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COP26 roundup: socialism and hypocrisy
November 19, 2021 in history | Tags: 2021, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Allegra Stratton, Alok Sharma, Angela Rayner, Camilla Duchess of Cornwall, China, climate change, coal, COP26, coronavirus, Dan Hodges, GB News, Glasgow, Green Party, Greta Thunberg, Guido Fawkes, history, hypocrisy, Joe Biden, masks, Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland, socialism, Tom Harwood, UK, United States, Vietnam | Comments closed
COP26 ended last weekend.
The great Glasgow conference ended with an agreement to phase 'down' coal rather than phase 'out' coal.
This left COP26 chairman Alok Sharma MP (Conservative) in tears.
More on that below.
Let's start at the beginning of the year and work from there.
Greta Thunberg declared early in April that she would not be attending COP26:
Greta Says She's Not Coming & Glasgow's COP26 Should Be Cancelled https://t.co/80t0t0nKr9 pic.twitter.com/e2B10ms0fR
— Gaia Fawkes (@GaiaFawkes) April 9, 2021
The budding epidemiologist (irony alert) said that the conference should be cancelled until global vaccination rates had risen.
Odd that she did not mention carbon emissions from 30,000 prospective attendees, which the Global Warming Policy Forum did in May, strongly suggesting that the conference take place virtually. Guido Fawkes said that having done so would have saved British taxpayers £200m.
The UK Government stuck to the plan, however. A spokesman said:
We are working on the basis of COP26 being held in person this November, while closely monitoring the covid situation.
The summit team is working closely with all partners and exploring what different scenarios might mean for COP26 and how we plan for that, whilst putting the health of the participants and the local community first.
We are not looking to postpone the summit.
During COP26, Greta led a rally in central Glasgow, attracting hundreds of fellow admirers in the streets.
Mixed messages from No. 10's COP26 spokeswoman
On April 20, No. 10 decided to scrap the plan for American-style press conferences which Downing Street's spokeswoman Allegra Stratton was supposed to lead. Stratton became the Government's COP26 spokeswoman instead.
What a mistake that was.
On July 27, she told Britons not to rinse their plates before putting them in the dishwasher. Good news for plumbers, then:
Not sure about anyone else but my dishwasher gets blocked and breaks down if I dont rinse the plates first 🤷♂
— Dainer#SaveOurNHS (@dainer31) July 27, 2021
The next day, she — working for a Conservative government — advised Britons to join the Green Party:
Boris's #COP26 Spokeswoman Allegra Stratton "Join the Green Party" https://t.co/bhZC1xmAct pic.twitter.com/G7dExe1VGE
— Gaia Fawkes (@GaiaFawkes) July 28, 2021
This seemed to be an attempt to walk back her dishwasher advice from the day before.
Guido Fawkes wrote (emphasis in the original):
In an unexpected turn of events, Boris Johnson's COP26 spokesperson Allegra Stratton told The Independent that people should "join the Green Party" if they want to tackle climate change. When asked why organisations were critical of her advice to consider not "rinsing plates" before putting them in the dishwasher, Allegra responded by saying:
"When people say to me, 'What can they do?', they can do many things, they can join Greenpeace, they can join the Green Party, they can join the Tory Party."
A highly quotable if somewhat unusual endorsement…
On August 2, Stratton explained to Times Radio why she still drove a diesel car rather than buy an electric one (emphases mine, unless otherwise stated):
I have a diesel Golf. It's third hand and I've had it for 8 years. I don't drive it very much because I live in London, and it wouldn't be right. I cycle, I've hurt my leg at the moment, but usually we cycle or get on the bus or walk most places. The car we use to go to granny's and grandad's who are mostly 200, 250 miles away. I should be moving to another car, before I hurt my leg I was thinking about getting another car…My son would really like me to buy an electric car. I think it is the idea that right now, if I had one, any of those journeys to my dad in South Scotland, my mum in Gloucestershire, my in-laws in the Lake District and my Gran in North Wales, they're all journeys, that I think would be at least one quite long stop to charge. And my kids are seven and four and I don't fancy it just yet. That's not to say that very soon, that technology, the charging points, we're already seeing an increase in numbers, we're seeing the cost come down, and we are seeing the range go up. So the direction of travel is great, and is swift. So I am optimistic that at some point, like so many families around the country, I'll go for it. But right now, I have hurt my leg and I've been told I can't drive ...You know, sometimes when you've got a four year old in the car, they're asleep, and you just want to keep going to get there, because you know, if they wake up, you know, they'll want the loo, they'll want food, they might be feeling carsick and so on. So you want to be in control of that journey ... And included in that might be that the stop times for recharging improve so much that it's half an hour.
Stratton gave all the best reasons for not buying an electric car.
Commenting on Stratton's quote, Emily Carver, Media Manager at the Institute of Economic Affairs, pointed out:
Of course, when polled, the majority of the public support addressing climate change. Who wouldn't want a greener, more sustainable planet? However, as is the case with so many policies, it is far easier to support a rosy abstract goal than it is to face its real-life consequences.
Furthermore, very few in the media mention the African slave labour involved in mining cobalt for car batteries in general:
The same cobalt that is used in all cars microprocessors and batteries.
— Ruaribear (@DS89604848) November 9, 2021
How did Stratton get a position as press secretary then Britain's COP26 spokeswoman?
Breitbart provided some clues:
Stratton became the first official White House-style press secretary for the prime minister last year. She is a former journalist who had worked with establishment outlets The Guardian, the BBC, and ITV. Despite spending £2.6 million on furnishing a press room, the government scrapped the plans in April, moving Stratton to the role of the Cop26 spokeswoman, with the conference taking place in November of this year.
The Times claimed in May that Johnson appointed the former journalist at the insistence of his then-fiancée Carrie Symonds, herself a keen environmentalist.
The newspaper of record alleged the hiring took place despite the interview panel recommending against it, with leaked remarks calling Stratton a "risky appointment" and voters allegedly preferring Ellie Price, the panel's first-choice candidate.
"The PM said it would make his life too difficult. Carrie won't accept it if it's anyone else. He said, 'I've promised this to her'," a Whitehall source told The Times, with a second source saying: "Boris said Carrie would go bananas if she didn't get her way."
