems the Clerk has a case to answer.
Armagh Observatory says: November 20, 2011 at 4:39 pm
My only brush with the Peerage was a pleasant night’s drinking session with a noble lord in a back street bar in Belfast about 20 years ago.
Drunk as a Lord on Beamish (Stout) perhaps?
Some American commentators who find the use of titles of peerage archaic seem to forget the common US usage of most to use an working title for life. ie Ambassador. 18 months on the job but used for the rest of your life. Same goes for President. There are currently 3 Presidents. Two Bushes and a Clinton. There is of course only one POTUS.
Jack Greer says: November 20, 2011 at 7:44 pm
A lawyer, whom he pays,
Do you know any other sort? If you do, what are the values of their opinions?
@NyqOnly
Deeply misleading? To whom? Only those who know little to nothing about peerages. If the Aussies and Americans would not opine in a vacuum about UK affairs embarassing themselves in the process and stick instead to climate science, all of this blather would be unnecessary. It is only because the ignorant have invented an erroneous point and multiplied it that there is any ‘controversy’ at all. He did not ‘manage to find’ a legal case, he stated the truth. It would be good if Hansen ‘managed to find’ that the Earth is on average no longer heating up or ‘managed to find’ a 60 year heating and cooling cycle or ‘managed to find’ any of a wide ranges of truths about the climate or those stupid computer models of it, then state so publicly. Talking about ‘deeply misleading’, look no further than the IPCC reports. Sterling examples of lording it over the public, taxation without representation and technically false claims.
@ R. Gates says: November 20, 2011 at 10:06 pm
Sadly it’s not that simple for we “commoners” in the UK and it’s a constitutional thing. Our last government was embarassed on a few occasions by our Lords pointing out how bad some of our new legislation was. The government’s solution was to impose ‘reform’ on the House of Lords, and replace ‘difficult’ characters like Lord Monckton with more ameniable characters like Bryony Worthington. She was made a Baroness for services to Friends of the Earth, lobbying and giving the UK the most expensive and wasteful piece of legislation in our history, our Climate Change Act.
This is the clincher: Though the House of Lords Act 1999 purported to remove ‘membership of the House of Lords’
Unless the constitutional Validity of the law is successfully challenged the law remains on the statute books and in effect and ‘membership of the House of Lords’ has been removed from Monckton and other hereditary Lords, a legal opinion to the contrary counts for squat.
What I fail to understand is why someone as perspicacious as Monckton is so insistent on his hereditary title. He is unable to see that the fact that his grandfather, a Cabinet Minister under Winston Churchill, was ennobled strengthens his own claim to speak on climate science. Surely his degree in Classics and Diploma in Journalism should be qualifications enough.
On the other hand, the Royal College of Armes & Legges (est 1341) is definitive -” all Scotch lairds calling themselves, or any vasall in their employ, ‘lords’ are persona non grata South of Gretna Green.
Jack Greer says:
November 20, 2011 at 8:56 pm
R. Shearer says:
November 20, 2011 at 8:13 pm
“Poor Jack Greer, all he can do is mock, call one names and in the face of evidence contrary to his beliefs claim BS.
I’m sorry, R., where, exactly, did I call Monckton names? Here, let me give you some ammunition … Monckton is a skilled showman, not a climate expert.
Did you, for example, followed the actual content and veracity of John Abraham’s critique of Monckton’s dishonest U.S. university presentations? (http://www.stthomas.edu/engineering/jpabraham/) When Monckton threatened Abraham with law suites (which he does frequently) with a 99 page document of bluster which didn’t address primary points of Abraham’s critique, did you see Abraham’s reply? (http://skepticalscience.com/Abraham-reply-to-Monckton.html)
Did you view the BBC documentary “Meet the Skeptics” in it’s entirety, particularly when they confronted Monckton with one of his “untruths”? … and did you view Monckton’s response?
Did you read the climate scientists response to Monckton’s May 2010 testimony to the US Congress? (http://www.skepticalscience.com/Monckton-response.pdf)
Let me assure you that my mockery of Monckton is 100% based on evidence and reality. Shame on those who take Christopher seriously.”
critique by Monkton
Jack you misrepresent the facts and falsely portray with your links. Abraham’s reply was to a much shorter critique by Monckton, here http://cfact.eu/2010/06/04/climate-the-extremists-join-the-debate-at-last/ (Which you failed to link to) Moncktons detailed reply was here…http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/reprint/response_to_john_abraham.pdf and in his several hundred questions to Abraham, (Which detail every one of Abraham’s complaints) Abraham has failed to respond. So if you wish to go further with this I suggest you answer the questions Monckton asks Abraham, everyone of which is on point and directly to the hit piece slide show you and Abraham sadly call science.
The debate as to whether Christopher Monckton is, or is not, a member of the House of Lords might seem comically archaic to Americans on a superficial level, but there is an important principle here that they can surely relate to. It is fundamentally about the rule of law. Monckton’s point is that he remains a member of the Lords if that is what the law precisely states. He cannot be deprived of his status merely because some in authority would wish it. Such a principle is worth defending. If the law can be twisted to deny him what the law says is due to him, then what protection is left to the common mass of the British people ?
I can well imagine that Dave is a left wing greeny, sort of a 5th columnist in the House.
Larry Fields says:
November 20, 2011 at 10:10 pm
This is as good an occasion as any for Larry’s stoopid question of the day. Aside from Clarendon, about which I did not know before today, I wasn’t aware that England had a constitution.
Yet I’ve read terms like constitutional and unconstitutional in this thread. Does Clarendon plus the later Magna Carta count as the whole constitution? What’s up with that?
Clarendon: Constitutions of – 1164: Henry II limiting powers of clergy, leading to spat with Becket; Assize of – 1166; beginning of law reforms, including evidence-based trials rather than trial by ordeal.
That’s quite enough Clarendon, if y’all don’t mind. Clarendon Palace is now a ruin, and I tenant a house next door, living here in peace and tranquility. Last thing I want is a procession of climate tourists knocking on the door looking for the tomb of Lord Monckton
fc
So Monckton has paid a lawyer to argue his case for being a member of the house of lords and in the Lawyer’s opinion he should be.
If only all legal disputed could be settled by paying a lawyer to write a letter of opinion about the matter it’d be a lot simpler.
I remain spectical about this…
We have a saying in the UK; The House of Commons Rules and the House of Lords overrulles. That is until Tony Blair decided to “reform” the HoL, remove the voting rights of most hereditary peers and stuff it with grateful life peers who would pass laws that a more intransigent, brakes applying hereditary HoL might otherwise spike for being wrong or unfair in some ways. I must tell you that not all life peers are bad. There are, in fact, some very good ones.
It means that common sense hereditary peers (yes, they do exist despite what the career politicians claim and there are even some very good life peers) like Monckton were disenfranchised so they couldn’t spike unwelcome and authoritarian legislation (e.g. the suicidal Climate Bill) the recently instated and still grateful life peers cheerfully voted for. A couple of years ago some of these life peers were caught red handed accepting six figure bribes to alter and pass legislation for the benefit of large corporations (and to the detriment of the UK public) and found themselves suspened from the House. Then there was the cash for peerages scandal that severely tainted the Blair administration (he was interviewed by the police while still in office) and is still rumbling away even now. Blair turned our parliamentary and legal systems into a sick travesty (it wasn’t brilliant to begin with) and that crime is being rigorouslycompounded by the current government despite it’s early pretentions to right Labour wrongs and roll back deeply authoritarian and unfair legislation some of which the Tories, while in Opposition, has actually voted in favour of.
Dave Beamish, who has worked for the HoL for a long time and isn’t a stupid man, ought to know better. But then, since Monckton is a major thorn in the side of our Greenest Government™ ever, it is possible that dirty tricks were deployed to try and shut him up and make him look ridiculous and dangerously stupid. On the contrary, it is the UK government that is ridiculous and dangerously stupid .
Beamish should be ashamed of himself either for making such a fundamental mistake or to allow himself to be used in this way..
