Guest essay by Eric Worrall
All the harm Britain did to the world by creating the Industrial Revolution puts Britain under a special obligation to lead on climate change, according to British MP Michael Gove.
Michael Gove declares UK has a ‘moral responsibility’ to lead global Green Industrial Revolution
James S Murray @James_BG 11 February 2020
Cabinet Secretary sets out government’s priorities for COP26 Summit, but is reticent on whether he wants the job of Summit President
Michael Gove this morning declared that he was “very happy with the job I have”, while declining to be drawn on whether he wants the post of COP26 President in this week’s imminent Cabinet reshuffle.
…
He also hinted that in the face of likely opposition from the US and Brazilian administrations the UK would look to work with cities and states to secure more ambitious climate pledges. And he highlighted the importance of China’s upcoming Biodiversity COP, which he argued represented “two halves of the same process” in conjunction with the Glasgow COP Summit and as such should provide a route to securing close co-operation with China and other major emerging economies.
…
He added that “the reasons we think it is so important to demonstrate this leadership is not just because we are hosting COP, but also because we believe the UK has a moral responsibility to lead as the first country in the world to industrialise”.
“As we all know the Industrial Revolution relied – and still relies to a disproportionate extent – on the extraction and use of hydrocarbons,” Gove said. “And we have a moral responsibility on the first in, first out basis to ensure the country that pioneered the Industrial Revolution and played the biggest role in the change in our climate, [has] a responsibility to lead a Green Industrial Revolution.“
…
Read more: https://www.businessgreen.com/news/4010465/michael-gove-declares-uk-moral-responsibility-lead-global-green-industrial-revolution
This isn’t the first time a British politician has casually talked up bypassing the US Federal Government, to undermine President Trump’s policies by striking deals with individual US cities and states. Its like some Britons still think they own the USA.
Updated (EW): “Its like Britain still thinks…” changed to “Its like some Britons still think…”. Sorry for any upset caused by my original poor wording, having lived in Britain I know there are plenty of sensible people including my friends in the skeptic movement who are just as horrified at the CAGW scam as I am.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
I bet Gove will keep on using fossil fuels every day, because sacrifice is for the little people.
That’s exactly how they communicate at their cocktail soirees and after parties.
Why they even complain that if the population keeps growing and the little people keep using and then we allow those who have lived so long and satisfactorily, in 3rd world countries, to electrify, why there will soon be none left for the more deserving who champion the planets salvation from all these little people overpopulating.
Quick, let us create another honorarium or awards program so that they can strut about like peacocks on the red carpet patting each other on the back.
has anyone seen a graph of CO2 emissions vs. individual earnings/income? possibly corrected for “carbon” credits applied?
Let them eat gluten-free cake.
Let Michael Gove rave on — there is a joker in his pack these days by the name of Boris Johnson – I wonder whether he conferred with him before launching out on this idiotic ranting.
Boris is just as bad, a few years back he wrote a realist article but sadly he’s now got a green girlfriend so that’s gone out the window!
Can’t believe it.
Johnson is a serial liar which means it could go either way. He is also not a conservative – he is a metropolitan liberal leading a centre left government. In terms of what he has said in the past, he is on record as having saying leaving the EU would not be a good idea.
Don’t rely on Boris – as well as his green girlfriend, his whole family (father, brother and sister) are all climate alarm supporters, some of them have even been seen supporting Extinction Rebellion. So far Boris has suspended all Fracking, supports ‘zero carbon’ targets and is wasting the family (taxpayers) silver (Over £1Trillion) on ‘green’, CO2 reduction initiatives. Gove is an easily led idiot.
Boris will come to his senses. Fact is, particularly now Britain has left EU there is no way she can afford the hideously expensive climate change policies.
This is the type of person who probably can not even use a screwdriver….
The idiocy seems to be a pandemic illness, unbelievable…
If we look at the RNA strands in the Corona virus, will we find it used sequences of CAGW alarmism?
Smeagol Gove says silly things once more. Ignore this highly intelligent but utterly mistaken person.
No. We don’t have any responsibility to pander to Gove’s paranoia. Or Greta’s.