In 2020, Stratton worked for Chancellor Rishi Sunak. In January 2021, TCW told us that Stratton is married to The Times's James Forsyth, who also works for The Spectator:
It's time for the journalist James Forsyth – who also writes a column in the Times – to reveal the truth about Sunak's plans. Forsyth and Sunak are close friends. They attended Winchester College together in the 1990s. Sunak was best man at Forsyth's wedding and they are godparents to each other's children. In April 2020, Sunak hired Forsyth's wife, Allegra Stratton, to be his media chief (though it's not clear if this job was ever advertised and I don't remember any of the above being declared publicly). Since then she has moved on to be No 10 press secretary.
The conference, the hypocrisy
Guido Fawkes looked through Government contracts for COP26 to see what taxpayers' money was financing.
The filming costs were exhorbitant:
The government has splashed a whopping £36,083,135.81 on a production services contract with Identity Holdings Limited which includes a supply of production and media services.
Glasgow teemed with prostitutes for the first two weeks of November. So much for women's rights and the Left's virtue signalling moral compass.
Guido reported:
The 25,000 delegates who have flooded into Glasgow have brought protestors by the thousands and, according to Guido sources, untold sex workers from around the world who are advertising their services online. In the interests of research for this story Guido has been doing research on various "adult work" websites which filter by city. According to one of the website operators, business has really hotted up, with the number of hookers advertising their services tripling from the normal three hundred or so in the city, to upwards of a thousand.
Former Labour MP David Miliband told BBC's Newsnight that the cost of net zero would be at least £100t of ordinary people's money:
David Miliband & Co on #Newsnight want to spend $100 Trillion on climate change. ONE HUNDRED TRiLLION. Are they on crack in Glasgow?
— Gaia Fawkes (@GaiaFawkes) November 2, 2021
For whatever reason, a Green councillor from Brighton not only attended the conference, but flew to get there:
The question has to be asked why a local council leader feels the need to attend COP instead of concentrating on local matters that need clearing up. Like the bin issue for instance
— Zippy (@ToonArmyBarmy74) November 9, 2021
On November 9, Guido wrote (emphases in the original, the one in purple mine):
Why it is really necessary for a local council leader to attend a UN conference Guido doesn't know given they have absolutely no locus or input into the COP process. To make matters worse Brighton's Green council leader has been caught with his fly open and forced to apologise after jetting to COP26 in Glasgow. Just days after Caroline Lucas moaned Rishi's Budget was a joke because of its tax cuts on domestic flights…
Councillor Phelim Mac Cafferty took a plane from London to Glasgow, a 460-mile journey after which he made a speech at a protest march led by Greta Thunberg on the importance of cutting carbon emissions. He also chair's Brighton and Hove council's carbon neutral working group. According to the LNER website, the train journey from Brighton to Glasgow would have created 26.68kg of CO2 – Cafferty's plane journey created 169.94kg…
Having been found out, the councillor issued a grovelling apology to a Brighton newspaper, The Argus.
In sharp contrast, former Scottish Conservative MP Ruth Davidson spotted the Royal Train at Carlisle station:
Didn't expect this while waiting on the platform at Carlisle – the Royal train 'Queen's Messenger' pulls up for a change of driver. pic.twitter.com/hUgYwNFG3o
— Ruth Davidson (@RuthDavidsonPC) November 9, 2021
Meanwhile, Vietnam's security minister Tô Lâm left Glasgow to journey to London for an eye-wateringly expensive gold leafed tomahawk steak at the newly opened Salt Bae Knightsbridge restaurant.
Guido has the video …
… and a post about the Communist enjoying a taste of capitalism:
… And where had he just come from prior to his luxury dining experience? A flower-laying exercise at Karl Marx's grave…
This absurd spectacle should surely call into question the millions the UK's given to the corrupt, communist state. Since 2001, £481 million of UK taxpayers' cash has been given in aid to Vietnam, and they are set to get another £7 million bung in 2021/22. Based on the video, Guido calculates the three steaks alone cost the table £2,550…
His colleagues back home are clearly displeased. The #SaltBae tag on Facebook was blocked in Vietnam to prevent people seeing the video – something the social media giant is now investigating. Presumably if he is sacked for his typically corrupt communist antics, he can expect a golden handshake and a gold-plated pension…
One supposes he flew there and back.
Green MP Caroline Lucas has been a stickler for wearing masks in the coronavirus era, but look what she did at COP26. She dropped her mask:
Carol Drops Mask at COP26 https://t.co/hMvZOgXSTD pic.twitter.com/gwaSdnZip9
The Daily Mail reported that Joe Biden had an emission problem of his own which left the Duchess of Cornwall highly amused. Foreign Secretary Liz Truss is on the left, with Camilla on the right:
Biden's emission problem at #COP26 – Camilla 'hasn't stopped talking about' hearing President 'break wind' https://t.co/owvOyKazlX
Brand Scotland
More than halfway through the conference it became clear that Glasgow's hospitality sector was not reaping the post-coronavirus benefits that COP26 promoters promised.
On November 10, The Times reported (emphases mine):
While hotels across Glasgow are fully booked to accommodate the thousands of delegates, the hospitality trade is understood not to have seen any uplift in trading since the event began on October 31.
There are even suggestions the event has led to a reduction in trade for some operators. Footfall in the city centre is said to have been affected as people try to avoid the demonstrations.
There is also thought to be a number of delegations which have stayed outside of the city, with Edinburgh hotels among those which are busy.
Oli Norman, whose Ashton Properties owns venues such as Brel and Sloans, said he had heard of some publicans and restaurant owners who have seen their trading fall by up to 50 per cent, and added: "It should have signified a resurgence in the local economy but if anything it has been a damp squib."
Dan Hodges from the Mail interviewed self-employed Glaswegians in Easterhouse, a poor district away from the city centre:
Thomas is disillusioned with COP26. 'I've missed my chance,' the Glaswegian barber tells me. 'My friend rented his flat at two grand a week. He's making £6,000 and using the money to jet off for a holiday.'
I'm in Easterhouse, a few miles from where the global elite are gathering to save the world from itself. But few of them have ventured out to what was once the most deprived housing estate in Scotland. 'I'm not sure why,' Angus, the local butcher, laughs. 'Perhaps Joe Biden got lost on the M8.'
What does he think about calls for us all to go vegan to protect the planet? 'Well, I'm a butcher,' he replies. 'And my dad was a butcher and my grandad was a butcher. I grew up on pig's feet soup. So I think people round here are still going to want to eat meat.'
Angus's views could be ascribed to self-interest. The same can't be said for local cabbie Andy. He's made a small fortune shuttling delegates between Glasgow and Edinburgh at £120 a time. 'Sorry, but the whole thing is a pile of crap,' he tells me. 'They've been driving round in big convoys telling everyone else to get the bus.