Ric Werne says (4.26p.m.):
(BTW, it is apodictic that climate changes.) Hmm, Firefox’s spell check likes none of them.
My trusty New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary explains apodictic as being:
“clearly demonstrated or established”
Mike Jowsey
I never said that Monckton wasn’t legally entitled to use his title – what I was trying to say was that his message is more easily derided, at least in the UK, by his overuse of his title. Portcullis logos on his graphs FFS!
Thanks for reducing the point to my “baggage” but if I were unique and everyone else was getting the message more effectively as a result of this then I would shrug and keep quiet. However, the force of his arguments are not getting through to a lot of people because he is easily mocked by the CAGW crowd.
Crosspatch: Exactly, so if Monckton wants his message to be the important thing he shouldn’t overplay the peerage, then his opponents would have a less easy target.
Wallis: Most individual British people don’t tie themselves in knots about their attitude towards royalty, it’s more that some people have one attitude, other people another. However even many royalists would find the portcullises on graphs pretty crass.
I WANT Monckton’s message to be the story but his insistence on playing up his title, whether or not it is legally correct, detracts from his message. This posting wouldn’t exist if this wasn’t the case.
I am most grateful to Anthony Watts for having kindly circulated the news of the legal Opinion that establishes that I am indeed a member of the House of Lords, and to the many correspondents here who have indicated such generous support. God bless you all.
The trolls, of course, are never entirely absent, and they have referred to Mr. Abraham’s attempt to deconstruct an address on climate that I gave in Minnesota two years ago. My point-by-point refutation of that lamentable and less than intellectually scrupulous attack is at http://www.scienceandpublicpolicy.org. As for the 20 climate “scientists” who devoted a rambling, diffuse, inspissate 80-page tome to attempting to demolish just four pages of testimony that I had given before Congress, 16 were Climategate emailers. The burden of their prolix expatiation was that there is a “consensus”. For “consensus” read “party line”.
Frankly, it is time that the tiny but well-connected and lavishly-funded clique that has been driving this scare from the outset realized that the science is in, the truth is out, the game is up and the scare is over.
And a word of advice to the hapless Beamish. Dave, baby, a line or two of Shakespeare for you: “Stand not upon the order of your going, but go at once.”
It should be noted that a mere ‘accident of birth’ give one person full US citizenship and another, born elsewhere, no right to enter, to work, to save or to raise a family in the USA – despite perhaps being in all respects a more productive and morally superior individual. I thought that ‘all men are created equal’ and endowed with ‘certain rights’?
If the AGW crowd should have dismissed his views on climate change because he falsely claimed hereditary title to the House of Lords, then do they now have to accept his views because he actually wasn’t claiming falsely? (/sarc… of course this is a logical fallacy…. but that’s the only logic some people in the debate know)
I intend to wear a Fake Nobel Pin too, if I can find one. If Pachauri and Gore have a real one, I suppose I’m entitled to wear at least a fake. In my defense I note that I can think, while they only have opinion, and a surreal one at that.
Well done Lord Monckton. Well fought.
I have to say that I for one wanted to see a more democratically elected second chamber, but one gradually introduced over several years. Having seen some of the open corruption by the new system of appointed party life-peers (in name only, thankfully), by asking for vast sums of cash to support a partivular lobby group or other, I now realise that what we have removed was superior to what we have got! The purpose of the HoLs was to originally advise & guide the Commons, (much as the Monarch’s function is to guide & advise the Prime Minister) as well as act as a second chamber of checks & balances.
Monckton:
Not only great language but accurate. The scare is over.
Crispin in Waterloo says: November 20, 2011 at 10:47 pm
Young Crispin, you have too much idle time on your hands.
That said, it is uncanny that people such as Gilbert/Sullivan, Lewis Carroll, Mark Twain, Monty Python, Tom Lehrer- who followed after the serious classicists – have made numerous quotable contributions to Life in the decades after their peaks. Prescience aplenty. It’s also interesting that some were scientists (Carroll, Lehrer) or graduates from good universities (Python).
FWIW, the Tom Lehrer line that marks the man for me is “Who cares where they come down? That’s not my department, says Wernher von Braun.” Read it in the context of climate science scare stories going up.
Bob Layson, who has no right to enter, work or produce in this country? You are talking of the country with the largest number of legal and illegal imigrants in the world. The entire point of our LEGAL imigration is to insure that those that come are moral, hardworking, and understand the freedoms and liberty upon which the USA was founded. You sound like you just came from an OWS protest.
Just as long as this peerage stuff stays on that side of the Atlantic, I am happy to support his lordship. We have enough useless people in North America without invoking royalty. But Monkton seems the antithesis of the hereditary lord with his supreme oratory skills and obvious passion for something meaningful other than a jolly game of lawn cricket. An intellectual Mr. Bean if you will. But I’m sure he’s a mean lawn-bowler. They practice that kind of stuff over there.
Lord Monckton, perhaps you could explain the background, history and culture of your title and how you hope it to represent the enobling qualties exhibited by your countrymen. I know you have not excessively flouted said title, but rather been forced to enthusiasticaly defend its application to your person, but I would like to hear from you it history from a positive view point.
BTW, any reasonable person who actually read your hundreds of questions response to your attackers, understands well their illogic and emotion based troll like assertions against your logical presentation.
The concept of a hereditary aristocracy as an element of civil government is as great an idiocy as is our American system of permanent institutional incumbency. We’d get ourselves a more genuinely representative legislature at every level if we were to select the the occupants of those seats in the statehouses and the Congress by random lottery, the way we summon veniremen for jury duty.
One term “in the barrel” at the summons of your friends and neighbors at the draft board, like it or not, and then you’re back in the population to live under the laws you’d enacted, no pension, no perqs, no lobbying clout.
What Mr. Monckton is doing in his persistent and eloquently pursued emphasis on his membership in the senior house of the British Parliament is to exploit a traditional element of his national culture to emphasize the tyrannous criminality of government in the U.K.
The general law of 1999 by way of which PM Tony Blair turned the House of Lords into “Tony’s Cronies” arbitrarily denied privileges conferred upon the membership of their national legislature’s upper house – a mechanism deliberately created to mitigate the effects of intrusively normative popular passions – to eliminate an obstacle to left-wing dirigisme in the social and economic life of the nation.
Precisely like what the Progressives did to America with the 17th Amendment. The Constitution had envisioned the upper chamber of our Congress as a forum in which the “ambassadors” of our state governments – Senators chosen by their respective states’ legislatures – had a powerful voice in the creation of federal laws and regulations.
The Progressives turned these Senators into pure popularity contest winners, congresscritters elected at large in each state, with no more direct interest in the concerns of their respective state governments than has any district’s Representative.
The Senate created by the U.S. Constitution was an obstacle to the Progressive (read “Liberal”) agenda, and its removal was a disaster. Same thing – on a smaller scale – with the conversion of the House of Lords into “Tony’s Cronies” in 1999.
If for no other reason, I have to endorse Mr. Monckton’s merry ride on this particular hobbyhorse. As economist Friedrich von Hayek put it, there are reasons for “traditional” arrangements, and alterations to attain what is obviously pure political expediency are almost always going to come out grievously wrong.
Amen. SCO vs the world (www.groklaw.net) has been playing out for years. Those of us who have followed it should have learned one thing: If a case is before the courts and good lawyers are involved, the outcome is very hard to predict. Common sense is no help and even experienced lawyers didn’t seem to be able to predict some of the truly bizarre twists and turns the cases took.
The best thing to do is break out the popcorn and sit back and enjoy the show.
It is actually very simple, but for those outside the UK, this is the position.
Lord Monckton is a hereditary peer, the 3rd Viscount of Brenchley and this title will be passed down to his heir. However in 1999 the House of Lords was reformed and many hereditary peers were no longer allowed to sit. This was not a personal matter, simply a political affair.
as an Aussie I found his comparison of Garnaut absolutely correct and apt.
Fabian/ Fascist whatever the label it fits!
