Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Lord Deben, Chairman of the UK government’s “independent” Committee on Climate Change, thinks the imminent likely exit of Britain from the European Union poses a risk to the Paris Climate Treaty.
A British vote to exit the European Union in June would represent a blow to the 2015 Paris climate deal, the country’s top climate advisor has warned.
Former Conservative environment minister Lord Deben, who now chairs the UK Committee on Climate Change, made the comments during a talk hosted by the IPPR think tank in London.
“Brexit is a threat to Paris,” said Deben, who is a vocal campaigner for Britain to maintain its links with Brussels.
“I’m optimistic about the European Union because I think the British people aren’t so stupid to go out – but there’s a long way to go and a great deal to do and we must not leave any stone unturned,” he added.
The referendum is slated for 23 June and has already caused significant splits within the ruling Tory party.
Read more: http://www.climatechangenews.com/2016/03/18/brexit-a-threat-to-paris-deal-says-uk-climate-advisor/
Lord Deben’s tenure as an independent climate advisor to the UK government has attracted accusations of conflict of interest, due to Lord Deben’s substantial personal investments in green businesses.
It seems likely Lord Deben’s concerns about the Paris Climate Treaty are shared by other prominent green politicians. For example, President Obama is strongly in favour of Britain remaining a member of the European Union.
https://youtu.be/gZaAkuXTIz4
US viewers unfamiliar with ‘It Ain’t Half Hot Mum’, (from which the above is an excerpt) will find a cornucopia of delights on YouTube.
Be aware that (despite its title) it is not an alarmist politically correct documentary about global warming 🙂
Cheers Latimer. 🙂
Here’s a taster –
‘Lord Deben’- famous in his earlier life for force feeding his daughter a BSE-infected hamburger on national TV – is an idiot.
http://i47.tinypic.com/20gyyxy.jpg
Speaking of “food”; here is the letter sent out by Steve Crowther two days ago. (Party Chairman of UKIP).
START OF LETTER
We have been told that Brexit will increase food prices, but as usual with the “in side” they can not say how this will happen. I would invite them to explain, but they never seem to have any answers.
We do know that leaving will also mean leaving the expensive CAP which has increased the cost of food enormously mainly to help inefficient farmers elsewhere in the EU. Under the Treaty of Rome we have been obliged to apply an External Food Tariff (EFT) to any foods produced outside the EU such as the Commonwealth. Removing the EFT will make any food from outside the EU far cheaper to import, while food from inside the EU still be at current prices, and this saving should be passed on to the customers. There is no reason why it should not be the case. Far from increasing food prices will go down.
It should be noted that this EFT also damages farmers and exporters in ‘developing countries’ who find it difficult, and in some cases impossible, to export to most of Europe. Removing the EFT would make it far easier for them to export, get a fair price for their goods and be of far more benefit to them than our ‘overseas aid’ which seldom gets to the ‘right people’ anyway. Another massive saving as well as helping people in what was once called “the third world” to obtain a better life.
We on the Brexit side recognise that our own farmers may also need financial help and farm payments would be made to those who need it, but these will be a tiny percentage of the amounts we currently pay into the CAP. More savings to be passed onto the customer.
Every Prime Minister since Heath has tried to reform the CAP, designed in the 1950s, introduced in 1962, to meet the trying conditions in Europe after the Second World War (British agriculture alone in Europe was comparatively efficient and thriving) and every Prime Minister has failed, mainly due to French resistance. We are paying at least £16 billion per year into the CAP (source: Open Europe) and even after deducting the amounts paid to our farmers in subsidies it still means a bill of £8.27 billion more in than we get out. And it should be noted that this is on top of the £20 billion plus per year that we pay in ‘membership fees’ to be in the EU in the first place.
It has been calculated that leaving the CAP, which means Brexit (there is no other way), will reduce the average food bill for a family by about £1,000 per year (£20 per week). END OF LETTER
Internal EU tariffs..WTF
He ate some as well. Nuff said.
I don’t think the hamburger was “BSE infected.”
The whole BSE episode was another science farce.
That does it. I’m voting to leave.
If Deben and Obama are all for us staying in Europe then that will convince a lot of people to vote out.
And Tony Blair and Madelson and John Major and his squeeze Edwina Currie, not to mention all the EU vultures like Juncker. I only wish the Leave side didn’t have Galloway and that Farage would accept he’s not a suitable poster boy.
I doubt people consider climate change a lever either to go or stay.
Britain Leaving the EU Endangers the Paris Climate Treaty”
Well there’s a good reason to leave
Despicable Deben ( was John Gummer) is only worried about his ‘green investments’ not getting the subsidies he helped put in place when he was environment minister. A corrupt little man just like his pal ‘Teflon Tim Yeo’.