It took an absolute lack of morality to push this came this far.
… that should be ‘push this SCAM this far’.
I miss the edit button.
Joel; I thought it was ‘game’. It’s a fixed game anyway!
I misread it as Game (which also works well)
It isn’t clear that cities and states can make foreign agreements. That power is vested in the Senate and the President. link
I am not a lawyer. I have no clue. I may be getting a headache. I can dream that some governor or mayor could end up in the slammer for violating the constitution, but that doesn’t seem likely … it would be wonderful though.
commieBob
I think you posted on the wrong thread mate……. 🙂 :0 :)……Take some Paracetamol, no aspirin left in the jungle because of course…………..
Right there in the article, HotScot, and in the commentaty essay, this MP is talking about dealing directly with US and Brazilian cities and states. I think it is the right thread. What commieBob is missing is the attempts by states e.g. California making climate and trade pacts with other countries — non-binding though they might be. China, for instance, has no recourse to the U.S. government when California renegs. They can get away with it up to the point that the agreement violates U.S. law or hurts other states.
Funny thing, but without U.S. resources, the U.K. coal plants would be polluting at a higher rate, and the U.S. is leading CO2 reduction. So perhaps the real ecologists in Britain should look to the U.S. for leadership. But you won’t hear that from the Green party, which is less about ecology and more about the Socialist coalition agenda.
d
We don’t have a senate or a President in the UK. We don’t have Governors or a written constitution.
Besides which, I was teasing him.
Nor do I give a monkeys cuss about CO2 emission. It is meaningless other than as a life enhancing trace gas.
“Funny thing, but without U.S. resources, the U.K. coal plants would be polluting at a higher rate”
Who the Fvck started the industrial revolution that allowed America to grow in the first place?!
Don’t dare patronise me over America’s position in the world relative to CO2 production or the UK’s improvement of our global condition.
You owe us nothing for it, but don’t dare try to rub our faces in British success which dragged humanity into the 20th Century.
Yes and you even provided an emoji or two to indicate your intent.
As I’ve told many a negative anti-British body, (usually a lefty Brit as they are the worst of all) when told about who started the slave trade, etc, etc, with many a British home port established upon the map as a result of slave-trading, “Who ended it first 1807?” is what I say! I also point out that we Brits, for ALL our faults didn’t actually “invent” the business of slave-trading, there were after all the Persians, Greeks, Arabs (in general), Romans, Spanish, Portrugese, Italians, French, plus many, many others, & of course, many a tribal African chief who would send his “boys” inland to raid the camps & villages of their mortal & traditional enemies, stealing men, women, boys, & girls, to sell to these oh so eager European whities with lots of beads, etc!I suspect there is more than a modicome of jealousey amongst our former enemies, who revel in running us down!
““Who ended it first 1807?” is what I say!”
I think that is the important part, ending it.
I read the other day that there are still something like 25 nations on the planet that have no laws against slavery. There are still a lot of enslaved people in the world, including people in developed nations who do have laws against slavery. It’s a big problem.
D
“Without US resources UK coal plants would be polluting (sic) more…..”
First off coal plants do not “pollute”
Second the biggest grown up power generating plant in Britain – Brax in Yorkshire- sits on top of an estimated 600 years worth of coal. That’s why real adult engineers built it there.
Some years ago the idiot government (Socialists or conservative-no different) decided to convert it to burning trees.
The biggest irony is that the trees are cut in the Southern United States, processed into pellets and shipped umpteen thousand miles to Brax.
As the man said “you could not make this s..t up”
PH
Dirty to not pick but it should be Drax not Brax.
PH
Sorry to nit pick but it should be Drax not Brax.
The saddest thing is that it made financial sense for Drax to convert to burning American trees. They were being driven out of business by the government taxes on coal. They are trying to convert the remainder of the plant to gas because the taxpayer cash to convert to wood is no longer there. They are waiting for the economic case to work out to convert.
Brax, Drax, Brexed it.
“So perhaps the real ecologists in Britain should look to the U.S. for leadership.”
Britain needs to start fracking their resources and building gas-fired powerplants. They ought to do a cost/benefit analysis between doing that and putting up more windmills.