Hereditary peers used to be able to sit and vote – though few did. ‘Working peers’ are normally ‘life peers’ created by political appointment and not hereditary. Following legislation only about 90 hereditary peers are allowed now to sit and vote in the Lords. They are elected by – well their peers.
Strictly speaking as long as you are a hereditary peer you are still a member of the Lords, the club just limits your privileges.
The HoL is meant to be a revising chamber and cannot of itself make law. I see no need for it at all actually.
I agree with Tucci78. The 17th Amendment transferred allegiance from Senators representing their States, to Senators representing their national Party. Thus, Sen. Harry Reid does not represent the citizens of Nevada; he only represents the national Democrat Party, a total perversion of the Constitution that should be corrected by eliminating the 17th Amendment.
Trev says:
“The HoL is meant to be a revising chamber and cannot of itself make law. I see no need for it at all actually.”
The House of Lords had the ability to veto legislation; not to make legislation. That is an important distinction. Arbitrarily removing that right gave wild-eyed Leftist wackos the ability to ram unpopular laws down the throats of the taxpaying public.
John R says:
November 20, 2011 at 4:44 pm
“I dont think an unelected hereditary lord should be allowed to vote on legislation and undoubtedly Lord Monckton has no wish for it either….”
I wouldn’t bet on that one. I’m not sure he is quite as eager to have the last of the Norman Yoke cast off as you are. You are assuming that because you like him, he agrees with your American provincial way of doing things.
Au contraire when it comes to this.
Christoph Dollis says:
“You are assuming that because you like he, he agrees with your American provincial way of doing things.”
So we’re ‘provincials’, eh? It’s fabulous to be able to mind-read what someone else is thinking, isn’t it? Why don’t you just tell us how to do things, then we won’t have to think. Our betters know better, and you’re our better, no?
… NO.
R. Gates says:
November 20, 2011 at 10:06 pm
You speak for yourself mate. I’ve found that members of the House of Lords usually have much more in common with us “common” people than those serial dissemblers, EU lovers and traitors in the House of Commons. The House of Lords was best left alone. They could not be bribed or ‘bought’, but no, that snivelling cretin Tiny Blur had to interfere and generally mess up another British institution.
Let us be fair here, it is not Christopher Monckton fault that he is
3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley.
To paraphrase Jessica Rabbit, “he was born that way.”
I am curious though – is he the only person who was affected by the ruling and if not, what have all the others done? Have they continued to use their titles?
Section 1 of the House of Lords Act 1999 says in its entirity: “No-one shall be a member of the House of Lords by virtue of a hereditary peerage.” Section 2 has exceptions to this, but those exceptions do not apply to Lord Monckton.
Isn’t the accusation, “criminous clerk,” over the top, considering that Dave Beam does not seem to have committed an actual crime (even if it was an apparent mistake in judgement) and is not a clergyman (see http://www.spiritual-politics.org/2011/10/criminous_clerks.html for the source of the alliterative phrase)? Not defending Dave here, but such florid rebuttals must dance perilously close the the libel law boundaries.
From dukeofurl on November 20, 2011 at 11:54 pm:
Military rank is also retained as a title after retirement. There are also other work titles that are retained with the “emeritus” addition, like Professor Emeritus or Director Emeritus.
Jimmy Carter died? Dang, I missed the press release. Someone better update his Wikipedia entry.
And you’re not counting the ‘Bama as a President. Fine with me, I understand the sentiment.
O’Donoghue: “We have the authority of two Law Lords in the Privileges Committee that the meaning of the words ‘membership of the House’ in the Act is confined to the right to sit and vote. The implication is that in all other respects excluded Hereditary Peers remain members of the House.”
I don’t see the logic here. If membership of the House of Lords is confined to the right to sit and note, and if excluded hereditary peers do not have the right to sit and vote, then it would follow that the excluded hereditary peers cannot be members of the House.
O’Donoghue seems to be basing his argument on a contradiction in terms. This is just the point that Beamish makes in his letter calling on Monckton to cease claiming to be a member of the House of Lords: “Your assertion that you are a Member, but without the right to sit or vote, is a contradiction in terms”.
So until the law or its interpretation is changed, it looks like Lord Monckton remains a peer, but not a member of the House of Lords.
“This is a formidable feat, a formidable memory. The Lord not a person with whom to disagree lightly. I readily concede that his genius IQ exceeds my genius IQ.”
Short term memory has more to do with IQ than long term. IQ is more about speed and quality of thought not accumulated knowledge. Thus you can’t increase your IQ by reading books. You increase your working knowledge that way but not your speed of thought. No doubt Monckton has a high IQ because in order to debate well means, among other things, you have to be able seize unrehearsed opportunities opened up in the instant by your opponent(s). Long term memory is usually but not neccessarily important in debate depending on the topic. Short term memory is always important because you have to at least be able to recall well what your opponent has stated in the last several seconds or minutes.
I think for most Americans this tiff over titlings doesn’t rise to the level of entertainment. The general reaction I think is best conveyed by the proverbial “rolling eyes”. In our culture respect is usually something that’s earned. Property can be inherited but it’s more respectable to earn it. Respect can’t be inherited and may only be earned. In cases where it’s given without being earned it’s quite likely feigned. Monckton in this case, it would appear, can use an inherited title according to English law but we in the U.S. don’t have to acknowledge it and might even be tempted to mock it because it is so antithetical to our mainstream culture.
That said, I think Monckton has earned a certain amount of respect but I wouldn’t go so far as to equate that with world class scientists, engineers, or philosophers either living or dead. He’s no Einstein, Edison, or even a Tesla.
Just sayin…
For a bit of understanding about England, the monarchy etc dating from antiquity, one might check out:
This realm of England; monarchy, aristocracy, democracy
By Sir John Arthur Ransome Marriott
Part of the ‘take-away’ would be the following:
So, place Lord Monckton among the Witenagamot, long providing wise advice and counsel.
.
Cliff’s Notes version, re: parliaments and a ‘body of men who would assist and advise the King” et al:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament#England
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament#Scotland
.
Well done Monckton, it is such a shame that hereditary peerages are no longer given out, the independence and common sense of most hereditary peers was a good bulwark against the career politicians.
Don’t sweat it my friend. Over here, We The People *did* write it all down. We dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s. We added clarifying Amendments (ninth and tenth in particular) and even wrote the Idiot’s Guide to the Constitution (Federalist Papers), and still the FedGov is a runaway out of control monster.
Alas, the evils of human nature, particularly those of the criminal swine of the socialist left, cannot be easily legislated away. “The price of liberty is eternal vigiliance”.
Love it! Godspeed Christopher.
Uggh. American public school system at work again. A mind is a terrible thing to waste.
He must be a Lord. “He hasn’t got sh*t all over him” like many of the people he’s debating. (figuratively speaking in this case)
Let me guess. Dave Beamish is a lefty beaurocrat? Is there any lefty anywhere that won’t abuse their position in order to go after their political ‘enemies’?
Futurists and Technical Genii
Check out the TED conference. Since 1984 there have been 911 speakers. Monckton is not one of them.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=&q=monckton+site%3Ated.com&sourceid=navclient-ff&rlz=1B3GGHP_en___US455&ie=UTF-8
Only 8 references to his name on the site.
Now check out a technologist and futurist who has my utmost respect, Doctor J. Craig Venter (an earned title):
http://www.google.com/search?hl=&q=venter+site%3Ated.com&sourceid=navclient-ff&rlz=1B3GGHP_en___US455&ie=UTF-8
An invited speaker with nearly 28,000 references. Venter accomplishes great things with the potential to change the world.
Venter founded a private company that fully sequenced the human genome at the same time that the U.S. government backed effort accomplished the same thing for the first time ever. The government effort spent a billion dollars to do it. Venter did it for a fraction of that.
Meanwhile, Lord Monckton opened a shop that sold shirts.
Venter circumnavigated the globe in a research vessel collecting microrganisms from all over the world’s ocean and sequenced tens of the thousands of undocumented species adding millions of unique genes to the global gene bank. Another of Venter’s companies recently produced the first fully synthetic genome assembled from mail-order DNA snippets which was inserted into a dead bacterium from which the DNA had been removed. The synthetic bacteria came to life and produced thriving colonies paving the way towards the next great technological revolution – synthetic biology.