“Despicable Deben (was John Gummer)”
He still is, as far as I’m concerned. Definitely not worthy of a title…
abso-effin-loot-ly
that git ? – an independent climate adviser? we’re talking serious urine and oxygen larceny over an extended period here….
For those who have never heard of this politician Christopher Booker’s article, although more than two years old, is a good start.,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/9498568/The-tangled-tale-of-Lord-Deben-and-a-dodgy-Severn-barrage.html
Not that I needed yet another reason to vote leave, but hey, the more the merrier. All we need now is for our American cousins to tell O’Bama to keep his nose out of our business, and I’ll be a happy bunny.
Is that the Irish 0’Bama or the Kenyan 0bama?
More to your desire to tell Obama where to go:
0bama does have twitter acct. Please feel free to express your feelings there.
@BarackObama
If he doesn’t listen to the people who voted for him, do you think he’d pay any attention to a UK Joe?
Now now Bloke. What makes you think we want him hanging around on our shores? He thinks his foreign policy actions are part of his ‘legacy’; we’re more than happy for him to help convince the English to vote for Brexit!
While Obama’s campaigning for England to remain stuck in the Euro socialistic bureaucratic anti-society, ask him what he thinks of driving on the left side of the road… Not that Obama or his family have driven in decades.
But he and about 10 of his staff do have special BlackBerrys that took a large amount of NSA time and skill to modify for security and apparently was so difficult that they wouldn’t do it for Clinton and her staff. Apparently (along with Clinton) Obama is too lazy to carry a secure laptop and (probably like Clinton) is computer (and climate) illiterate.
http://money.cnn.com/2014/05/22/technology/security/nsa-obama-blackberry/
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/03/nsa-refused-clinton-a-secure-blackberry-like-obama-so-she-used-her-own/
Obama’s BlackBerry is unusual in that it misreports his physical location. The standard NATO level BlackBerry is just much stronger encryption and has more ‘office control’ than a regular one. Combined with BES it achieves military grade communication security. If Ms Clinton was using something other than a Blackberry there were a lot of people listening in.
I met someone who claimed that the NSA was capturing all BlackBerry content along with everything else but that may have been feeds directly from certain carriers. Dunno. The NSA also has documents explaining how to approach getting info from devices that are encrypted, one titled something like, “What to do if your target is using a Blackberry.”
As BlackBerry is the only device approved for use at that level it is unbelievable the she was denied one. Literally.
Crispin:
The NATO BlackBerry is approved only to the level of “Restricted” & I doubt that includes secret or above info. In addition to make Obama’s phone sufficiently secure the NSA spent months and many man hours modifying the 10 or so phones for the prez & staff (see refs above).
http://www.zdnet.com/article/blackberry-10-and-bes-10-get-nato-approval-for-restricted-comms/
Update on “restricted”; it’s above “official” but less than “confidential”:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classified_information
Perhaps they should be using iPhones. It looks like NSA can’t even break into those.
He never listens to us. He’s willful and headstrong, certain in his infallibility. We’re just trying to outlast him. His latest chutzpah is he wants to increase the payout to former Presidents (just in time for him to collect) by 18% over the existing $450,000 / year for life.
We DID tell him to keep his nose out of other peoples business – but he follows the Obama Doctrine. Do Nothing Unless There Is A Political Advantage to Him.
I love the surveys of Obama voters on Youtube, when people ask them why they voted for him. 😀
When asked what policies of his they supported, “ermmm uhhhhh” is always the reply.
Win! Win!
It is difficult to decide what is the best course of action on EU membership.
David Cameron the Prime Minister is for membership. He can see a lucrative job in the EU or possible even the UN (like Blair) in his future.
The Queen is against, allegedly.
The financial institutions are for. They are obviously not being paid enough.
Nigel Farage (UK Independence Party) against. He says it is un-democratic – and he is right.
Leon Brittan – EU Commissioner – starting salary 20,000 Euros per month is for.
Many “green” organisations are for – they get EU funding.
Now Lord Deben is for.
Thinking about it, I just made my mind up!
Leon Brittan may well have been for but only in the past tense, he died in January 2015.
Your error undermines the validity your point.
But don’t worry. Camoron has the votes rigged so no doubt Leon Brittan’s vote will count.
How does the death of one of the parties against Brexit undermine the validity of his point? That just means there is one less voice out there who wants to stay in the EU for his own political and financial advantage. There is no real advantage for Britain belonging to the EU. It’s about as useful as the US being a member of the UN. Taxpayers pay its bills and we, in turn, get kicked around for it on the world stage.
Aren’t the majority of UK laws passed down from the EU by unelected bureaucrats?