To be fair the article doesn’t say “dealing directly with US and Brazilian cities and states” it says “the UK would look to work with cities and states to …”. So not necessarily US and Brazilian ones.
Of course it Takes-Two-To-Tango so the UK will make its own mind up but only deal with a city or state that is itself allowed to do so.
Besides which it is only the journalist’s interpretation of a “hint”. Calm down dears.
PS I have met Michael a number of times. He has a wonderful dark, rich voice and talks a lot of dark, rich stuff.
The parrots ate them all……sorry, I’ll get my coat 😁
US Constitution Article I-Section 10.
No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; …
No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, …
No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with … a foreign Power, or engage in War, …
The types of agreements that Gove wants would simply be void and unenforceable. They would only be punishable if the violate the Logan Act (18 USC §953):
Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.
That last clause strikes me as fairly ambiguous and hard to enforce. The law was enacted in 1799 and has rarely been enforced.
“Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.”
John Kerry, former Vietnam Veteran and Vietnam war protestor, and former U.S. presidential candidate is guilty of violating that provision twice. The first time was when he tried to undermine the U.S. position at the Paris Peace talks during the Vietnam war when he colluded with the North Vietnamese, and the second time is when he colluded (ongoing?) with the Mad Mullahs of Iran to undermine President Trump’s hardline position against the Mad Mullahs acquiring nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them. As far as I know, he is still at this treason.
Don’t ever trust Democrats with maintaining U.S. national security. Their thought processes are so delusional that they are incapable of understanding the world around them and that makes them incapable of defending the U.S. properly. They have demonstrated this delusional thinking for decades with no end in sight.
They honestly seem to believe that the rest of the world so loves them, that as soon as they come to power, all problems will just melt away.
Long live the UK!
This will blow your mind:
https://phzoe.wordpress.com/2020/02/13/measuring-geothermal-a-revolutionary-hypothesis/
Zoe
Great. Now turn it into an example a layman can use.
I get so p*ssed off at ‘scientists’ who talk their own bollox amongst themselves then cheerily present their conclusions to the world in a language 90% of the planet doesn’t understand.
You guys just don’t get it do you, despite Einstein telling you:
“If you can’t explain your science to a three year old, it doesn’t work.” (paraphrasing).
90% of the world aren’t scientist’s. Learn to speak English and not Scientish, then you might just convince people the world isn’t ending tomorrow!
I tried to make it as simple as possible here:
https://phzoe.wordpress.com/2019/12/24/hot-plate-heat-lamp-and-gases-in-between/
There are some thought bubbles you should probably never publish, least people can see how really stupid you are.
Lets give you an inkling of the problem you determined 48.9 mW/m² at 10m down how do you know which direction? You setup a classic physics flux case and forgot fluxes have DIRECTION.
The heat could be going laterally it could be going down, it could be going up.
So lets take a leap of faith you aren’t brain dead leave the more difficult case of lateral and lets deal with up/down. So you are saying the sun thermal stops at 10m so get the data at 20m and 50m. What you then have is 3 numbers and it will tell you which way the heat flux is going at especially since 2 of them are in an area not affected by the sun 🙂
“The heat could be going laterally it could be going down, it could be going up.”
If it was going down, it would be negative.
LdB, could you just do the science without the insults. You diminish yourself by them.
I should add the underlying principle here is the heat is moving thru the same material and any formula that is correct for surface to 10m is the same as 10m to 20m and 40m to 50m etc. Your formula should work in all cases because it works on the any temperature differential regardless of how the temperature differential comes about.
” and any formula that is correct for surface to 10m is the same as 10m to 20m”
No, we don’t want the solar component above -10 meters. The point was to isolate geothermal, and not say how hot it can be when the sun is out.
Sheesh, talk about a pedantic misunderstanding.
From 1780 to 1914 UK coal production contributed an average of18% of global CO2 increase, in 2019 it was 0.6%. Leadership enough for Mr Gove?
Eric Huxter
Now that’s interesting. Can you give us more info or links on that please.
It’s obvious “by inspection”. “Percentage of global production” should be all you need to grasp it.