'It all feels like a millionaire's party.'
While a Scottish government minister caught coronavirus at COP26 …
Scotland's Just Transition and Employment minister has tested positive for Covid. He was at #cop26 on Monday. Now he's one of the 0.1% of attendees who've tested positive for the virus@LBC @LBCNews https://t.co/uln48VTIgL
— @GinaDavidson (@ginadavidsonlbc) November 10, 2021
… First Minister Nicola Sturgeon did her best to market at least one Scottish product, Irn Bru, a popular soft drink. She gave some to Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez:
https://t.co/5x3h2jrLwT
Sturgeon also marketed herself through a series of selfies:
@ScotGovFM @NicolaSturgeon posing for Scotland. Day job? NHS, education, Covid recovery? Not while there's a photo op for Nicola.
— Christine's ♀💜🤍💚 (@Christine_ccj) November 11, 2021
This short yet amusing video tells the story perfectly:
Nicola Sturgeon's guide to Getting The Perfect Selfie #ElsieMcSelfie #COP26 pic.twitter.com/ZIgKp1hGrT
— The Majority (@themajorityscot) November 12, 2021
One senior Scot noted Sturgeon's contradictory position on mask wearing:
As was said on radio scotland earlier, the messaging is very unclear. If the powers that be insist on masks inside, the powers that be should be masked, inside. On the other hand if we are now following England and un-masking, please tell us. https://t.co/zu2rjEfOCW
— Roddy Dunlop QC (@RoddyQC) November 11, 2021
Sturgeon had no policy mandate at COP26. She was invited only as Scotland's political leader. It was a courtesy.
Still, as such, one can understand why she wanted selfies with world leaders. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for her, even though she denied it:
"Queen of Selfies" Nicola Sturgeon, tries to explain the selfies she has been tweeting all week are Fake News……📸🤦♂#GreatPretender #ResignSturgeonhttps://t.co/6Qp3pGPrDv
— Facundo Savala (@FacundoSavala) November 11, 2021
How it ended
Not surprisingly, much socialism was on display at COP26.
Harry Wilkinson discussed it with Tom Harwood of GB News on the last official day, November 12. This was an excellent interview:
'It will be the poorest people in different countries paying the cost of climate change policies'
Head of Policy at the Net Zero scrutiny group Harry Wilkinson reveals whether he thinks the COP26 climate summit has been a success. pic.twitter.com/ObgMWq2ttG
'I am seeing a very socialist agenda here that's focused on reducing people's consumption… that's really disturbing'
Head of Policy at the Net Zero Scrutiny Group @HarryWilkinsonn calls for new technological developments, warning 'we can't just subsidise the way to net zero'. pic.twitter.com/jMjabh1e5S
China and the United States signed a bilateral deal thought to be a big deal. We'll see. That said, India is the second greatest polluter after China:
'Things are reaching a crunch point'
Political Correspondent Tom Harwood reports on the final day of the COP26 summit, highlighting the importance of the 'seismic' bi-lateral deal between 'the world's two largest polluters' America and China. pic.twitter.com/meNXnH757t
Nicola Sturgeon wants a ban on nuclear fuel in Scotland, but if she does ban it too soon, the nation will not have the energy supply it needs:
Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon refuses to answer GB News Political Correspondent Tom Harwood when questioned on whether she was considering lifting the ban on new nuclear power pic.twitter.com/lllPgdYbMf
In the end, coal would be phased down rather than phased out. This is because too many developing countries need it to supply energy to their citizens.
Britain's COP26 president, Alok Sharma, nearly broke down in tears, explaining why to Times Radio:
It was an emotional moment. I understood the disappointment. And six hours sleep in 3 days probably didn't help.
The Times reported:
Before he banged down the gavel on the pact, the tearful Sharma told delegates: "I apologise for the way this process has unfolded. I am deeply sorry." The representatives of 197 countries at the summit responded with a standing ovation …
Sharma said the summit had kept "1.5 alive" but added "its pulse is weak" and described it as "a fragile win".
Nonetheless, he told the BBC's Andrew Marr that the agreement is a 'historic achievement':
Even Angela Rayner, the Labour MP who recently referred to 'Tory scum', praised Sharma for a 'tremendous job':
Sharma received many more compliments in Parliament early this week.
Those interested in combating climate change — largely impossible, in my opinion — should know that COP26 picked up from the Paris Agreement to flesh it out with specifics and COP27, to be held in Egypt in 2022, is thought to go even further with better pledges from participating nations.
Climate change and COP26: are we British fed up with our elites?
November 5, 2021 in history | Tags: 2021, Boris Johnson, climate change, COP26, coronavirus, Duchess of Cambridge, Elizabeth II, Glasgow, Guido Fawkes, history, hypocrisy, Net Zero petition, Prince Charles, Prince William, Richard Littlejohn, Scotland, Stanley Johnson, UK, UnHerd | 1 comment
When I left off on Wednesday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that day that there was no public appetite for a referendum on whether the UK government should continue with its goal of Net Zero:
I would not be too sure about that. There is a petition on the UK government site requesting such a referendum:
We want a Referendum to see if we all want plunging into Serfdom again .
— Balloo2012 (@balloo2012) November 5, 2021
Despite Boris's attempts to resist calls for another referendum, a petition calling for the government to hold a vote on whether to keep the 2050 net zero target has today reached 10,000 signatures – meaning that the government must formally respond. If the petition hits 100,000 signatures it will have to be debated in Parliament, so Boris may have to reconsider his stance yet. Re-ordering our society to achieve net zero is a massive change; one that has not yet been democratically endorsed. Let the politicians who want us to eat bugs, have cold showers, lukewarm heat pumped houses, higher energy bills and far more expensive foreign holidays, make their case!
Writing early Friday afternoon, I saw that over 12,000 people have signed it. The map showing signatures by constituency is quite interesting. Nearly every constituency has signed up in lesser or greater numbers. Only Glasgow North East had 0 signatures.
The British are not the only ones who are upset about what they have seen on the news about COP26. On Thursday, I listened to a lively — heated — debate on RMC, France's talk radio station, about the blatant hypocrisy on the part of the elites with their private jets and limos who want to legislate us into serfdom when we already have high enough taxes and other things on our minds.
Returning to the UK, it seems to me that half the public are pretty incensed by what they have witnessed this week via television in Glasgow.