NATO EU UN ect are all mechanisms of removing voters from the equation.
NATO is nothing more than the military wing of the UN and the UN is a puppet organisation, a legitimate face for the Anglo alliance more or less with the smaller nations irrelevant and along for the ride and free $$
The EU and UN is nutcase socialists, and bankers. The bankers want the money and the socialists want control, the socialists want socialism for them and the bankers and austerity for everyone else.
Not only are we “boiling the planet” but we “have too much stuff” apparently.
All that NWO nonsense is there to make any concerns of a one world government seem ridiculous but it’s patently obvious the EU is part of that plan as is the UN and the UNSC.
We more or less have a standing world army in NATO, who can choose to adhere or not to UN security council resolutions or act without them as they see fit, see Libya. See drone killings in the ME and Africa.
Even Orwell didn’t envisage drone bases with remote controlled killing machines as such, he was an optimist if you ask me.
This is exactly what these trade agreements are about TTP TTIP and others.
With the EU, UN and trade agreements, it pretty much sews up the social financial and political spheres into one controllable structure to be administered by people who are not elected and have immunity from prosecution.
All media now sells news, so pretty much everything will be filtered before we get it, in the UK Theresa May is doing her best to match North Korea as fast as she can be allowed to, cut by cut. Now she gets to vet every TV show to be aired, to make sure there is no “extremist content”, cos yeah, UK TV has a long history of “extremist content” sure.. like Black Adder.. you can’t fix stupid. Internet browsing kept for a year, because they know that the information can tell you everything about a person almost, fears worries beliefs and much more.
Even in Ireland, they have started prevented people moving to certain areas of the country, in some places you must have a relative, in prime Irish countryside places. You can’t move there just because you choose to and have the means. All part of the biodiversity Nazism operated at local level rather than directly from the UN, typical communist tactic of sneaking in the back door. The crazy lefties like to infiltrate their people into organisations over years and decades, and hijack them, this was common in Spain before the civil war kicked off in the 30s.
The UN is a sham, a puppet of the primarily 3 countries.
The WHO has been hijacked by Gates, Philanthropy hacking it’s called. They have a “family planning” agenda 😉
There are several chess pieces being moved around in order to create a single federalised Earth.
Little is said about the secret drone bases popping up all over the world, the Intercept has reported on the secret bases in Africa delivering “justice” Obama style.
So to recap, political consolidation(International Unions like EU), financial consolidation (Trade Agreements and deregulation), military consolidation (NATO) Social Consolidation (Global warming, Biodiversity)
That’s not a bug, that’s a feature!
“Substantial personal green investments” seem more like a conflict of interest than anything else. The green blob seems more like a fungus, rather amorphous and invasive. I do wonder just what sort of similar conflicts of interests American politicians have.
“Claim: Britain Leaving the EU Endangers the Paris Climate Treaty”
I believe that if Britain leaves the EU then Britain can do whatever is best for Britain and not for the international masters. In that regard, perhaps the claim that Britain leaving might be bad for the idiotic Paris treaty has some truth to it.
The United States is called that because the idea was to be a loose confederation of Nation-States who were joined together for self-defense against …. well, …. Britain did seem to be the biggest threat at the time. After a time, the central government decided that it would crush any “state” that tried to leave the confederation. Now, a “state” is just a political division totally subservient to the masters in the Imperial City of DC.
If Britain wants to remain an independent nation, then it better leave now. Later, it might not be an option.
True. As Americans, we believe that for government to be legitimate, it must rule with the consent of the people. If the people withdraw that consent, we will bomb their cities, kill their men, plow under their crops, plunder and burn their houses.
The longer Britain puts off withdrawing consent, the more disastrous the eventual exit will be.
You mean the Bilderberg gang? HA. Yes, they want their paws on your money.
Try to use euros in the UK. The regular Brits never really wanted in. Look at ‘Yes Minister’ from 1980
Alex has a point. We don’t use euros in UK, but retain our trusted British pound.
In those countries that use the Euro (aka the Eurozone), unemployment averages 10.3%. In those most badly affected by this disastrous display of political hubris it is over 20% (Greece 25%, Spain 20%)
In UK unemployment is 5.1%
“In UK unemployment is 5.1%”
Unless they fudge it like they do in the U.S. for the U-3 unemployment index (the one used for public consumption):
“In 1994, the BLS changed the way in which it counts “discouraged” workers for the U-3 index. If one is unemployed for more than 52 weeks, even if one continues to look for employment, one is dropped from the labor force. The definition of employment is biased. If one worked part-time in the last 30 days, even baby sitting for a few hours one time, one is counted as employed. There is no weighting for part-time work in the U-3 index.”
