Last week a number of people were in shock about the news that James Delingpole had his last column at the Telegraph. It was all rather abrupt. As to why, I have the inside scoop.
I asked James directly, and in a nutshell it was three things.
1. They paid him poorly, ’nuff said.
2. They never seemed to appreciate the kind of traffic and exposure he’d brought. Remember, Delingpole was the first MSM columnist to break Climategate, and I’m pleased to say he got the scoop from WUWT. But, they didn’t really recognize the asset, even though he won an award for his Climategate coverage. When Delingpole’s column won the Bloggie award for “Best Weblog About Politics“, they didn’t even mention it in the print edition or in the online main page. Usually when a columnist or writer wins such an award, the paper crows about it.
3. Often, they didn’t like the content. As we know, James skewers the left and in particular greens. He reports he was getting increasing pressure over his environmental essays.
Usually when people are the most angry at someone for something they’ve said or written, it’s because what they’ve said or written has some truth in it. While Delingpole pulled no punches when it came to describing (with great flourish) the defective nature of some aspects of the environmental movement, some ‘proper’ folks found it hard to stomach.
Of course, then we have this, which I find even harder to stomach:
Andrew Montford cited this as an example of Delingpole’s prescience.
So, now, the Telegraph’s loss is Breitbart’s gain, and just three days later, James has come out swinging:
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/02/16/Lefty-Lies-UK-Floods
All in all, quite an exit mirrored by a grand entrance.
Finally, all this leads me to something I’ve been remiss at doing simply because the day to day business of running WUWT often gets in the way, and that’s to recommend James most recent book. He kindly sent me a copy, and while the title admittedly made me cringe, once I started reading it, I found it lighthearted and hilarious. It reads a bit like a dictionary, except every definition has a punch line. Highly recommended, click the cover to have a look.
Also, be sure to add Breitbart London to your bookmarks. Delingpole’s latest is: Whose Life Is More Important? Yours, Or A Shark’s?
Oh, and what essay on Delingpole by yours truly would be complete without this photo courtesy of our friends at “Skeptical Science”?
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sent the book link and the wuwt link to everyone.
glad I can follow him to Breitbart ,thanks, and off to read the latest.
The Telegraph has left my desktop and a couple of days ago I installed Breitbart. Not a smart move, Telegraph, to say the least. If the management of The Telegraph are as thick as that, or are conflicted with the execrable wind farm racket, then haste them to the dump.
Another Telegraph blogger, Sean Thomas, wrote the funniest lampoon of wramists I have ever read. It’s at http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/seanthomas/100222487/when-it-comes-to-climate-change-we-have-to-trust-our-scientists-because-they-know-lots-of-big-scary-words/
charles nelson says:
February 19, 2014 at 3:12 am
The Soviet Union won WW2 by kicking it’s way into Berlin after the greatest land battle in history…
Ho right so if Britain and the Commonwealth plus the USA had not been fighting in Europe, Africa, the Pacific and Middle East the Russians would have won the War. Are you trying to re-write history for us all by any chance?
snow says:
February 19, 2014 at 1:40 am
sorry about being off topic but I need your help quickly, Ive sterd up a hornets nest on youtube with some greenie hippy. please answer this question quickly if you can,and promise I want bother you with off topic stuff again. Do our tax dollars help pay for these agw scientist research grants.
I think you might find some great articles on where the money goes over at Jo Nova’s forum
http://joannenova.com.au/reference-pages/
The Alex cartoon from today’s Telegraph. http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02826/Alex19_02_14_2826913a.gif
Richard111 – Spectator! Just taken on a year’s online subscription (the free bottle of premier cru [no less] champagne in the post was, I admit, a slight encouragement) and reckon it’s excellent value though the free offering is pretty fair too. No, I have no connection with it of any kind but do feel like giving it a thumbs up as my first ever online subscription . Editor Fraser Nelson strikes me as a genuinely independent spirit as indicated by the range of opinion expressed in the magazine. Founded in 1828, it’s (I think) the oldest magazine still in print. Booker, Delingpole and others do contribute on occasion though it is of course a general interest publication.