In the meantime Lord Monckton created a geometric puzzle that sold 500,000 copies.
Don’t Mock the Monck? Seriously, it’s bloody difficult to resist.
Lord Monckton is and has been for years an honest skeptic and an inspiration. His good work has been cause of advance against the man-made global warming swindle.
Thanks again, Chris!
R. Gates “Oh, it looks much worse than that. Those of us of “common” stock can only look forward to the day that placing such a title as “Lord” before your name will give one such pretense of puffery that you’ll be rightfully laughed at and quietly dismissed as a relic of a thankfully by-gone era.”
It is tough to be a nobody. Please everyone, humor him and allow this nobody, to continue to get his little pleasures from making his condescending remarks here. Some people will never understand historic institutions or traditions, as they are unable to comprehend the value that they bring. Just in the same way, these nobodies are totally unable to comprehend the tremendous value brought to society and civilization by fossil fuel and all the industry it supports.
I am SOOOO glad I am an American at times. We surely did one thing right in throwing off the peerage system. That being said, I love a good dust up and this is a good dust up!
Hats off to Lord Monckton!
Monckton’s phrase “definitive statement of the law as he sees it” is gibberish. What statement by anyone doesn’t fit under criterion so broad?
And his, “At the very least, it is surely clear that I am entitled, in what is supposed to be a free society, to speak freely about my point of view.” is whining obfuscation. Nobody ever said he couldn’t.
As for the rationale, it too is gibberish. New law always implicitly modifies old law. Monckton’s grant was subsequent to the 1999 law, and so his grant falls under the terms of the 1999 law.
If Monckton wants a definitive decision, he has the right to sue.
Jeffrey, this is pure flowery prose which happens to be native language of the British Gentry.
Monckton has a clear right to his title of Viscount, and as such his proper title is Lord, not Mister. The “member of a House of Lords” simply means that he is a Lord and member of the British Nobility. The legal mumbo-jumbo in short declares that removal of voting rights in ’99 doesn’t affect this status. To try and deny him his title is a direct insult to his parents, and you can expect the same reaction as you would give to anyone that insulted your mother.
Monckton is legitimate in more than his royal title he is legitimate in his science, honesty, courage, and much more. He has the ability to stand up to and counter a highly publicized, funded and politically motivated fraud at the highest level.
The flack he gets from the global warming crowd is a result of the embarrassment they feel from his efforts.
Jeffrey Davis says:
November 21, 2011 at 8:39 am
And his, “At the very least, it is surely clear that I am entitled, in what is supposed to be a free society, to speak freely about my point of view.” is whining obfuscation. Nobody ever said he couldn’t.
==============================================
Jeffrey, you’re not following the debate very well. Perhaps if you read the post you may have come away with a different conclusion……. from the article above…..
emphasis mine.
“New law always implicitly modifies old law. Monckton’s grant was subsequent to the 1999 law, and so his grant falls under the terms of the 1999 law.”
While I won’t attempt to butcher British law, you should understand that it is a bit different than than U.S. law, especially when concerning constitutional law. In the U.S. we have a written document we call our Constitution. Great Britain doesn’t really have just one document to rely upon. From there, it gets complicated………
@Crispin at Waterloo “Deeply misleading? To whom?”
To all the people (you can see some in the comments above) who seem to think Monckton in some way is actually part of Britain’s parliamentary process [Aside from his advisory work for Mrs. T].
Lord Monckton is not, in any practical sense, a member of the House of Lords. He can’t vote there and he has no more rights to visit the chamber than any British citizen. To suggest otherwise is misleading. He claims that because of the way legislation was phrased reforming the House of Lords that somehow his status is actually a non-sitting, non-voting member of the House of Lords – even if that IS true then he still isn’t, in any practical sense, a member of the House of Lords. The rights and privileges he has regarding the House of Lords are no different than the ones I have as a British citizen and his legal case is little different than claiming that the legislation didn’t pinky-swear or forgot to say ‘simon says’.
I note some people in the comments are getting confused about his right to a title – that is a different issue. He IS entitled to call himself a Viscount (as far as I’m aware) but why that would impress anybody in a debate on climate science is a mystery. As far as I can see Lord Monckton tends to pile on the pomp and the allusions to the the UK’s upper chamber primarily when he is in America and particulalry when he is talking to Republicans. He may be employing some playful irony (impressing REPUBLICANS ) with his associations with royalty and aristocracy – I don’t know – but either way it is humbug.
Does it in any way undermine his case about global warming? No – unless there are some people who only believe him because of his grandiose claims about himself but let’s face it, any suh people wouldn’t be the sharpest tools in the shed anyway.
@suyts: “While I won’t attempt to butcher British law, you should understand that it is a bit different than than U.S. law, especially when concerning constitutional law. In the U.S. we have a written document we call our Constitution. Great Britain doesn’t really have just one document to rely upon. From there, it gets complicated”
Actually, in some ways, this is where it gets UNcomplicated. British constitutional law is series of pieces of legislation. As there is no single defining document that takes precedence, when in doubt the more recent legilsation is paramount [putting the issue of European law aside for the moment].
The current law is quite clear – no one shall be a MEMBER of the House of Lords by virture of a hereditary peerage. Note how that is worded. The law does not first strip hereditary peers of the right to vote and then strip them of the right to sit – instead it strips them of their MEMBERSHIP. In other words the reason why LEGALLY Monckton can’t sit or vote in the House of Lords is because the law took away his MEMBERSHIP. If Monckton is correct and the law was somehow improperly enacted and it didn’t take away his membership then it follows that he would still have the right to vote in the House of Lords. Even Monckton accepts that he is not entitled to vote and yet the only legal restriction on him doing so is his lack of membership.
The law is here http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1999/34
>>To people outside of England, who don’t deal in formal titles of hereditary peerage, this might >>look like an overblown egotistic row . But in England, such things are considered very >>important and are a tradition of position that affects families and reputations going back centuries.
With all due respect ,the percentage of the population of the UK that consider such things as “very important” is infinitessimally small…and getting smaller by the day.
I said at the time of this controversy that Monckton was correct in his use of his title,.
It’s really good also to see that some British readers understand the checks & balances the HoL placed on the HoC. In our elective dictatorship, the HoL performed a vital rôle.
My only contact with a member of the HoL was the guitarist in my brothers first semi-pro band. Years later, I picked up a hitch-hiker near Bristol who turned out to be said guitarist travelling to London. When I told my brother, he told me he’d have been travelling from his estate, (in Somerset I think,) that was the first I knew of him being a lord. Just wish I’d had the time to take him the extra 32 miles to London. If you’re reading Jing; sorry.
DaveE.
It isn’t an issue of Freedom of Speech. If it were, you could walk around an claim to be a policeman or a Marine. Fortunately, the issue is exactly as important as claiming to be a Kentucky Colonel. Which is right behind the importance of what colour tattoo your Cracker Jack prize is going to be.
Les says:
November 21, 2011 at 5:37 am
R. Gates says:
November 20, 2011 at 10:06 pm
You speak for yourself mate. I’ve found that members of the House of Lords usually have much more in common with us “common” people than those serial dissemblers, EU lovers and traitors in the House of Commons. The House of Lords was best left alone. They could not be bribed or ‘bought’, but no, that snivelling cretin Tiny Blur had to interfere and generally mess up another British institution.
_____
Perhaps you mates ought to just dispense with all the puffery, and practice good old fashioned bribery, campaign “contribution” and general corporate servitude such as the good Senators and Representatives do here in the USA.
Monckton of Brenchley says:
November 21, 2011 at 2:32 am
“Frankly, it is time that the tiny but well-connected and lavishly-funded clique that has been driving this scare from the outset realized that the science is in, the truth is out, the game is up and the scare is over.”
___
That is a nice sentiment, but in the minds (and computer generated global climate models) of many, the game is far from up, and may only just be beginning.