And if the other Euro countries numbers are fudged like ours, then they must be in real trouble to the point of revolution even (oh wait I forgot about the Euro doles, especially for those needy “immigrants”). In addition, one reason our Social Security programs are in trouble is that many disabled people have to be capable of working a full 40 hours (even though many jobs these days are only part time) to be refused benefits.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2012/10/16/why-jack-welch-has-a-point-about-unemployment-numbers/#185b44c13438
One of the problem of unemployment is inadequacy of job offers: there are available jobs (less than demand but still), but they are considered too hard and not paid enough (which is a justification for more immigration).
I think this is the result of a combinaison of many interacting factors that have gotten worse lately:
– price of fundamental goods esp. homes (official inflation metric is a mix of fundamental and vanity items, the price of homes isn’t even in the French inflation metric)
– many people are encouraged to study longer and even go the university but they don’t master the fundamentals of either math, logic or their mother language (so law teachers even complain that many students can’t write intelligible contrats, and many math student don’t know how to manipulate a polynomial)
– these people expect decently paying easy “intellectual” jobs
There is an unemployment and unemployability. Some people are still completing their “licence” (third year of university) at 28 (like William Martinet, president of the largest student union, who opposes the very limited work law reform of Manuel Valls). They are wasting their time at the university because they can’t do any real job (William Martinet will probably do politics) and they have been encouraged at least implicitly to pretend they learn stuff at the university.
There is an economic theory that we can compensate for increased cost of living and cost of labour by producing higher quality goods with a well trained labor force.
It just doesn’t seem to work in practice. You have to see the blank stares when first year university students face a simple math equation and don’t even try (or dare) to do anything with it (even try to apply distributivity to see if that helps).
And now the European commission has this fantasy where 40% of the young people get a degree: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-12-577_en.htm
I think it’s deeply misguided at so many levels. The worst part is that even if such quantified goals were a good thing and doable, faking it is easier than reaching it: stating that it’s a goal will only encourage sycophants to fake it, not to reach it. It’s very easy to lower as much as possible the level of scientific studies (so much that death by boredom becomes a risk) and to create fake curriculums with no real academic content (so the issue of (il)literacy of most students is solved). I have seen things like “ecological remediation” – of course, remediation is a thing, but requires solid prior knowledge to be studied at an academic level. I see no such requirement.
Before the Euro (1980’s), I was living in France. One summer, driving back to England to visit relatives, I was on the M1 and needed to buy petrol (gas). Filled up, and went in to pay and realized that I didn’t have any UK currency. I was amazed when the girl asked what I did have, then did the calculation in her head and said “one hundred and thirty Franks then please”. She just took my Franks with no quibble, and her conversion was pretty much spot on. I can only assume that on the main arterial routes from the coast it must have been common for truck drivers and tourists to use non uk money.
Yep. And we used to be able to do arithmetic to base 20 and 12 in our heads too (pounds, shillings and pence).
Maybe it’s something to do with our hundreds of years as a global trading nation…a proud tradition we will soon return to once free of the antidemocratic authoritarian shackles of the woefully inept EU project.
And for those who’ve yet to visit our shores, the ‘Little Englander’ stereotype as portrayed on some popular TV shows is very far from the truth. Come on over and see for yourselves.
“Yep. And we used to be able to do arithmetic to base 20 and 12 in our heads too (pounds, shillings and pence).”
Not forgetting base 14 and base 16 for stones, pounds weight and ounces.
And we could even work out really complicated sums like how much two stones one pound three ounces would cost at four shillings and sixpence per pound too.
We had guineas which were 21 shillings.
Then along came a few decades of Socialist education and then decimalisation and metrication, now you’re lucky to find anyone who can even add up a darts score without a calculator.
The EU Commissioner (=Supremo) for ‘Climate Action is a Tax Lawyer by training, following a Jesuit education. He has no discernible scientific qualifications.
He is, as are all the 28 EU Commissioners, unelected and unaccountable to any Parliament or popularly elected body.
I thought you would like to know that the EU climate policy is in safe hands……….
Getting out of the E.U. would actually show some leadership, as would leaving the U.N., While we’re at it, it would be good thing to limit membership in NATO, why should anyone allow some half-baked governments, with no functional military, to have a mutual defense pact when they can’t and will not live up to their part of the bargain. If we’re going to defend a country we should be able to do it on our own terms, without allowing a foreign government to have command and control responsibility over our people and military assets.
Totally agree with you Mark, look what happened when Turkey shot down a Russian fighter, if Russia had retaliated (which in my view they were perfectly entitled to do) It could have stared WW3. I will be voting to leave the EU, I spend a lot of time in Spain, love the country,the people and culture but the Euro is a disaster for Spain, they need, like Greece, to devalue but can’t. I cannot think of one single advantage of staying in. I travel to the US with no problems at all as do many other foreign nationals. The thought of thousands of potential terrorist living in the UK is probably my main concern, but power taken from our elected government by Brussels comes a close second.