YouGov's latest poll, taken between November 3 and 4, have shown a drop in popularity for the Conservatives. They are now only one percentage point ahead of Labour. It wasn't too long ago that Labour overtook them for a week in the polls.
Guido Fawkes attributes this to the resignation of a Conservative MP yesterday for allegedly promoting a firm paying him as a consultant, but, like some of Guido's readers, I think it has less to do with Owen Paterson and more to do with COP26, which is the straw that could break the camel's back:
Sure it's Post-Paterson? More like Post-COP26.
— TheFixer (@MrFixerHQ) November 5, 2021
Guido's post says, in part:
The 2.5% swing sees Labour up two points to 35% and the Tories down three to 36%, the smallest Tory lead for The Times since Rishi's social care tax rise in September. 22% of 2019 Tory voters are now undecided about who to vote for…
How did Boris become such an unabashed climate change spokesman? Was it only because he was hosting COP26? Or are there influencers, such as his wife Carrie, not to mention his father Stanley?
On October 21, Conservative Home posted a profile of the elder Johnson, 81: 'A serious environmentalist who, as COP26 looms, has at last made a convert of his son'.
Andrew Gimson, the author, tells us of Stanley's early life, his interests and the jobs he had during his career.
Excerpts follow, emphases mine:
There is scarcely an endangered animal for which Johnson has not campaigned, a senior environmentalist with whom he has not made common cause, and his efforts have been recognised by prizes awarded by Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund, the RSPCA and the RSPB among others …
In February 2016, Johnson became Co-Chairman of Environmentalists for Europe, a group set up to campaign for Britain to remain in the EU, and set out his case in a piece for ConHome in which he recalled how poor Britain's environmental performance was before 1973 …
… the tone is serious. Johnson's record as a committed environmentalist stretches back half a century. In 2017 he switched sides and accepted Brexit, but the environmentalism remains a constant.
On television, Stanley displays a jokey joviality, a characteristic Boris has adopted.
Andrew Gimson concludes:
Various characteristics have come down from Stanley to his eldest son, including an indefatigable, at times almost unhinged optimism; a compulsion to make every joke suggested by any given situation; and a fondness for the mannerisms of a stage Englishman, occasionally hard to distinguish from those of a cashiered major.
What lies behind such persistent frivolity? What is each of them hiding? The angry but lazy answer is nothing, which is one reason why the Prime Minister's chances of success have been so persistently underestimated.
In Stanley's case, there is the serious, long-term commitment to the environment, and as COP26 comes into view, he finds he has made a convert of his son.
On Tuesday, November 2, Boris flew back to London for a dinner with Telegraph journalists at the Garrick in Pall Mall, London:
EXCLUSIVE Boris Was Star Guest at Telegraph Leader Writers Dinner Last Night https://t.co/7GE7Lo2Idq pic.twitter.com/xQ0V0VpRbj
— Media Guido (@MediaGuido) November 3, 2021
Guido says (emphasis in the original):
Instead of wasting his time schmoozing celebrity swampies in Glasgow with the Prince of Wales, Leonardo DiCaprio and Stella McCartney, Boris was instead at a far more important and influential event: a reunion dinner party for Telegraph leader writers at the Garrick.
It's not the dinner or the private club that is irksome, but the fact that Boris flew back from Glasgow whilst telling the rest of us that we will have to lower our own standard of living.
The Mail's veteran columnist Richard Littlejohn wrote about the sheer hypocrisy of it all (emphases mine):
For the record, I have no problem with a few like-minded chaps getting together for Chateaubriand washed down with Chateauneuf du Pape.
I don't even care if Boris takes a private plane back from an international summit.
It's the stinking hypocrisy that sticks in my craw, the 'Do as I say, not as I do' arrogance of all this.
I couldn't give a monkey's about the double-standards of Joe Biden, Jeff Bezos, or any other of the preening global junketeers who turned up in Glasgow this week.
But I am extremely concerned about the behaviour of our Prime Minister and his Cabinet, who increasingly behave as if the rules they impose upon on the rest of us don't apply to them.
Boris has spent the week warning about climate change apocalypse. In pursuit of his insane Net Zero vanity project, he proposes to make us colder and poorer, change our diets and cut back on travel, especially foreign holidays.
After banging on about aviation and vehicle emissions destroying the planet, does he really think taking a private plane and a thirsty Range Rover to a jolly-up at an exclusive London club is a proper way to behave?
What kind of example does that set? If catching the train back from Glasgow meant missing a dinner with Lord Snooty and his pals, so what?
Sadly, this pattern of behaviour has become the norm among our ruling elite, ever since Boris's ex-sidekick Dominic Cummings flouted the Covid lockdown by driving to Durham.
Ministers exempted themselves from the travel ban and the need to self-isolate. On the pretext of combating global warming, the Tories' Cop26 champion Alok Sharma flew to no fewer than 30 countries, never once quarantining on his return to Britain.
Next month, it'll be two years since we gave Boris a thumping 80-seat majority. It should have been the start of a national renaissance under a popular, self-proclaimed libertarian PM.
Admittedly, the pandemic changed everything. But that is no excuse for what has happened subsequently. I've been asking friends and family who voted Tory in 2019, some for the first time, if they can name a single one of this Government's policies they actually support.
Other than getting Brexit done and sub-contracting the vaccine programme to Kate Bingham, most came up blank.
Somewhere along the line, a so-called Tory Government has completely lost the plot …
I could not agree more.
After having read about COP26, a good friend of mine told me the other day that he would not be upset if the Royal Family disappeared into oblivion after the Queen departs this mortal coil:
At least with a president, we can get rid of him in four or five years.
I do not yet share my friend's sentiment, but this week's events have pushed me ever closer.
Is the Queen coming out as an environmentalist, further honouring her late husband, Prince Philip, founder of the World Wildlife Fund?
Was it appropriate for her to give a statement via video about COP26? I'm of two minds about it. Then again, only those at the VIP reception at Kelvingrove Museum in Glasgow got to see it. The following article from the Mail has the transcript in a sidebar.
The Daily Mail reported on the reception, held on Monday, November 1:
Her Majesty, 95, told leaders 'to rise above the politics of the moment, and achieve true statesmanship.'
She went on to say that 'none of us will live forever' and 'we are doing this not for ourselves but for our children and our children's children, and those who will follow in their footsteps' as she urged leaders to reach decisive COP climate change deals.