Credit where credit is due, yesterday’s Torygraph business pages included a recommendable piece on the wisdom of investing in adaptation to climate change, rather than in attempted prevention. I’d give the author and reference but my paper copy has already gone for recycling.
Made excellent sense to me, especially when no-one can reliably estimate the relative share of natural and anthropogenic influences on today’s climate, let alone on what the situation may be 20, 50, 100 years down the line, and when the price of prevention may be economic suicide.
As for the idea that Gaia can’t cope with homeopathic-scale changes in atmospheric carbon levels, which planet do these Eco-Maoists think they are living on?
His writing style is hilarious, he points out the illogical behavior of these groups
OK – I’ve just looked at Delingpole’s Little Green Book on Amazon.
I just read the section on Acid Rain, which was very interesting.
I then read the Wikipedia article on Acid Rain.
Delingpole states that “‘acid rain’ was little more than urban myth”, and implies that subsequent research has discredited the notion.
No one would ever get that idea from reading Wikipedia. There is not even a hint of it.
I’m sceptical about climate change. I’m even somewhat sceptical about Wikipedia. But if Delingpole is correct, then we have a Wikipedia article on a scientific subject which is completely and utterly misleading.
Should I, as a natural sceptic, also be sceptical about Delingpole?
A C Osborn says:
February 19, 2014 at 3:30 am
“charles nelson says:
February 19, 2014 at 3:12 am
The Soviet Union won WW2 by kicking it’s way into Berlin after the greatest land battle in history…
Ho right so if Britain and the Commonwealth plus the USA had not been fighting in Europe, Africa, the Pacific and Middle East the Russians would have won the War. Are you trying to re-write history for us all by any chance?”
Actually a couple of blokes (with a small team of helpers) managed to tell the Soviets all about German battle intentions and thus allowed them to win the most important Soviet/German tank battle that then halted the German advance and so started the Soviet push to Berlin.
Lookup Tutte and Flowers online and possibly discover what you do not know.
Even the little things matter.
February 18, 2014 at 11:17 pm | Rhys Jaggar says:
Delingpole is a typical American joining a 20th century world war. Late to the party but demanding all the credit.
——————-
America tries to not enter a war, gets dragged in, helps win it, and gets criticized for demaning all the credit? If American starts the war or joins too early they are criticized for being war mongers. Exactly what’s the right answer Rhys Jaggar?
The Allied victory in WWII was a team effort. Here is an important statistic: 7/8 of German division months were in the east. The battle in the east dwarfed the battle in the west. But many Americans have no knowledge at all of the war in the east, and think we won WWII. So Rhys Jaggar’s comment about “a typical American” is a fair comment.
But that won’t tell us when he (or any blogger so listed) has just posted a great article like this one.
Anthony: Please add a tab to the top of the page titled, Links of the Week or Latest Links. It would have an introduction asking WUWTers to post and briefly describe links to their favorite “finds” of recent (within the past 30 days) material of interest, preferentially from other blogs. WUWTers’ posts older than 7 days would be automatically clipped. (Or a moderator could do the clipping manually each morning.)
This would make WUWT a central hub for the latest and greatest material from our side. It would encourage peripheral bloggers to keep up the good fight. It would be a great filter and amplifier of our side’s voice.
James did tweet that he’d toned down his first brietbart article. Can’t wait for when he properly let’s rip. 😉
Anthony: PS: My suggestion for a Latest Links tab might not “work out” as I envisage. But that shouldn’t be a decisive objection. If it is a net negative, it can be dropped (or modified). Let’s give it a chance.
Anthony: PPS: The introduction to “Latest Links” would discourage the posting of links to “news” items or to quotations of warmist absurdities. Those should remain in the Tips and Notes thread.