I’m hoping for a Dexit next (Dutch). When the Brexit succeeds, the rest will follow. Please make it happen!
Killing the Paris Treaty with it is the icing on the cake. Freedom at last!
the paris climate agreement to put indc’s on the table is not a TREATY
Yes. In the US only the Senate can ratify a treaty. It is not binding without their consent. That is why Obama had to settle for the accord, which is toothless.
“Britain Leaving the EU Endangers
the Paris Climate TreatyTrough Gold Plating.”http://cdni.wired.co.uk/853×1280/a_c/a_turbine_02.jpg
Good. we’re off. Adios amigos.
The facts/truth about climate will itself endanger the Paris accord!
Watch the climate shift in November in the USA…..
Queue up Bill Murray “That’s the fact Jack!”
“Brexit is a threat to Paris,”
So what’s not to like?:-)
Lord Deben is well known as being a card carrying ecoloon, who has reputedly made a fortune out of his green interests. Putting him in charge of the UK’s “”independent”” Climate Change Committe is like placing Mr Fox in charge of the henhouse.
Nevertheless, for once I hope he is correct. The eurosceptics in the UK’s ruling Conservative Party are much less likely to be ecoloons than its current leadership. A vote to leave Europe would undoubtedly force out Prime Minister David Cameron and his ecoloon croneys. Cameron would be replaced by eurosceptic and climate sceptic Boris Johnson.
The UK’s current energy policies are uniquely insane as they are designed to “be an example for the rest of the world’. Unfortunately for the UK, most of the rest of the world is more interested in economic survival than futile gestures to the Green Blob. As of the middle of this year, there will be no power stations under construction or planned anywhere in the country, while there are plenty of power stations being closed down,
In a few years time, the UK will be renowned for its sky high electricity costs and its rolling blackouts during the coldest parts of winter. Such will be the legacy of the ecolunacy so pervasive throughout much of the UK’s so called political elite.
And all this just in time for yet another 30 year cold cycle.
Not quite true. There are a couple of nuclear stations ‘planned’ which will cost 20 times the price of an equivalent combined cycle gas station and if the progress of the two European GCRs being built by EdF is repeated for the planned Hinkley reactors they will be ten years late and cost at least twice the estimated cost if they ever get built. The other not quite true point is that the UK is already renowned for its high energy costs which is causing steel and other high electricity consuming industries to close.
If the UK votes to leave the EU then the UK people can control our destiny by being able to vote for the government they want and vote out any government that fails.
We will have autonomy, we might vote for CO2 controls, we might vote for coal fired power stations but at least we, the people, will have more of a democratic choice.
In the EU all we can do is shout from the sidelines.
With autonomy comes responsibility, there will be more engagement with the political process and our politicians will have to up their game compared to the clowns of the main UK parties who currently patronise us with their string of “omnishambles policies” and Eurogarbage babble.
We want our sovereignty back, the EU is nothing but a Comunist dictatorship, we have had our country stolen from us by our very own trecherious MPs who are supposed to represent us, instead they have betrayed this country to slavery by the back door, as for the Paris thing this is another con and should be forgotten about.
treacherous
Sounds like a win -win to me!
Bexit threatens the Paris climate accord? Sounds like a ringing endorsement to me.
Britain should leave the EU, because:
The EU is a ridiculously bureaucratic organization that drains the life out of its economies through its many dysfunctional policies, of which global warming alarmism and green energy nonsense are major components. Many EU countries are quietly retreating from green energy schemes as fast as their masters can politically do so, without admitting that they have been utterly fooled by green energy scams that are not green and produce little useful energy.
Cheap, abundant reliable energy is the lifeblood of society – it IS that simple.
A humble suggestion:
Establish an international trade organization to include those countries that follow British Law, descended from Magna Carta, now 801 years of age. This would include Great Britain, Ireland, Canada, the United States of America, Australia, New Zealand, India, and some others.
I suggest we could feed Britain much better and less expensively that Europe can, without all the ridiculous bureaucracy that typifies the EU. I suggest the British people would fare much better under this organization, and would avoid the eccentric policies that the EU frequently imposes on its citizens.
The EU is a failed experiment, the result of decades of policy-making by scoundrels and imbeciles. Britain should leave the EU before íts people suffer further harm, in terms of rising costs and reduced energy security.
Right – on!
Excess Winter Deaths total about 100.000 people per year in the USA, up to 50,000 per year in the United Kingdom and several million worldwide.