In her most personal speech ever, the monarch also paid tribute to Prince Philip and described how 'the impact of the environment on human progress' was a subject close to the heart of her 'dear late husband' – who in 1969 told an academic gathering: 'If we fail to cope with this challenge, all the other problems will pale into insignificance.'
Was it appropriate for her to express her opinion on coronavirus vaccinations last Spring, intimating that those who did not get them were selfish and self-centred? That was bang out of order, in my opinion.
The Queen is now speaking out publicly on subjects that have traditionally been out of bounds for the Royal Family, the monarch in particular. One dreads to think what will be in her televised Christmas message this year.
On Monday, I watched Prince Charles's brief speech at COP26.
As expected, he catastrophised, calling on everyone to adopt a 'war footing'.
The apple does not fall far from the tree. He is like his father in that respect.
As with his mother, is this the sort of thing he should be pontificating on in public? Climate change is highly political.
The Cambridges
The Duke of Cambridge — Prince William — has embraced environmentalism as, so it would appear, his wife, the Duchess, a.k.a. Kate.
The aforementioned Mail article gushed about her outfit, far out of reach for mere mortals:
Kate Middleton looked the picture of poise in a blue coat dress and navy heels as she walked alongside Prince William in a dapper suit at the arrival.
Wearing her hair back in a low bun, the Duchess opted for a glamorous make-up look for the ceremony tonight where she was hosted Prince Charles, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall and Boris Johnson as well as key members of the Sustainable Markets Initiative and the Winners and Finalists of the first Earthshot Prize Awards.
Her custom dress came from Eponine's SS20 collection and made from a double wool crepe fabric, the price is available on application but similar dresses cost around $3,278.
Meanwhile, Camilla, 74, opted for a teal Bruce Oldfield featuring buttons recycled from another outfit.
William and Kate's appearance comes just hours after royal couple, both 39, visited Alexandra Park Sports Hub in Dennistoun to meet with Scouts from and learn more about the group's' #PromiseToThePlanet campaign.
Meanwhile, the article says that Prince William had a laugh with Joe Biden, as did the Duchess of Cornwall — Camilla — with Angela Merkel.
The Cambridges will never have to worry about installing heat pumps. They will be able to live in warm rooms and enjoy hot baths or showers thanks to traditional boilers. Meanwhile, any member of the public foolish enough to go along with installing and running a heat pump will never be warm again, either while dressed or abluting. Heat pumps stop working at 4°C. Furthermore, installing one requires tearing up one's back garden at a cost of £12,000.
The world has changed. We have more inequality now than we did when Prince Charles was born after the Second World War.
UnHerd has a profile of the prince, which has quite a few sad anecdotes in it, and concludes with the world's changes over the past 70 years:
Charles never changes. But the world always does. When he was born in 1948, wars and revolutions had levelled everything. There was a 'Great Compression'; inequality was suppressed, by accident, bloodletting, and design. For 30 years there were high taxes, good novels, middle-class successes, and an operational meritocracy.
By the Nineties, Tory politicians in Britain could dream of a "classless" society. Charles was most-lambasted in this midlife period, not merely because of the "War of the Waleses", but because this socially democratic mood made the monarchy itself look ridiculous. "Who knows what fate will produce?" Diana said, ominously, at the time.
Fate dispatched her, then produced a vastly more unequal world. Meritocracy calcified into an aristocracy. It treats national and international institutions as outdoor relief for its favoured families. After Iraq, the financial crisis, and 2016, this elite, viewed from below, began to look like an Ancien Régime. With their fabulous wealth, estates, yachts, villas, servants, and elaborate sex lives, this class resembles the Windsors, just with stronger chins.
And those are the people who are going to tell us how to live our lives according to the new religion of climate change.
Bring on that Net Zero referendum! We need it!
Happy Bonfire Night to my British readers.
COP26 and coronavirus: the elites are laughing at us
November 3, 2021 in history | Tags: 2021, Boris Johnson, Brendan O'Neill, climate change, COP26, coronavirus, Duchess of Cambridge, GB News, Glasgow, Guido Fawkes, history, hypocrisy, Joe Biden, Mark Dolan, Scotland | 3 comments
Yesterday's post was about the opening of COP26 in Glasgow and its attendant hypocrisy.
What our notional betters have done with coronavirus they will most certainly do with climate change.
Examples follow.
On Monday, November 1, the day COP26 opened, Mark Dolan of GB News had an excellent editorial which bridged the gap between coronavirus and climate change tactics:
'The elite are lecturing you, the elite are lying to you and the elite are laughing at you.'
Mark Dolan reacts to the first day of #COP26 pic.twitter.com/TRqUUQzayf
— GB News (@GBNEWS) November 2, 2021
At around 5:15 in the full version of Dolan's editorial (just over ten minutes long), he tells us of the mask theatre used with public appearances of politicians. They wear them for the photo op — outdoors — then take them off when they go indoors. Similarly, social distancing is also ignored:
Yes, the elites are laughing at us: 'for thee but not for me'.
Another commentator, Spiked's Brendan O'Neill, also says that the elites are laughing at us.
In writing about COP26 on Monday, he says (emphases mine):
It feels like the elites are just laughing in our faces now. So the other day we had the UK's chief scientific adviser, Patrick Vallance, saying everyone will have to eat less meat and fly less if we are going to get a handle on this climate-change thing. A little later it was reported that around 400 private jets will fly into COP26, carrying world leaders and big-business execs to the plush surrounds in which they'll wring their manicured hands over mankind's carbon crimes. Ordinary people are guilt-tripped for taking one poxy flight a year to escape the trials and vagaries of life in capitalist society for a couple of weeks, while those who quaff champagne on airplanes that it costs $10,000 an hour to hire out get to pose as hyper-aware defenders of poor Mother Nature.
According to one report, the private jets landing in Glasgow will spew out around 13,000 tonnes of carbon. That's the same amount of CO2 that 1,600 Scots get through in a year … John Kerry, Joe Biden's climate envoy, will be in Glasgow to pull pained faces for the cameras over the possible heat death of the planet. Three months ago he flew in a private jet to Martha's Vineyard for Barack Obama's lavish 60th-birthday celebrations. It was the 16th private-jet jaunt his family had taken this year. Prince Charles, from one of his palaces, says COP26 is the 'last-chance saloon' for the planet. The royal family has collectively flown enough air miles over the past five years to get to the Moon and back. And then around the Earth's equator three times. In short: 545,161 miles. Reader, they're taking the piss.