Dave needs to re-examine the so-called ‘history’ he learnt (sic) about Tesla, but sadly, Dave won’t. (And this is not the thread to continue that discussion either.)
.
R Gates says “Those of us of “common” stock can only look forward to the day that placing such a title as “Lord” before your name will give one such pretense of puffery that you’ll be rightfully laughed at and quietly dismissed as a relic of a thankfully by-gone era”
The nouveau riche – whether from common stock or not – will do absolutely anything (short of killing their grandmother) to gain a knighthood. And British tv is obsessed with ancestry and celebs’ possible family links to the nobility.
@ NyqOnly …… Thanks for the actual law! However, I do believe you’re misinterpreting some of the responses here. I don’t know of anyone (Republican or not) that believes Monckton is a voting member of your upper house. I believe Jeffrey Davis is correct, this discussion is on par with claiming to be a Kentucky Colonel and holds as much meaning to me. But, one of the things us skeptics take great delight in, is getting the alarmists goat. 🙂 They seem to think this is an important issue for some reason. So, every time the issue is raised, many of us like to stir the pot. I can’t tell you how much fun it is to twist others in knots over some trivia such as this. Most of us don’t really care one way or the other.
@suyts – Great comparison – Kentucky Colonels. back in the mid 19th century, colonels were part of the militia who paid and equipped a unit, so to be a colonel meant you had made it. Since then, it is purely honorary as the state does all the paying and equipment (except in the real military).
@artwest : November 21, 2011 at 1:44 am
However, the force of his arguments are not getting through to a lot of people because he is easily mocked by the CAGW crowd.
Thanks for replying, Art. The CAGW crowd easily mocks anything/anybody that pokes their head over the parapets. In this case, that mockery has turned to bite them. There have been many other cases and I hope there may be many more. The CAGW crowd will focus on any peculiarity of the messenger it can in order to deflate the message – that is its modus operandi. IMHO your focus on Monckton’s use or overuse of his title is overly affected by this modus. Focus instead on the topic and the CAGW crowd becomes an empty room. If someone raises Monckton’s title or funny eyes in an argument, their argument is lost by their pettiness and diversion.
Also, as an afterthought, you say his arguments are not getting through to a lot of people. Man alive, that is the ‘glass half empty’ viewpoint if ever I saw it. Cheers.
Larry Fields says:
November 20, 2011 at 10:10 pm
This is as good an occasion as any for Larry’s stoopid question of the day. Aside from Clarendon, about which I did not know before today, I wasn’t aware that England had a constitution.
end quote
Actually our written constitution pre-dates that of the US – it has to; as your founding fathers based a lot of your constitution on the UK’s Bill of Rights
http://www.magnacartaplus.org/1689-rights/ is one of several sites that has the text (google 1689 Bill of Rights for them)
It is interesting that there are some very specific rights acknowledge (Common Law having precedence of Statute Law) and the whole document is about curtailing BOTH monarch and Parliament and ensuring the People of England retain sovereign rights to the country and are only granting Monarch and Parliament restricted rights and many duties.
Following the 1911 Parliament Act it is arguable that every Law passed since is illegal; in that the 1911 Parliament act removed the right of the Lords to balance the Commons and made the Commons the superior house – without the required (under the 1689 Bill of Rights) express permission of the People.
What a lot of people around the world fail to understand; is the Balance of power set up by the Bill of Rights erected checks and balances that ensured that no one group could control the government – this is patently broken as the Commons now reigns UNCHECKED.
The point of an un-elected hereditary house is that the majority of its members can aford to take (and the survivial of their families depends on) a longer view of events than the next election. This is clearly a major problem with many democracies (look carefully cousins; at the circus surrounding your elections; the nearest thing you have to stabilise this is your Supreme Court Justices). Democracy is indeed an appaling way to run things – but it is far better than any of the alternatives. Remember the man who said this was thinking of a UK style democracy; not a Republican system of government.
Under the 1689 Bill of Rights the hereditary peers STILL have functions that no mere Act of Parliament can remove; I suspect it is these functions that are part of Hugh O’Donoghue’s finding.
For those that suggest that Lord Monckton’s tenacity in arguing this seemingly rather arcane point of even more arcane British laws of peerage is proof of his egotism and pomposity I would point out that he has been almost entirely reactionary in this controversy, that is to say, he has only pressed his argument after being repeatedly and quite publicly being called a “liar” for expressing his opinion on the matter. The legal arguments he has offered in defense of his opinion have been consistent for a number of years and this latest brief again suggests that those arguments are more correct than those proffered by his detractors. Since there seems to be little prospect of this dispute being moved through the British courts to a clear conclusion, this kerfuffle is doomed to remain a difference of opinions. Since I’ve never seen even an attempt by his detractors to address Monckton’s central argument, that the 1999 act couldn’t legally remove his membership in the HoL, I’d have to say the Lord is way ahead on points. Although we may all differ in the extent to which we find Lord Monckton’s argumentation persuasive I think it is entirely illegitimate to suggest that in expressing those opinions he is uttering a “lie”.
[SNIP: Rosco, Anthony has specifically asked that this sort of thing be avoided. Can we cater to him in that? Please? -REP]
Monckton of Brenchley says:
November 21, 2011 at 2:32 am
I am most grateful to Anthony Watts for having kindly circulated the news of the legal Opinion that establishes that I am indeed a member of the House of Lords,
Actually it does nothing of the kind, it’s an opinion nothing more, if you want it to be accepted as a fact you should test his opinion in the courts. The opinion of the House of Lords is different, just because you were able to find a lawyer with a different opinion means nothing. The House of Lords wrote the following in an email to me:
“The current Viscount Monckton of Brenchley is not a member of the House of Lords and the House of Lords does not recognise the notion of a “member of the Upper House but without the right to sit or vote”.
The 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley succeeded to the title in 2006, following his father’s death. However, while he is a hereditary peer, he is not and has never been a member of the House of Lords.”
My emphasis. As an aside Mr Donoghue’s speciality is not listed as constitutional law and neither does Carmelite Chambers list it among their specialties, somewhat surprising for ‘a leading constitutional lawyer’, he in fact appears to be one of their most junior barristers. More Moncktonian hyperbole perhaps?
“But in England, such things are considered very important”
They’re trying to torpedo his title at every turn because the alarmist thinks so, probably due to the fact that the common hippie alarmist is of the crowd of generations of fawning morons, you know the ones that pee themselves and starts crying hysterically because they just became blessed with happiness of seeing the idiot brother to the cuss of the nephew to the friend of the kid brothers sisters room mate to [insert any famous person]. :p
Monckton of Brenchley says:
November 21, 2011 at 2:32 am
… As for the 20 climate “scientists” who devoted a rambling, diffuse, inspissate 80-page tome …
Hmm, would that “inspissate,” given its position be read as “thick” as in “thick as a brick?”
The evidence against Lord Monckton appeared to be strong, from what most constitutional experts would agree as the premier expert source on the issue. Yet when the evidence is analysed it was found seriously wanting. At least anyone who believed this opinion had more excuse than those climate scientists who proclaim the unequivocal evidence of impending catastrophe, glancing over the gaping holes in their argument.
The intellectually honest thing for those who were not at least slightly skeptical of the claims is to admit that no matter how firm the evidence at first appears, there is still room for doubt if the contrary view has not been heard. But as the latter posting on the survey that purportedly showed 97% of scientists support CAGW, most climatologists will believe anything that supports their argument, no matter how poor the research.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/21/gmu-on-climate-scientists-we-are-the-97/
For those who remain unconvinced, try sitting through a criminal case in a US, Canadian or British court. Hear the case for the prosecution and you will go home thinking that the accused is guilty. Just listen to a good defence case, and you would think that the accused should be able to sue for wrongful arrest. It is only by sitting through both presentations with the cross-examinations, and presided over by a fair judge who makes sure rules of evidence are adhered that a jury is likely to reach the correct verdict. If you do not try to understand both sides of the argument, then your conclusions may be wrong.