Why does the United Kingdom, with universal medical care and a population about 1/5th that of the USA, have an Excess Winter Mortality Rate up to 2.5 times that of the USA? I suggest the primary cause is poor adaptation to cold weather – and excessively high energy costs, thanks in large part to eco-loon hysteria and green energy nonsense.
References:
The Lancet study:
“Mortality risk attributable to high and low ambient temperature: a multicountry observational study”
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(14)62114-0/abstract
“Cold Weather Kills 20 Times as Many People as Hot Weather”
September 4, 2015
By Joseph D’Aleo and Allan MacRae
https://friendsofsciencecalgary.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/cold-weather-kills-macrae-daleo-4sept2015-final.pdf
[excerpts]
Cold weather kills. Throughout history and in modern times, many more people succumb to cold exposure than to hot weather, as evidenced in a wide range of cold and warm climates.
Evidence is provided from a study of 74 million deaths in thirteen cold and warm countries including Thailand and Brazil, and studies of the United Kingdom, Europe, the USA, Australia and Canada.
Contrary to popular belief, Earth is colder-than-optimum for human survival. A warmer world, such as was experienced during the Roman Warm Period and the Medieval Warm Period, is expected to lower winter deaths and a colder world like the Little Ice Age will increase winter mortality, absent adaptive measures. These conclusions have been known for many decades, based on national mortality statistics.
…
Canada has lower Excess Winter Mortality Rates than the USA (~100,000 Excess Winter Deaths per year) and much lower than the UK (up to ~50,000 Excess Winter Deaths per year). This is attributed to our better adaptation to cold weather, including better home insulation and home heating systems, and much lower energy costs than the UK, as a result of low-cost natural gas due to shale fracking and our lower implementation of inefficient and costly green energy schemes.
…
When misinformed politicians fool with energy systems, innocent people suffer and die.
****************
Best regards to all, and especially my friends and family in the UK.
Allan MacRae of the Clan MacRae
Isn’t that The Commonwealth plus the USA?
Works for me…
I was thinking of calling it the British Empire, but then the Americans might object…
🙂
Notice how he couldn’t hold back and had to call somebody stupid? I did!
He called all the undecided people with doubts “stupid”, also those too assed to bother to vote. He is the gift that keeps on giving. He really believes that his profitable “renewable” sinecures are expressions of altruism. He is the epitome of genteel corruption and his title of “Lord” well deserved.
By the way, his daughter is named Cordelia, but King Lear he ain’t,
Pablo @ 6.49am; Leon Brittain being dead has improved him a lot
Peter Miller @ 8.13; Boris Johnson (Mayor of London) is a venial, opportunist clown who just wants to be next leader. The bard has already marked him…
“How ill white hairs become a fool and jester”
(Henry IV Part 2 Act 5 Scene 5)
He should mark well the end of that speech
“know the grave doth gape thrice wide for thee than for other men”
The man is a liar. Leaving has no bearing on the Paris deal.
“Leaving has no bearing on the Paris deal.”
Charlie – it bloody does. The environmental policy and response to “climate change” is entirely within the competence of the European Union as is Energy Policy. It is in response to the “Renewables Directive” that the UK electricity supply is completely f***** up (as is that of Germany, Denmark, Ireland and Spain). The beauty is though, leaving will mean that the UK has no
“intended nationally determined contribution” so we can do what we choose, like China, India, Brazil and even bloody Zimbabwe!
One of the most ridiculous part of the European energy regulation is that some countries can flood with electricity market with subsidized energy at any time, even when prices are negative, eating the margins of non-subsidized producers, but Austria can even attack the EDF/UK Hinkley Point nuclear deal with the pretext that it has an impact on the market!
The European commission supports the deal, and it’s a deal where investissement is done by France (and others?) and paid back by UK consumers. The analysis of such deal is delicate because of lack of detailed information. The price is very high but that’s what happens when an industry is stopped for several years and restarted with even more regulatory burden. And agreeing on a high but fixed price might be necessary in order to avoid even higher prices if few production units remain available and demand grows.
Why would France and UK waste time in European courts with a remote country who does exactly nothing to secure energy production in Europe?
That Austria has ruled out nukes, in it’s constitution no less (!), is their problem.
If you apply the market impact argument consistently, you can oppose any project anywhere:
– where the State has any role
– which is either a consumer or producer of energy
Want to built a high speed line? It will consume energy. Might slightly raise energy prices elsewhere… where does it stop?
At the same time, the ethanol craziness has destabilized the agricultural markets; and now, biogaz!
Europe = free market principles applied strictly with no room for common sense + random state intervention and choosing the winners!
Lord Debden is more than an idiot. He will be remembered as the MP who fixed his Parliamentary expenses to claim money to have his moat cleaned. Anyway, what on earth does he know about the climate?