O'Neill moves on to cars and Joe Biden:
Driving is viewed by greens, and by eco-virtuous political leaders like Sadiq Khan [London's mayor], as one of the stupidest, most Gaia-destroying activities indulged in by the plebs. The Home Counties irritants of Insulate Britain have been winning plaudits from the commentariat over the past few weeks for blocking the paths of such terrible eco-criminals as mums driving their kids to school and deliverymen trying to deliver food and other essentials. And yet there's Joe Biden in Rome for the G20 being whisked around in an 85-car convoy. His own armoured limousine, and its decoy version, generates 8.75 pounds of carbon per mile driven – 10 times more than normal cars. And greens want us to feel angry about the working-class bloke driving an HGV full of groceries and fuel? It's insane.
When he's done with Rome, Biden will fly to Glasgow in Air Force One. Four jets will accompany him. Combined, they'll emit an estimated 2.16million pounds of carbon over five days.
O'Neill gives us other examples:
This is getting ridiculous. People will be perfectly within their rights over the next few days to ask why it is that those who live in the lap of luxury, who jet to every corner of the globe, who experience more luxury in a week than most of us can expect in a decade, should get to hold forth on humanity's alleged suffocation of the planet with carbon and pollution. Like Joanna Lumley, famed, well-paid traveller of the planet, saying travel should be rationed. Or Dame Emma Thompson literally flying first-class from LA to London to take part in an Extinction Rebellion protest about the evils of CO2. Or Harry and Meghan attending a concert focusing on the 'urgent need' for climate action and then leaving on a private jet. What the green oligarchy lacks in moral consistency it more than makes up for with brass neck.
Ultimately, O'Neill concludes that, obvious hypocrisy aside, climate change has become the new orthodoxy of people rolling in money:
It's the perfect ideology for our at-sea elites. It allows them to magic up a sense of urgent moral purpose – they're saving the planet, no less! It lends itself beautifully, or, rather, terrifyingly, to the project of social engineering: lower your horizons, learn to live with less, reconceive of yourself as a destructive creature in need of top-down control rather than a creative being who might help to push humanity forward. It naturalises the limitations of capitalism, encouraging people to make their peace with austerity and downturn on the basis that economic growth is a bad, nature-exploiting idea. And it is a very difficult ideology to challenge. The marshalling of The Science to buoy up this ruling-class ideology means that anyone who questions it – anyone who demands more growth, more ambition, a bigger human footprint – can swiftly be written off as an anti-scientific scourge, as a 'denier' of the revealed truths of climatology. Its social engineering, its social control and its strict, censorious management of social aspirations are what make the green ideology so attractive to the new elites.
Oddly, the Left find this attractive. Then again, they have always been about control:
COP26 will help to consolidate this neo-aristocracy. And, bizarrely, the left will cheer it on. The left once said: 'We do not preach a gospel of want and scarcity, but of abundance… We do not call for a limitation of births, for penurious thrift, and self-denial. We call for a great production that will supply all, and more than all the people can consume.' (Sylvia Pankhurst.) Now it pleads with the super-rich to come up with more and more creative ideas for how to rein in the filthy habits and material dreams of the masses. What a disaster. It isn't climate change that poses the largest threat to humanity in the early 21st century. It's the bourgeoisie's loss of faith in its historic project, and its arrogant generalisation of that loss of faith into a new 'green' ideology we must all bow down before. A revolt against environmentalism is arguably the most necessary cause of our age. Who's in?
Well, we in the UK have just been silenced on any revolt.
Recently, The Telegraph ran two editorials proposing a referendum on climate change legislation from COP26. Today, November 3, Prime Minister Boris Johnson told the Commons at PMQs that there will be no referendum because the public haven't the appetite for it.
At the VIP reception in the centre of Glasgow on Monday evening — which prevented people living nearby from entering their own homes — we saw that there were no masks and no social distancing. But these people are super clean and elite, so it's okay for them.
Here's the Duchess of Cambridge — Kate — laughing as she holds a jar of larvae for livestock feed:
Why not report that while this was happening,residents could not get into there own homes.Also the carers could not visit the elderly for there home visits,so I guess that is acceptable 😡
— Sue (@Sue60830978) November 2, 2021
Hilarious. This is the sort of thing that they want us to eat for dinner, along with insects:
Wasn't there an episode of Hanibal, where one "meal"/captive was put on a diet of acorns or someshite.
— Saff (@Saffroniqu3) November 2, 2021
Last week, Boris went one step further. He told a classroom of nine-year-olds that humans could be used as animal food:
Is Boris offering himself? Tell him Churchill did it or something.
— Stephanos Steer (@StefChristofi) October 25, 2021
Guido Fawkes has the video and two quotes, the relevant one of which follows:
recycling "doesn't work", he "wouldn't put beetroot in lasagne", and even that "feeding human beings to animals" might be a decent idea.
One thing is certain: neither Kate nor Boris will ever be deprived of meat on their dinner plates.
As for the rest of us, the jury's out.
The elites despise us. They really do.
COP26 bumper edition: carbon emissions galore!
November 2, 2021 in Anglican, history, Protestant | Tags: 2021, Anglican, Archbishop of Canterbury, Boris Johnson, climate change, COP26, Edinburgh, Elizabeth II, GB News, Glasgow, Guido Fawkes, history, hypocrisy, Justin Welby, Protestant, Scotland, Tom Harwood, UK, Wolf Blitzer | 3 comments
COP26? Oh, the hypocrisy of it all!
I watched the first hour of it on Monday, November 1 and nearly gagged but had to hear the actual speeches so that I would know exactly what the more prominent speakers actually said rather than read fake news regurgitations in the comment sections of the sites I read most frequently.
Air and limo travel: 'for me but not for thee'
The G20 summit in Rome closed on Monday, then it was time for the leaders to jet off to Glasgow for COP20.
While COP26 was scheduled to take place last year and couldn't go ahead because of the pandemic, it does seem as if these events, e.g. G20, could be better co-ordinated so that they took place in cities which are closer to each other.
But, you know, when it comes to our notional betters, no expense is spared. It's okay for them to fly then ride in limos all over the place, but it's not okay for us to go on a budget airline holiday with our family once a year:
Don't be silly, rules and recommendations only apply to working and middle class
— Hi Leo It's Piglet (@Catman798) November 1, 2021
In addition, Glaswegian women were made to walk down dark, unfamiliar thoroughfares while a COP26 VIP reception took place:
And nothing will be done, the great & good are more important than a lone female
— Paul Kelly (@minime006) November 2, 2021
Let's take a closer look at the double standard that we, the great unwashed, are experiencing.