Using the estimated UK coal production 1750-1850 (1980 Pollard Economic History Review) (https://www.jstor.org/stable/2595840) plus published coal production statistics 1850 – 1914 and the Law Dome Data (https://cdiac.ess-dive.lbl.gov/ftp/trends/co2/lawdome.combined.dat
) the emissions can be calculated and compared to the observed increase in CO2. UK emissions averaged 18% of the annual increase over the period 1780-1914. 2109 UK Emissions 1.1% of global total. Human emissions averaged 188% of annual increase since 1958, end result 0.6% contribution to CO2 increase.
Michael Gove should be made aware of Judge Alsup’s request to the parties in the San Francisco and Oakland v. Chevron and other Oil companies litigation-
Identify the benefits to the communities of fossil fuels over the last 200 years.
Mr. Gove might enlighten us as to what exactly were the “evils”of the Industrial Revolution.
He should spend less time listening to Greta who thinks Britain owes a ‘special responsibility‘ for inaugurating the Industrial Revolution.
These people want to take us back to the seventies.
The 1770s that is.
He’s a coke head Gretin.
Is that ‘special responsibility’ as in, ” give us loads of money!” ?
Alan the Brit February 14, 2020 at 7:35 am
Is that ‘special responsibility’ as in, ” give us loads of money!” ?
____________________________________
That’s ‘special responsibility’ as in
“Big brands have to take a view on what the consumer wants”, Jocelyn Wilkinson, responsibility programme director at Burberry told Walpole’s Future Of British Luxury Summit on Tuesday, February 4.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/oliverwilliams1/2020/02/11/global-warming-threatens-luxury-lifestyles-of-the-rich/
Just as with a person, it helps if you want to be seen to be all for Green things, is to be very rich, and it helps to have such as Norway has lots of Hydro electricity to back up the inefficient renewables plus of course lots of fossal fuel such as oil.
The UK is too small and has a far too big a population to be able to play the silly game of pretending to be Green,
MJE VK5ELL
No, ‘Britain’ does not imagine they own the UK, thanks very much.
Most of us well balanced Brits recognise we are an island nation and responsible for our own governance and actions. Americans and Australians, amongst the rest of our extended family, are adored cousins. We have been through a lot together.
There may be a few UK politicians who are deranged enough to imagine they aspire to anything more than the tiniest blip in the space time continuum, but the rest of us have our feet on the ground.
Let me make it clear, Gove is a political climber. Evidently known as ‘Brains’ amongst the political elite, which is sad as, when asked on national radio the other day, no less than 8 times, how much banning ICE vehicles would cost the country, he eventually, and unconvincingly replied (with that same stupid grin on his face) “it will be a net benefit”.
Whatever position he occupies, he will turn his back on the position he previously occupied if it suits his personal objectives.
He speaks like an old style politician, never, ever, answering a question, and imagines it’s clever. Despite the entire British empire screaming at him and many of his colleagues “Just answer the effing question!”
This is a man who has survived two failed Prime Ministers so far, and another heading for the rocks just 2 months following an incredibly decisive victory in the 2019 General Election.
Please don’t present this idiot Muppet as anything like representative of Britain.
The silent majority here will take care of him in our own time.
Meanwhile, ignore the scurrying little weasel.
Thanks, HotScot, for that balanced analysis of Mr Gove’s political stance. One day maybe you might care to say what you really think. In the meantime, can someone please convince Boris that the president of COP26 has to be a dedicated climate sceptic. It’s the only way that any COP is ever going to reach a meaningful agreement. Let’s face it, they haven’t done too well at reaching agreements with alarmist presidents, have they?
Mike
My feelings on Gove are unpublishable.
He’s a Jock, I despise him more than you can possibly imagine. As I despised the likes of Blair, Brown and Campbell for betraying my country and seeking to climb the slippery Westminster pole rather than fight for their own country. Nor am I a Nationalist!
Despite what people desire, politics isn’t a long term game. No politician can hope to address anything other than the problems immediately in evidence.
However, politicians are no better or worse than you and me, they seek to better their family, as we all do.
But what I despise is when they seek to abuse their position, as they all do, to feather their own nest at the expense of we Taxpayers.