Hugh Davis says:
November 21, 2011 at 12:32 pm
R Gates says “Those of us of “common” stock can only look forward to the day that placing such a title as “Lord” before your name will give one such pretense of puffery that you’ll be rightfully laughed at and quietly dismissed as a relic of a thankfully by-gone era”
The nouveau riche – whether from common stock or not – will do absolutely anything (short of killing their grandmother) to gain a knighthood. And British tv is obsessed with ancestry and celebs’ possible family links to the nobility.
_____
It doesn’t at all surprise me that this could be the case for some newly anointed ones. The shallowness of one’s value system has nothing to do with the size of one’s bank account. And as far as what British TV is or isn’t obsessed with…well, if we could judge the status of humanity from the content of much of British, American, or pretty much any nation’s TV programmin, then if some alien race is monitoring our signals, they certainly know we remain barely above the chimpanzee in development.
R. Gates, “we remain barely above the chimpanzee in development.”
Ah but you said in a previous post that you are from “common stock” so how is it that in a subsequent post you use the Royal “we” when referring to yourself?
A smear campaign of course.
But oh my! the logic in “The Summary of Mr. O’Donoghue’s learned Opinion reads as follows” will allow some lawyers to retire well.
Phil, please provide your legal opinion of why the lawyer is incorrect. Claiming that the House of Lords disagrees proves nothing as that is why the opinion was asked for.
The linked pdf gives a lot of reasons for why the lawyer thinks that way, I see you have come up with nothing other than to make statement about the lawyer.
BRAVO – LORD – Monckton!
You have out-CLASSED your detractors once again!
Jeremy says:
November 21, 2011 at 3:15 pm
R. Gates, “we remain barely above the chimpanzee in development.”
Ah but you said in a previous post that you are from “common stock” so how is it that in a subsequent post you use the Royal “we” when referring to yourself?
_____
No Royal “we” given or implied. It is plural form referring to all of humanity, from pauper to Prince, beggar to Baroness.
peter_dtm says:
And what pray is arguable about it? Our parliamentary system of democracy was suspended by that temporary measure which, despite recent findings of convenience, renders the 1949 Act and all subsequent third way tinkering illegal. This issue is far from settled and will undoubtedly raise its ugly head again in the coming decade as loss of sovereignty to the EU proceeds to plan. Either we have a working democracy or, without adequate checks and balances, we do not. The current situation is a farce founded on corporate/socialist benefactors that yields a motley crew of the presumptuous, unfit to run a whelk stall, in both houses. In short; a system run on “bribery and corruption” that manifestly promotes the very ‘puffery’ and incompetence R Gates complains of.
The majority do not want a token democracy (of which only the pageantry of a bygone age remains to be hawked around by the BBC for profit) that is subservient to the absolute tyranny of some unelected EU socialist utopia. The millions dead in two world wars are testament to that. Millions more from socialist tyrannies of the past should serve as an ever present reminder of the inevitable outcome.
Those of common stock like R Gates would do well to distinguish ‘puffery’ from dignitas.
@Mr. Gates
“if some alien race is monitoring our signals, they certainly know we remain barely above the chimpanzee in development”
Stick to the Science mate, you’re pretty clued up on that, leave the philosophical meandering to others.
Chimps haven’t even got round to discovering the windmill yet, never mind telecommunications.
Not one of them has even managed to get a peer-reviewed paper published by “Nature”.
Their development is truly execrable.
If you’d substituted the word ‘mindset’ for ‘development’ then, post-climategate, I would have to agree 100%
I’m not so sure this is true.
Good to see Phil. back offering his expert opinion on things of which he has no knowledge. The universe is in order at least.
Mark
“R. Gates says:
November 21, 2011 at 4:14 pm
Jeremy says:
November 21, 2011 at 3:15 pm
R. Gates, “we remain barely above the chimpanzee in development.”
Ah but you said in a previous post that you are from “common stock” so how is it that in a subsequent post you use the Royal “we” when referring to yourself?
_____
No Royal “we” given or implied. It is plural form referring to all of humanity, from pauper to Prince, beggar to Baroness.”
——–
Speak for yourself. You may be barely above a chimpanzee but most of us skeptics here on WUWT are light years away from that.
Lord Monckton: With apologies to Gilbert and Sullivan:
“A British tar is a soaring soul
As free as a mountain bird
His energetic fist should be ready to resist
A dictatorial word
His nose should pant and his lip should curl
His cheeks should flame and his brow should furl
His bosom should heave and his heart should glow
And his fist be ever ready for a knock-down blow”
“His eyes should flash with an inborn fire
His brow with scorn be wrung
He never should bow down to a domineering frown
Or the tang of a tyrant tongue
His foot should stamp and his throat should growl
His hair should curl and his face should scowl
His eyes should flash and his breast protrude
And this should be his customary attitude”
You tell those mamby-pamby pretend lords where to go, m’Lord.
Paul R.
I did a double-take on Monck’s picture. Separated at birth from Bill Maher?
Britain does have a constitution, it’s called Common Law.
For example: ..”The Act of Settlement affirmed that Common Law is the birthright of the people and may never be taken away. The Act declares that the British people are restored to the full and free possession and enjoyment of their religion, rights, and liberties, by the providence of God. The Act makes one essential idea absolutely clear –
Government cannot grant freedom to the people because freedom belongs to the people by birthright. Government exists not to give the people liberty, but to protect their liberty.” http://www.britsattheirbest.com/freedom/f_british_constitution.htm
Any government claiming authority over the people isn’t lawful. This was the bedrock of the US constitution. It’s this basic right of free men and women which has been mangled by claiming instead that we are ‘democracies’, tyranny by the ‘majority’ is still tyranny. The meme ‘democracy’ has been pushed, propagandised, to such an extent that most Americans, from what I’ve read so far…, have forgotten what they had set up as a republic just as most Brits have forgotten or never knew what Common Law meant. Worse though, is those elected to office don’t know what this means. And conversely, with the meme democracy, is the meme that ‘anarchists are commies or whatever’, but all this means is that each man and woman is free, without authority over them, Common Law.
I’m studying to be an accountant, and I’ve run across the word defalcation in audit reports of companies and in the lawyer-worded engagement letters accountants have to give their clients. It means the unlawful diversion or misuse of funds or assets, usually from the company by an insider, whether that takes the form of actual theft, embezzlement, fraud, or merely personal use.
Jeremy says:
November 21, 2011 at 7:43 pm
Speak for yourself. You may be barely above a chimpanzee but most of us skeptics here on WUWT are light years away from that.
—-
Are you in Alpha Centauri then? You must have been using those faster than light nutrino to post on this forum in that case!
R. Gates, “we remain barely above the chimpanzee in development.”
Um… there appears to be a fundamental lack of scientific understanding here. We do NOT ‘remain above the chimpanzee in development’. Assuming you could measure such a thing, the chimpanzee and ourselves are at the same level of development. The principles of the theory of Evolution are quite simple to understand. and do not posit that homo sapiens is in any way ‘superior to’ any other species….
Whilst this article is no doubt technically accurate, you really can tell that it was written by someone from the US side of the pond.
A little history lesson for you folks:
1. The House of Lords was the original Parliament in ye olde England, when the King was King and everyone else was a pleb.
2. Originally, all the titular Lords were able to pass the title down to their first born son (note, we were terrible sexists and girlies weren’t allowed to sit in Parliament).
3. If the Lord was infertile or couldn’t produce a son, the title was passed to brothers/their eldest son etc etc. If the Lord was an only child and didn’t produce a son, the title disappeared,
4. Of course, all this grace and favour stuff meant that their Lordships were fanatically against the Labour Party, so when they finally formed a Government, the concept of Life Peerages came along. These were political appointees par excellence, so the House of Lords started getting field with Trades Unionists, teachers and all sorts of dangerous mavericks. But they can’t hand the title down, it dies with them.
5. Now we are getting to the stage where we don’t really want Primogeniture amongst our governing masters, so there’s really a pretty dim future for the Hereditary Peerage principle.