Ed Miliband MP
Ed Miliband used to lead the Labour Party. He is now in the Shadow (Opposition) cabinet.
On Sunday, October 31, he went on Andrew Marr's show on the BBC to object to Chancellor Rishi Sunak's lowering of passenger air duty on internal flights in the UK.
In fact, Miliband told Marr that domestic flights should be stopped 'as much as we possibly can'. However, in January 2020, Guido Fawkes revealed the MP's own air travel habits:
https://t.co/pNe4wUEmjT pic.twitter.com/8nMPdPWQNc
— Guido Fawkes (@GuidoFawkes) October 31, 2021
Guido's 2020 post said, in part (emphases mine below):
Last April, Guido reported on Ed Miliband's hypocrisy of constantly windbagging about the 'climate emergency' despite wracking up 19,000 air miles from his flights abroad, pumping out tonnes of carbon dioxide …
Green Ed's wracked up 12,000 air miles in 10 months – half the circumference of the globe.
Miliband is one of the North London elite who represents a working class city in the North of England, Doncaster. As one would expect, Miliband is more interested in promoting himself than Doncaster. This is what one of his constituents had to say:
With 770.3K followers I wish @Ed_Miliband would be consistent & use his platform to promote Doncaster🇬🇧 instead of his podcast or his book. You have to scroll a long way down to you find any mention of us. I hope @Keir_Starmer asks Doncaster🇬🇧 if he should get a seat in the Lords
— #Global Doncaster 🇬🇧 ✈🚄 Lynn & The Farm Shop (@donnyfarmshop) October 31, 2021
Ed wants Britons to take the train, but that is not always possible within the United Kingdom, which includes Northern Ireland — and various islands:
Or, Shetland, Orkney, the Hebrides and Isles of Scilly?
— John Bell (@PlasFron) October 31, 2021
One wonders if Miliband finally bought an electric car, the type of vehicle he insists the rest of us should have:
Remember when @Ed_Miliband was lecturing us about the need to get electric cars and the interviewer asked him what he drove? And of course he blustered that because of the lockdown he had not been able to get one. Well, have you got one now Ed? pic.twitter.com/rolb1tpdng
— Gaia Fawkes (@GaiaFawkes) May 28, 2021
Miliband has complained about our rising energy prices which will be increasing by 20% per annum in 2022. However, he was the one who started the 'green tax' on energy when he was the energy secretary during Labour's last few years in power 10+ years ago:
Milliband set the ball rolling with his 80% 'biggest knob' carbon reduction target when Neu Labour where in office. Ever since, activism and loaded science usurped need and strategic national interest. Energy insanity ever since. Politicians sold us out.
— Chris… (@tinkersong) October 8, 2021
Lorna Slater MSP
Another hypocrite is the Scottish Green MSP, deputy party leader Lorna Slater, originally from Canada.
She slammed G20 leaders for not going by train from Rome to Glasgow, which would have taken 28 hours:
It is possible to get from Rome to Glasgow by train, world leaders could have decided to do this. They didn't. This is exactly what I mean. We need our leadership to *change* how they do things. pic.twitter.com/RQIxf2QS3B
— Lorna Slater (@lornaslater) October 31, 2021
However, Guido pointed out that, in 2019, Lorna Slater enjoyed a flight from Brussels to Sweden:
In Brussels airport on my way to Sweden as part of my job in #tidalenergy #tidalpower Is this the last time I'll get to use my passport in the EU queue? Curses to #Brexit. I love being part of the EU. I will do everything I can think of to work for a Scotland in Europe. pic.twitter.com/02Fv2Ib37p
— Lorna Slater (@lornaslater) March 27, 2019
Couldn't she have gone by train?
As Guido points out:
According to Lorna's logic, Guido is outraged she didn't set an example by taking the 36-hour train from Glasgow Central via Euston, London St Pancras, Amsterdam and Berlin to Stockholm Central.
As is customary for the leader of the free world, an American president has to have a ginormous motorcade for security purposes.
Apparently, in Rome, Joe Biden had to have more vehicles than usual because the city has social distancing laws during the coronavirus crisis. As such, he had an 85-car motorcade. The Daily Mail has the story along with numerous photos:
Biden at the upcoming environmental summit plans to tout $550 billion in new environmental programs in his Build Back Better framework, which he unveiled before jetting to Rome on Air Force One (another gas guzzler).
Here's the US motorcade leaving Edinburgh International Airport for Glasgow:
yup…they all bring thier jets, cars, motorclads and everything else…and they tell us how to live, while they flout it.
— Andee Harry (@AndeeHarry) November 1, 2021
Yup they always are shipped ahead of time using C130s as well. As the Marine One helicopters too.
— John (@KeaneJohn69) November 1, 2021
Here is his motorcade upon arrival in Glasgow:
How much carbon footprint is that?
— Kitty W 🕷 (@KittyW888) November 1, 2021
Nope, the motorcade has its own fleet of planes that carry it. https://t.co/hVeSocUqm9
— Lenz Grimmer (@LenzGrimmer) November 1, 2021
Less hypocritical transport
Late last week and into the weekend, North West England and the South West of Scotland, including Glasgow, had a lot of heavy rain.
As a result, media reporters and other lesser beings found their trains from Euston to Glasgow Central cancelled:
God works in mysterious ways.
— Robert Feal-Martinez #AllLivesMatter (@Robfm) October 31, 2021
CNN's Wolf Blitzer reports from … Edinburgh
Incredibly, CNN's veteran reporter, Wolf Blitzer, must have thought COP26 was taking place in Scotland's capital:
https://t.co/VtXzdOi0gD pic.twitter.com/PSBgqKF7ym
— Tom Harwood (@tomhfh) November 1, 2021
How does that happen?
Boris's opening speech
On Monday, as COP26 host, Prime Minister Boris Johnson was one of the first speakers welcoming everyone to the conference.
He laid out the purpose of this year's conference, which is to determine exactly how the Paris Agreement will work in practice:
"Right now the Paris Agreement and the hope that came with it is just a piece of paper. We need to fill that piece of paper, to populate it with real progress.
I know that humanity has in it the power to rise to the challenge."
— Tom Harwood (@tomhfh) October 31, 2021
The Daily Mail has a good summary of what he said:
The Prime Minister compared the situation facing the globe to the climax of a James Bond film where the hero has to thwart plans to blow up the planet.