No politician should be able to sit on boards of Directors or profit from investments, or get paid for speeches or appearances.
They get paid a salary for doing a job, and after that job is over they should not engage in any business or activity which compromises their pension.
In short, if you want to be a politician, you will be paid well. If your career comes to an abrupt end, welcome to the real world.
HotScot.
Gove is a Tory minister with a green socialist agenda.
Bit of a traitor, really.
leitmotif
If Boris told Gove tomorrow that he changed his mind on green policies, Gove would become an instant sceptic.
Day two: Boris changes his mind, so does Gove. Gove is now an alarmist.
Day three: Boris believes in underground lizards controlling humanity. Gove offers himself up as a sacrifice.
Day four: Gove is the leader of the free world; and his wife tells him to eat his greens.
Aye mun, quite agree with what you say , so eloquently.
Alok Sharma (the Business Secretary) will preside over COP26.
I noticed that the one and only Green Party MP in the UK was not impressed.
She said: “But your record in Parliament, voting 15 times against action to address the climate emergency, gives me cause for deep concern.”
Maybe some would see this differently.
My apologies, updated.
Self-confessed cokehead Gove is best known for betraying his leader (Cameron) over the Brexit referendum and then stabbing his leader (Johnson) in the back too.
He has no honour.
No surprise he sees the Green as a means to self-advancement.
How long since “honor” characterised any doings in the House Of Commons? What a shower.
The only person to enter parliament with honest intentions was Guy Fawkes.
(To blow it to smithereens!)
Looks like the moronic twat he is. Not even wrong, Gove.
Rick Moranis’s Character from Ghostbusters springs to mind in terms of Mr Gove’s looks.
A bulldog licking piss off a thistle comes to mind in terms of Mr Goves looks.
Can I apologise to our friends world wide for the lunacy of Michael Grove. His role in British politics is to provide the figure of fun needed by cartoonists and satirists trying to make a living. Gove has about as much credibility as Greta, and about the same understanding of anything to do with science. The most incredible achievement of his political career so far, is retaining his position in Boris’s cabinet after the reshuffle. I can only think, Boris needs Gove to provide a punch bag when things aren’t going so well with his Green fixated girl friend. Not such big a problem these days, now the neighbours don’t knock on the wall and complain about the noise… 🙂
Can I just be (probably the last in a very long line of people) another to say thank you to Anthony, and especially all the guys that do the techie stuff on WUWT, for working so hard to bring back instant posting on the blog.
You guys must have been pulling your hair out for the last year or so.
Big round of applause needed.
Seconded.
^^^ 🙂 ^^^
No one is suggesting that we have electric driven tractors or trawlers yet, so UK food production will still rely on diesel for the indefinite future. And I fail to see the British Army using electric driven tanks.
Ian
Were our government officials to lead by example, I might take some notice (barely). But the most prominent ‘government’ vehicle of the last decade or so was Bercow’s diesel motivated Land Rover sporting the legend “Bollocks To Brexit”.
The pseudo elite have no idea we are coming to get them.
And yes, there is an elite in the UK, it’s called the Royal Family. And whilst I adore our Queen, the rest of her family, with the possible exception of Princess Ann, are simply not worth the time of day to the rest of the country, despite their protestations.
The real problem being, is that whilst HM the Queen has Reigned over her country admirably, she has allowed our elite to become infected with the concept that they actually hold any power at all over the people.
They don’t, and they are learning some excruciating lessons in the early 21st Century.
Long live the Queen. But God forbid Charlie boy and/or his useless progeny ever aspire to rule the UK ever again.
King James was Ok
We have an obligation to spread the prosperity, health, and human longevity of the ongoing Industrial and Technological Revolution. Going “Green” … Going BACKWARD is immoral and utterly selfish. 1st World selfish.
“All the harm Britain did to the world by creating the Industrial Revolution”
Our love hate relationship with the Industrial Revolution is older than climate change. Climate change is just its latest form.
https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/10/14/racism/
chaamjamal
I always enjoy your contributions here mate.
Thank you.
I don’t feel a special responsibility to go back to the dark ages.