So basically, we have two types of folks allowed to sit in the Lords: those who got the right from daddy (a dwindling minority) and those who were appointed by the Queen (mostly as friends of the Prime Minister).
The one thing you guys must never confuse is the elected legitimacy of your Senators and our unelected Revisionary Chamber.
Some feel that electing senators removes the ability to think long-term and strategically, which is the argument spouted for retaining our archaic anti-democratic principles.
I am of the strong argument that the best qualification for sitting there is living in the real world.
One thing is clear: if the value of what Lord Monckton has to say is dependent on whether or not he is allowed to sit in the House of Lords, then those listening are a bunch of moronic drongos.
R. Gates,
Your two charming comments did provide an entertaining visual image for me of thousands of chimpanzee-like climate modelers locked in a dim room randomly typing script myopically into supercomputers; this is the climate science method of finding a GCM that actually conforms to observations and physics. After 25+ yrs and hundreds of millions of dollars later they do not conceive/perceive reality yet . . . actually diverging from the last 10+ yrs of the ‘paused warming’ (aka cooling).
They are well paid chimps though (unfortunately for me a an involuntary citizen taxpayer) . . . . replicating their kind successfully . . . .
John
Viscount Monckton of Brenchley,
Will do some pre-Durban articles? I am looking forward to any that you are working on.
Appreciate your energy on exposing the problematical scientific agenda of the IPCC centric advocacy of alarming/concernist AGW by CO2 from fossil fuels.
John
Now Lord Monckton only has to prove he’s been Margareth Tatcher’s scientific adviser and that he can cure malaria, HIV, and multiple sclerosis. Not that the oppinion of one lawyer count much as evidence.
http://www.ukip.org/content/latest-news/1675-christopher-a-man-of-many-talents
Though not strictly pertinent to the matter of Mr. Monckton’s membership in (and violated rights as a member of) the U.K.’s House of Lords, it seems worth the consideration of those following this and other discussions in Watts Up With That? to cite something from an essay authored by historian Sheldon Richman five years ago, and maintained online at this Web site:
Strangely enough, Mr. Richman wasn’t writing specifically about the great hysterical “We’re All Gonna Die!” anthropogenic global warming fraud against which Mr. Monckton and Mr. Watts have wrought so effectively for so many years.
But it’s the same statist sack of filth anyway, isn’t it?
The Englishman says:
November 20, 2011 at 10:49 pm
Oh Puhleeeze. Don’t come the old “we haven’t written in down” rubbish. Try looking up Magna Carta (1215) Act of Succession 1559, Bill of Rights 1689 (on which the US Constitution is based), 1701 Act of Union and 1707 Act of Union to name but a few, Just because it isn’t all in one document doesn’t mean it isn’t written down.
R. Gates says:
November 21, 2011 at 12:00 pm
“Perhaps you mates ought to just dispense with all the puffery, and practice good old fashioned bribery, campaign “contribution” and general corporate servitude such as the good Senators and Representatives do here in the USA.”
You said it squire – not me. 🙂
peter_dtm says:
November 21, 2011 at 1:38 pm
Superb. It is a common misconception that England does not have a written constitution, put about by those who would benefit from us not knowing about it. Good to see you know your stuff.
The point of Monckton being of the House of Lords or not is a non-issue. The key issue is do his arguments hold water or not. The attack of his position is a ad hominem fallacy and anyone attacking his position is really avoiding dealing with his arguments.
Here is a response to Monckton’s latest attempt to prove he’s really a member of Parliament that Parliament doesn’t know about.
http://bbickmore.wordpress.com/2011/11/22/the-monckton-files-lawyering-up/
Lucy Skywalker says:
November 20, 2011 at 4:40 pm
“He’s taught me a few words too, mendacious being one I too now relish.”
Had you seen the movie “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” Burl Ives would have supplied you with the word mendacity.
Christopher confronts the mendacious with veracity and the mendacious, in turn, being without veracity, divert the discussion by attacking Christopher’s heritage. Ad hominem attacks are the last resort of the mendacious.
“…the sorry caricature of Science that Climate Science has become.”
Climate Science is. The sorry caricatures are the mendacious who deny the science.
I consult the Merriam-Webster Dictionary for word definitions and synonyms and antonyms.
Only one word, Truth, is listed as an antonym for mendacity. These are the synonyms for mendacious:
fable, fabrication, fairy tale, falsehood, falsity, fib, lie, prevarication, story, tale, taradiddle (or tarradiddle), untruth, whopper.
There is only one truth.
From Dave Springer on November 21, 2011 at 7:39 am:
My, you’re being rather sparse on the actual details:
By your wording it sounds like they were selling T-shirts. In actuality, Lord Monckton and his wife were successful entrepreneurs, who founded a business selling a high-quality well-respected product, grew the business, cashed out. Thus in your grandiose comparison to Craig Venter that you apparently adore, you have somehow not mentioned that Monckton prospered in the hard-edged world of retail clothing sales, while Venter succeeded when the promising field of genetic research was flush with venture capital. You also were not precise on those details:
Venter had a non-profit lab, The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR), which developed the “random shotgun” strategy for DNA sequencing. He was brought in as the first President of Celera in 1998, which was founded as a business unit of what would become Applera but was then known as the Life Sciences Division of the Perkin-Elmer Corporation.
While you are applauding this company founded by a biotech giant for sequencing the human genome cheaper than the US government, it is noted in Wikipedia’s Celera entry:
Venter was subsequently fired from Celera in early 2002. Also, as revealed in 2007 by Venter, he didn’t really fully sequence a human genome back then. Not getting the results he wanted, he had then moved to sequencing his own personal genome. This was completed by Venter and colleagues at the J.Craig Venter Institute and subsequently published in 2007, and used the highly-accurate traditional Sanger method which the Human Genome Project was originally using before switching to the faster though less-accurate shotgun method.
Also in your comparison, you did mention the time after Celera when Venter went circumnavigating the world in his personal yacht, collecting samples. But you didn’t mention Lord Monckton’s decades in journalism, as found in his Wikipedia entry, that section also mentioning a paper he wrote about privatizing public housing which led to government work with the Number 10 Policy Unit.
And currently, the 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley is a much-beloved (C)AGW skeptic. What is Venter doing?
So Venter is working towards Big Biofuels, “in the pay of” Big Oil, as part of Exxon Mobil’s positive-PR-generating move into investing in renewables, specifically algae-based biofuels.
Given your frequently-voiced concerns about Peak Oil, I can see why you give more respect to Venter, buoyed by many talented colleagues and supported by public (government) funding and large corporate interests, over Monckton, who is all-around a self-made man.
R. Gates:
I don’t mind being regarded as a chimp. However, as in your case, some chimps are chumps. GK
Barry Bickmore said on November 22, 2011 at 8:29 am:
On your own personal (C)AGW-pushing blog, which has targeted Monckton with two main tabs on top, “Lord Monckton’s Rap Sheet” and “The Church of Monckton”.
With said response concluding with this insult against Anthony Watts, the owner of this blog that you’re trying to use to promote your tiny blog (bold added):
Now I regret giving your site a hit when I peeked into that bucket of excrement. Hopefully others will now know it’s not worth looking at all.
@kadaka
“… Monckton, who is all-around a self-made man.”
Absolutely, indeed he brings a whole new meaning to the expression…
Kadaka,
Did you also read the part about how Monckton’s lawyer took the judge’s opinion about the Mereworth case out of context? Or the part about how a large portion of The Lawyer’s argument was about points that everyone involved already concedes, and thus were designed to cloud the issue? Or the part about how Watts promoted Monckton’s argument that when trying to discredit the IPCC’s temperature projections, he wasn’t obligated to disclose their “actual projections”? Or the part about how Monckton claims John Abraham lied to the scientists he contacted about how Monckton had represented their work, and yet Monckton hasn’t managed to get any of them to write an e-mail saying that they were misled?