Gummer is a curious choice for the post. Not only did he feed his daughter mad cow burgers, “Norwegian environment minister Thorbjoern Berntsen, angry because Gummer was “insolent to Norway” during a discussion on acid rain, called him the biggest drittsekk (shitbag) he’d ever met.”
Berntsen pulled his punch
“Not only did he feed his daughter mad cow burgers,”
That was the only time I ever wished harm on a child
Why, do we ask, is Barack Obama so interested in keeping Britain in the EU?
Think Agenda 21/30. The progressives/ socialists/ democrats/communists/liberals believe they can control the EU agenda. It would be easier to control the British if they are members of the EU.
Clear?
Also, who said Turkey belongs to Europe?
Who wants to paralyse and destroy Europe?
Why, do we ask, is Barack Obama so interested in keeping Britain in the EU?
Think Agenda 21/30. The progressives/ socialists/ democrats/communists/liberals believe they can control the EU agenda. It would be easier to control the British if they are members of the EU.
Clear?
Might as well say that flushing toilets is a threat to Paris.
Ha ha
Never mind – Brexit an Frexit as well
Deben or gumball is a first class example of that very difficult to describe cunning skunk but stupid.
I’ve seen concern over the risk of leaving the EU in the minds of some Brit commenters when the subject is raised. This, folks, is the result of the success of the fear campaigns that socialists always employ to make people scared to make changes. It’s built into education, TV programs and documentaries, hyped new books and the ever present media servants of the campaign.
For goodness sake, how can the former ruler of the waves, the head of an empire upon which the sun could never set, inventor of the industrial revolution…. get to be scared? Scared of what? Scared that they won’t have to support the wards of the perpetual welfare nations that make up the EU? If UK, Nederlands and Germany left, the rest of them would begin to slide below many third world nations.
Britain would be able to forge multilateral deals with the English-Speaking world that was put together by forbears who didn’t know what fear was! I believe in freedom and this includes freedom of the rest of the EU to build wall to wall windmills and solar panels, freedom to print and give away as much money as they like, freedom to adopt the UN to outsource their decisionmaking and governance to. Freedom to ban asparagus not grown in the gallic way…
Don’t go telling me any of you Brits are afraid!! Maybe ask Ireland to come back and lead you if fear is holding you back. Oh and Deben is free to emigrate to the remains of the EU. We could also invite Germany and Nederlands to join us as honorary English-speaking nations.
PS I’ve been also admonishing my American neighbors to not be afraid of Trump. He’s the only one for which nothing constructed by the Dems is too big to fail. Yeah, he is a blunt and sometime vulgar fellow, but the party will ultimately provide Trump with advise on the details he needs to take care of. Presidents just need to bring a ‘can do’ attitude, an upbeat view of America’s greatness, and the apparatus will supply what he needs.
When he rebuilt the ice rink in Central Park that kept failing under the care of the City of New York. He upbraided city officials and bragged he could make a wonderful rink that wouldn’t fail. He didn’t bring a hose and scraper to the job. He went to the New York Rangers club and asked who makes the best rink in the world. They replied that it was a fellow from Toronto who made the Toronto Maple Leafs (sic) rink. He engaged the guy, who ripped out all the old pipes and put in a modern rink that New Yorkers have finally been skating on for years and years. Trump will have the best advice on foreign affairs and other things.
Jimmy Carter tried his best for years to get American diplomatic hostages back from Iran without success. When Ronald Reagan (Ray Gun as he was known for his Star Wars initiative) not only scared the Ruskies into folding up but Iran surrendered the hostages, too. Hey, Trump will put that kind of discipline back into the world and things he does will be in the national interest – remember that old idea? Just don’t be afraid. We say to people to not be afraid after terrorist attacks because that would only be a win for the terrorists. It is also true of the ideologues. Don’t let them know you are afraid.
I gave up on expecting politicians doing either anything good, or what they promised.
Now I vote for who will be most entertaining.
I’m certain Trump is not the best candidate to be President and that he believes all sorts of crap; HOWEVER, watching him piss in the Group Think PC Punchbowl that is both parties in Washington D.C. will certainly be the most entertaining show in decades…
Bad Things happen when the voters realize The Government no longer listens to them and they start lubing up their pitchforks. Count me as one of the People With Pitchforks. PWP Party. .. I want a PWP T shirt 🙂
Dear Brexit Members: Welcome to the universal PWP Party!
O.K. let’s do a reality check here.
Let’s imagine that I may wish to install several kilowatt of solar panels on my roof, next year.
If we remain in the E.U. then the cheapest panels from China receive a hefty import duty of (up to) 70%.