Oh for a sceptical politician
I am puzzled why anyone can believe in CAGW or Brexit. A vast majority seem to believe in one or the other – often the most vociferous in favour of one of the idiocies is an opponent of the other. But Michael Gove seems to be a double idiot believing in both Brexit and all the carbon reduction tomfoolery.
As an a species we certainly haven’t evolved from the time when Aztec sacrificed thousand of people to combat climate change.
Ulick
CAGW bad.
Brexit good.
Gotit?
Who says they believe in Brexit? UK politicians been going out of their way to antagonise President Trump, even though the one thing they absolutely must have for a successful Brexit is a trade deal with the USA.
Perhaps they don’t want Brexit to succeed.
“Perhaps they don’t want Brexit to succeed.”
Most of them have been quite vocal about their opposition to it.
So Mr. Gove, you think that whoever created prosperity has the responsibility to destroy it?
Are you still on schedule with your medications Sir?
Because unless you’re able to present a recent medical endorsement, you voice precisely the logic of those we don’t allow on board.
The UK is setting itself up to be the world leader offsetting climate change, this is the new kid on the block who will represent the UK at COP26 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-51491538.
The seeds of destruction UK in its present form as I’ve posted before is set in stone by the jolly buffoon we see at the beginning of this article,the right cowardly Michael Gove, Gove plays on the evils of the industrial revolution, yet hes sown the seed of the next revolution, the revolution of regression ,deliberately making it uneconomic for family farms to survive , only the wealthy middle classes will be able to drive. Uncertainty of a national grid able to supply demand, land grab in all but name, with more and more laws on the environment making a land owner more like a sitting tennant. No gas ,no coal, no woodburners only electric for heat and cooking ,all this will happen over the next few years , a daily brainwashing by the media telling us nearly every thing we do is harmful to the planet, even a idiot can see there is national and international conspiracy to ware us down into excepting ythis guilt laden brainwashing so we accept this regression.
The only thing that’s not clear is when is the United states going to invade and give us are freedom back.
Mr trump we are being taken over by left wing communists who are forcing a agenda on us which we never gave consent too, we have no choice all parties in UK politics follow this agenda, are freedoms and way of life is being taken over.
Check out EMS. ( https://www.bsigroup.com/en-US/ISO-14001-Environmental-Management/?creative=415822833548&keyword=environmental%20management%20system&matchtype=p&network=s&device=c&gclid=EAIaIQobChMItrvFl9rP5wIViLzACh06oQvXEAAYBCAAEgLAp_D_BwE )
The UN has already invaded local governments.
(They even want to control forms we make and we only use in-house where I work.)
Given that the industrial revolution has arrested and reversed the terminal decline of atmospheric CO2 that would have ended life on the planet within a couple of thousand years, I think the world owes a debt of gratitude to (the once) Great Britain.
Dear Boris,
Conservatism is freedom of choice by by consensus, is it not?
Conservative governments around the world accept this.
So, kindly explain to me where freedom of choice exists when you mandate that British society changes radically, likely for the worse, with your coercive policies to make life changing decisions on behalf of the common man?
My God I am so sick of you fantasist politicians.
Please end the deaths of 25,000 people every year, in the 5th wealthiest nation in the world, from cold weather, before you embark on a crusade of saving the world by instructing us on what vehicle to drive, or how we heat our homes.
Baby steps Boris.
Yours faithfully,
David Redfern. (HotScot)
There was no Brexit.
Boris’s has pulled a swiftie – the people think they are now free of the collectivist, globalist EU when all that has happened is that the UK is now an EU-franchise.
For God’s sake …. IGNORE GOVE!
How many times do I have to say it?
We know he is an idiot and political apparatchik and nobody here takes him seriously.
What’s more, Gove has no power to do anything other than talk.
Yak, yak, yak. That’s all he’s ever done.
Got that? He can’t actually DO anything.
And did I mention he is a publicity-seeking idiot?
Just ignore him and enjoy your day.
Unfortunately when he was minister for the environment he sowed the seeds of destruction, then he was given a cushy job as a cabinet member sitting as the Dutch of Lancaster,he will still be pulling strings .