I understand that everyone is less skeptical of information that seems to go along with their established point of view, but when Monckton lobbing ridiculous arguments like those, one would think some over on your side of the fence would start shifting about uncomfortably and wondering whether they should try to distance themselves from a guy who 1) makes up fake data, 2) misrepresents scientists’ work by the truckload, 3) is a fake member of Parliament, and 4) claims to have invented a miracle cure for a large number of serious diseases. When you guys just lap up whatever he spews your way–face it, you’ve been ridiculously gullible.
Oh, and to all those who are catching the vapors and fainting about “ad hominem,” remember that Monckton was the one who started representing himself as a member of Parliament to enhance his credibility in the debate about climate policy. If a fake doctor were to testify as an expert medical witness, would the opposing side be off base to point out the fake credentials?
From Barry Bickmore on November 22, 2011 at 10:18 am:
Nah. I Googled your site URL, that your name is linked to, got an impression of your writing. Looked at your site anyway, saw those main tabs, your list of links to horrendously-abusive (C)AGW-pushing sites, skimmed down that post to where you smeared Anthony, and accepted you are a small petty person consumed by your personal vendettas who could never write anything I’d consider worthy of reading let alone analyzing.
Have a nice day.
Kadaka,
I thought so. Insulating yourself against contrary information is the most effective way to make yourself gullible. Congrats.
REPLY: I agree, Barry you should spend time then reading the climatgate 2.0 emails instead of pissing around here in this thread – Anthony
@ Barry Bickmore on November 22, 2011 at 11:18 am:
Thus to be truly open-minded I must consider the contrary information compiled and proffered as authoritative as presented by a known strongly-biased individual such as yourself? Such an intriguing concept. Imagine all the contrary information about Judaism I could consider if I’d simply review the presentations at the many little blogs similarly sized to yours that are run by those as strongly biased against Judaism as you are against Lord Monckton. Perhaps if I was really truly open-minded, I’d undoubtedly come around to distrusting and hating Jews after reviewing such evidence, just as you are so obviously certain that others would logically come around to distrusting and hating Lord Monckton as much as you if they would simply read your evidence.
Please, continue to display your pettiness, if you must. It is amusing.
Anthony,
I have been. Even out of context, they’re still boring.
And by the way, what do you think about any of the arguments I brought up about Monckton’s claim to be a member of Parliament that Parliament doesn’t know about? What do you think about his post (on your site) in which he claimed that when trying to discredit the IPCC’s temperature projections, he wasn’t obligated to disclose their “actual projections”? Does any of that bother you at all?
I’ve noticed that you often start your posts about Monckton with “I don’t have a dog in this fight”, or some such disclaimer. Well, given how much you’ve used your forum to promote his views without taking a hard look at his alleged chicanery, I’d say he’s your dog now.
Another one of those pets you might have trouble shaking off is Girma Orssengo, whose nonsense you also published on your site. If I remember correctly, his point was that he could fit a line plus a cosine wave to the 20th century temperature data, so it all must be a natural cycle. Really.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/25/predictions-of-global-mean-temperatures-ipcc-projections/
The only stupider thing I’ve ever heard anyone with any scientific training say about climate change was when Joe Bastardi told the Fox News audience that the greenhouse effect violates the First Law of Thermodynamics and Le Chatelier’s Principle. Oh, wait! You let him do a guest post about that on your site, too!
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/08/12/bastardi-science-and-reality-point-away-not-toward-co2-as-climate-driver/
What do you think about that? Is that how you view the greenhouse effect?
Do you see why I get the impression that you will publish anything on your site that seems to go against the scientific consensus on climate change?
REPLY:I don’t think anything about it. I give a voice to lots of people, to you or to anyone who wants to make an reasoned argument. Feel free to submit a guest post here. – Anthony
Kadaka,
If you had bothered to read the stuff I have about Monckton on my blog, you would find that I am one of the scientists who have personally taken apart many of Monckton’s claims. Have you done the same?
Really, Anthony? You don’t think ANYTHING about it? This brings up another question. I.e., do you have any quality control standards for guest posts? Seriously–Bastardi said the greenhouse effect violates conservation of energy, because adding CO2 to the atmosphere is supposed to be adding energy to the system. If so, what are your standards? Note that I’m not asking about your standards of “politeness” and “civility”. I’m just asking about the quality of the science.
It’s all well and good to “give a voice” to various people, but don’t you feel any responsibility to help your readers separate the wheat from the chaff? Just look at the comments on Joe Bastardi’s piece. Many of your readers don’t have the background to even know what the First Law of Thermodynamics and Le Chatelier’s Principle are.
REPLY: No, I don’t think anything about it right now, because I have far more important things to do than worry about your questions and get dragged into a long drawn out discussion which is your MO, much like John Mashey. Mostly you just waste time, of which I have little right now. I get it you don’t like WUWT, and don’t agree with what I do. My broad response is that I don’t give a care for your opinion nor will I bother responding to it. Be as upset as you wish. – Anthony
Anthony,
That’s fair enough. You don’t care about my opinion, and you don’t care whether any of your guest posters is talking nonsense. I get the picture.
Hey, you said I could feel free to submit a guest post, as long as it was a “reasoned argument”. Would you post it if I were to submit a guest post about how you ought to raise your quality control standards? I promise the argument would be reasoned. I would even promise to be perfectly civil!
I’m not asking you to make a definitive decision about it. Just give me some conditions that I would need to fulfill to have you post such a piece.
REPLY:To be clear, I just don’t care about your opinion right now, its a distraction from the more important issues of the day. Perhaps in a few weeks when all this dies down, busy right now with the more important issue. I actually have peer review system in the works (see my 5 year anniversary post) so maybe it would be appropriate after that is implemented. There’s also another system I’m looking at to improve quality, which is an on-top layer app, but again can’t get into it right now. – Anthony
Barry Bickmore,
I’m glad to see you dealt with correctly here. Personally I have seldom seen a more mean-spirited or bigoted site than yours. You keep advertising your ‘rebuttals’ of Lord Monckton yet you refuse to answer his legitimate questions. That makes me suspect that your aim is not to find the truth but to purvey the opposite.
Paul
A furphy, also commonly spelled furfie, is Australian slang for a rumour, or an erroneous or improbable story.
Bickmore raises a superficially reasonable case against LM; to wit he is a peer but not member of the HOL and that in respect of the 1999 Act, “The intent of the Act, therefore, was to remove ALL privileges of membership [of the HOL]”.
This is fundamentally wrong because the most important right in respect of membership of the HOL is the right to run for election to that body.
Only hereditary peers are eligible to stand for election to the HOL; LM is a hereditary peer and therefore retains the right to stand for election to that body which he has done, unsucessfully. But it is this point, as shown by the difference between the Letters Patent granting specific peerages and the generality of the 1999 act which Bickmore doesn’t understand. The 1999 act did not remove LM’s membership but created a condition precedent before that membership becomes extant.
LM’s description of himself as a “a Member not only of the Peerage but also of the House of Lords, save only that he cannot for now sit or vote there” is a reasonable description of that situation.
Their Lordships should know better than to be caught so publicly abusing their Members .
Stillgar says:
“…Claiming that the House of Lords disagrees proves nothing…”
Not even the House of Lords, but some clerk, appointed to do the housekeeping.
the letter is still up on the parliament site:
http://www.parliament.uk/business/news/2011/july/letter-to-viscount-monckton/
as the main bone of contention, there is absolutely no way that it would still be there if there were a ruling in favor of the person in question
a lawyer’s letter proves exactly what?
only that someone has gotten a snit
like an ex-senator – maybe. but claiming that you’re a member of the senate house is not the same thing – and why would it matter to an honest broker? no idea…
“We have the authority of two Law Lords in the Privileges Committee”
what does that mean? that 2 support the view? or something more concrete?
the Privileges Committee consists of 16 members…
that’s lawyers for you
i can well imagine that there’s a point to be successfully made: amending historic precedents is almost impossible, not least because of language change over time: you’ll never close every loophole
certainly not every point of irrelevance (only of interest to snakeoil fans); the law was extremely rushed – they didn’t even cover expulsion of current members correctly! i don’t imagine that they ever thought of the nomenclature of people no longer permitted… or that anyone would be so petty