Hence, the cost of the panels will be 70% higher than if we in the U.K. could trade directly with China and remove this unfair E.U. tariff.
Meanwhile, the U.K. may be relieved of it’s obligation to provide a percentage of its electrical generation from massive off-shore wind turbines.
Since the consumer contributes towards the funding of this absurdly expensive form of energy generation, we should expect that energy bills would be lower than if we remained committed to E.U. targets.
Hence, solar electricity would certainly be cheaper for me, without the E.U. tariffs.
And regular electricity would be cheaper for everyone else, without the renewables commitments.
I can see why Lord Deben may want electricity (and solar panels) to be more expensive for consumers, but it is hard to grasp why anyone else would vote to let him continue to turn his nightmares into a reality.
http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_round_up/2986598/eunbsprenews_70_solar_tax_on_chinese_pv.html
Not forgetting that in spite of the EU’s obsession with green bollox, in their infinite wisdom the Kommissars in Brussels have just ruled that it is unlawful for the UK to charge a lower rate of VAT on energy-saving equipment, heat pumps, solar panels etc.
https://next.ft.com/content/d0a675e6-0adb-11e5-98d3-00144feabdc0
Further, currently the egregious Cameron – the supposed leader of the fifth largest economy and fourth most powerful military on Earth is having to go cap in hand and beg the drunken Juncker for permission to reduce the Value Added Tax on – of all things – tampons.
THAT is how far the once-powerful Great Britain has sunk, we can’t even set the price of female hygiene accessories without permission from a load of trough-snouting unelected bureaucrats heading up a kleptocracy that hasn’t managed to find an accountant bent enough to sign off its books for two decades – even Goldman Sachs won’t stoop as low as that.
You couldn’t make it up!
In the name of the free market!
France has been attacked because its VAT in half of the price of DSL was too low (France used to have a special rule allowing two different VAT on virtual parts of one DSL monthly tariff).
The European VAT rules are more bizarre than you can imagine:
– you can have reduced VAT on television distribution
– you can NOT have reduced VAT on digital networks
I am not making this up. Apparently these clown don’t understand that TV distribution is digital.
The crazier aspect is that taxes are not uniform or converging in Europe, but each country cannot freely set or change its VAT levels – even if no neighbor has the same VAT level in the first place.
td; dr: It’s anti-commercial “dumping” if you lower VAT on tampons. People would organise a tampon trafic. That would create a black market and the end of the world, probably.
No, Catweazle666, this is more insane than if it were intentional scripted as a sketch in Monty Python’s Flying Circus.
So daft that at times I forget that it is reality and find myself laughing about it all.
Someday soon, they’ll have to come and take me away.
I’ll be screaming, “can’t you fools see – it’s all a massive joke that their playing at our expense!!”
And the paramedics will just eye each other knowingly and load a syringe with a strong benzo.
I had, previously, no idea that one of the added benefits of Brexit was that it was a threat to the Paris Treaty! As we know Lord Deben is a genuine village idiot however.
Don’t you think that’s a bit hard on village idiots?
Now, if Deben had said that a pro-Brexit vote would mean that he would feel obliged to go to the library with a tot of whisky and the old service revolver, then the Vote Out campaign would have it in the bag!
I wish….
Do the right thing for the survival of your nation and leave the EU. Your future depends on it.
It’s great that the problems that the Brits (i am one) are having with the EU is being aired in a US forum.
Remember that TTIP is going to entangle you “Yankes” in this unholy mess!
View from the ex-colonies:
About 250 years ago, we not only left Europe, we left behind the quaint custom of pretending to listen/value speech at face value from guys with silly aristocratic titles (lord, duke, et al etc), so congratulations on catching up.
We (us colonials) are now having to lear the same discipline regarding president, senator, congressman.
Cant wait for OUR Independence Day which will hopefully lead to a change at the top of the Govt
The beginning of the end of the climate troughers will be icing on the cake
It’s a win/win then – what’s not to like?
Proof positive, then, that the “Paris Climate Treaty” was 100% political.
As many before have said sounds like another sound reason to leave.
Was talking to someone who was telling me about the planned merger of the UK and German stock exchanges into one partnership the odd thing was that the Germans would get a 54% stake and the UK a 45% strange equality?
James Bull
Heath should be turning in his grave now to hear that most of the people in the UK want the UK out of the EU (Common market then – 1973). One thing you can thank politicians for, they did not ditch Stirling for the Euro.
I’ll be voting Leave because I passionately want my country to regain its freedom and independence.
If it endangers the Paris agreement then so much the better.
Chris
All the regulars are in good form to-day. Martin Durkin’s film ‘BREXIT’ will be out soon, which will make you all feel really good.