REPLY: Roger thanks for adding to my massive workload. No. – Anthony
Another benefit of a little Global Warming is obviously great ab’s, so that would be aGW.
snow, osborn, and dbstealey
Yes, over 100 billion US tax $ spent to “fight climate change” since 2001.
But it is working: no additional warming in the years since, and US fossil fuel emissions are way down.
Memo to John Kerry: Just “stay the course”. Or how about a “mission accomplished” banner?
sarc/off
This is sad. Wars are not won by retreats, and James retreating from The Daily Telegraph to a new and unknown Breitbart London is not helping. After all The Telegraph is a major newspaper in the UK, and James was probably the last writer there (and probably all major newspapers in the UK) who really went after the Watermelons. Now the field is left to Geoffrey Lean and Co without anyone telling the other side.
FD
I’m hoping but not hopeful. Because of my worry, I think he’ll need a publicity “assist” from having his best columns promoted in a Latest Links thread here, such as I just proposed to Anthony.
IIRC, most funding for grants comes from the National Science Foundation, which is federally funded, or from other federal agencies. Some grant money comes from foundations.
Hail to the Few who are flattening the “mighty”!
Rhys Jaggar says:
February 18, 2014 at 11:17 pm
The ‘Right Wing Club for the Good Ol’ Boys’ continues its online love in……..
Delingpole was late to the Climate Change Party and thinks that it started with ‘Climategate’.
Well: it didn’t. It started a decade earlier.
This isn’t about heroism, it’s about political credit.
Delingpole is a typical American joining a 20th century world war. Late to the party but demanding all the credit.
charles nelson says:
February 19, 2014 at 3:12 am
The Soviet Union won WW2 by kicking it’s way into Berlin after the greatest land battle in history…
Gamecock says:
February 19, 2014 at 5:00 am
The Allied victory in WWII was a team effort. Here is an important statistic: 7/8 of German division months were in the east. The battle in the east dwarfed the battle in the west. But many Americans have no knowledge at all of the war in the east, and think we won WWII. So Rhys Jaggar’s comment about “a typical American” is a fair comment.
——————————————————————–
Rhys Jaggar’s comment isn’t fair. It’s ignorant. Delingpole is not an American.
You, Gamecock, are apparently also unaware that the USSR could not have defeated those German divisions without US aid. To take but one of many examples, Khrushchev admitted that the Red Army could not even have traveled from Stalingrad to Berlin, let alone fought its way there, without the hundreds of thousands of trucks, jeeps & tanks we sent them. This largess should have stopped when the USSR let Germany destroy the Polish Home Army, but it didn’t. It kept flowing even after the US & UK needed those vehicles in France, lack of which slowed our advance. To this add vast bounty in food, boots, aircraft, steel, you name it, most sent at great cost in lives & treasure on the deadly Murmansk Run.
Britain would have been starved into submission in 1940 & 1941 by German forces in the Battle of the Atlantic without US aid in merchant seamen & ships, naval escorts, Royal Navy ship repair, Lend Lease supplies, food & materiel. Not to mention volunteers & av gas in the Battle of Britain & planes & superior tanks in the Desert.
Once in the war, the US-UK invasion of Sicily forced Hitler to call off his Kursk offensive, & the Soviet success in its Belorussian campaign owed to the D-Day landings.
But more importantly, it was French & British pacifism (understandable after the horrors of the Great War) & appeasement in 1936-38, plus Soviet collusion with Hitler in 1939-41, that let the war start in the first place. Before that, the punitive terms of the Versailles Treaty insisted upon by France aided Hitler’s rise to power.
The other Allies could not have won without the US, so yes, Americans can indeed take credit. You’re welcome. Twice.
I think as long as the CAGW wacko’s keep trying to control the narrative and language calling us climate deniers, we should start calling them rightfully– “climate parasites” — because they siphon money from average taxpayers to promote their point of view:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/02/climate_parasites_the_answer_to_climate_change_deniers.html