But Mr Johnson said 'this is not a movie' and the 'doomsday device is real' as he urged his counterparts to do more to reduce harmful emissions.
The premier said the longer countries wait to take action then 'the higher the price when we are eventually forced by catastrophe to act'.
He said the world has 'long since run the clock down on climate change' and there is now just 'one minute to midnight', with action required immediately to prevent a global disaster.
The PM used his speech at the opening of the summit as a rallying cry to try to build momentum as he welcomed foreign leaders to Glasgow after securing only lukewarm climate commitments at the G20 summit in Rome over the weekend …
Mr Johnson pledged in his lunchtime speech to put another billion pounds into green finance – as long as the UK economy performs as expected in the coming years.
The PM repeated he wants global leaders to unveil steps on 'coal, cars, cash and trees' – the things he believes will make the most different in limiting temperature rises to 1.5 degrees.
Mr Johnson had set the tone as the G20 wrapped up last night by reading the riot act to his fellow world leaders, saying their promises on tackling climate change are starting to 'sound hollow'.
The PM said there are 'no compelling excuses for our procrastination' on reducing harmful emissions and action already taken amounts to 'drops in a rapidly warming ocean'.
Boris said that Glasgow was the site of the first steam engine, which James Watt invented. If I remember rightly from history class back in the mists of time, Britons called it the 'doomsday machine', because it was such a departure from anything anyone had known before.
In the event, it kicked off the Industrial Revolution which, despite its 'dark satanic mills' (William Blake), actually improved millions of people's lives not only in Britain but, with time, around the world:
Until the Industrial Revolution, the average Brit didn't live much past the age of 35. https://t.co/4yII23GS5r
As such, it seemed strange for Boris to refer to it at COP26. Was he inferring that Watt's steam engine was responsible for climate change?
Hmm. Look how GDP per capita has increased in England ever since the Industrial Revolution:
"Doomsday machine" pic.twitter.com/5JjGYdLRKG
— Gavin Rice (@gavinantonyrice) November 1, 2021
Tom Harwood of GB News nailed it, by pointing out how much Boris's views have changed:
Boris of ten years ago would have ruthlessly mocked the suggestion that the instigator of the industrial revolution was a "doomsday machine".
It has raised the living standards, health, wealth, understanding and education of our species. It was a brilliant brilliant thing.
This is what Boris wrote for The Telegraph in 2015, when we had a warm December. His editorial ends with this:
Scientists look at the data. But everyone else just looks at the weather – and it is the weather, therefore, that makes the psychological difference to the debate. Look at the recent summit in Paris, which ended in a good agreement to cut CO2, in contrast to the debacle at Copenhagen six years ago. What was the real difference? It was the weather. Paris was ridiculously warm for December. Six years ago, Copenhagen saw the biggest snowfalls anyone could remember. "Global warming?" everyone asked.
It is fantastic news that the world has agreed to cut pollution and help people save money, but I am sure that those global leaders were driven by a primitive fear that the present ambient warm weather is somehow caused by humanity; and that fear – as far as I understand the science – is equally without foundation.
There may be all kinds of reasons why I was sweating at ping-pong – but they don't include global warming.
Joe Biden and Boris — sleepy or just heads down?
The media are saying that Joe Biden fell asleep. It looks as if Boris did too.
Here are the photos and a video of Sleepy Joe:
… same conference same day! pic.twitter.com/KTUK3m06HG
— Paul Devaney (@Irish7Summits) November 2, 2021
The Queen's video message
In a recorded video message sent to the conference, the Queen expressed her wishes for COP26.
The message was aired on Monday evening at the aforementioned VIP reception in the centre of Glasgow.
She asked the world's leaders to rise above politics.
As ever, she had a photo on her desk that tied into the theme: a photo of Prince Philip surrounded by monarch butterflies.
The Mail's Robert Hardman reported:
Summoning the wisdom which comes with being the longest-serving head of state on the planet, the Queen distilled the monumental task facing this summit into just a few words.
'For more than 70 years, I have been lucky to meet and to know many of the world's great leaders,' she said.
'And I have perhaps come to understand a little about what made them special. It has sometimes been observed that what leaders do for their people today is government and politics. But what they do for the people of tomorrow – that is statesmanship.'
This was, she told them, their chance to be 'written in history books yet to be printed'. Big words from one who has already been written in to a few herself. But then the Monarch knows of what she speaks.
Though this was a speech she had wanted to make in person until her doctors decreed that it had to be delivered via video, it lost none of its punch. The poignancy of the setting only added to the power of her words.
There she was in the White Drawing Room at Windsor Castle, the same room in which delivered her historic address to a Covid-ravaged nation last year. At her side, was a favourite photo of the Duke of Edinburgh surrounded by butterflies during a 1988 visit to Mexico.
For years, she reminded us, she had watched him nurture a bright idea that turned in to a charity – the World Wildlife Fund – that, in turn, paved the way for so many of today's environmental organisations.
Between them, the couple had watched their eldest son and his eldest son embrace the same cause.
'I could not be more proud of them,' she said. And what was that on her lapel? Her much-loved butterfly brooch …
Another Mail article has more:
In her most personal speech to date, the monarch also paid tribute to Prince Philip and described how 'the impact of the environment on human progress' was a subject close to the heart of her 'dear late husband' – who in 1969 told a gathering: 'If we fail to cope with this challenge, all the other problems will pale into insignificance.'
The Queen's stern intervention, which was displayed on screens during a VVIP reception at Glasgow's Kelvingrove Museum, came hours after the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi pledged that India will target net-zero carbon emissions by 2070 – two decades later than the targets for the conference – disappointing many delegates.
It also comes after Boris Johnson kicked off the climate change summit by exhorting world leaders to back up their talk on climate change with action – warning it was 'one minute to midnight'.
A GB News panel thought that she had content and tone just right:
'We need a positive reframing of the discussion. The Queen's intervention was very skilfully done.'
Oscar Reddrop, PR consultant from Hawthorn Advisors, discusses the COP26 summit after President Joe Biden appeared to fall asleep during the speeches. pic.twitter.com/7Hhmvgot6v
Archbishop of Canterbury apologises
The Anglican Communion is really into the impending doom and disaster of climate change.
To see that they are so wrapped up with the United Nations makes my skin crawl.
They sent a delegation to Glasgow:
A special thanks to @BishopStrange for welcoming the Anglican Communion to Scotland for #COP26#AnglicansatCOP #Faiths4COP26 pic.twitter.com/ciQFVk6PTw
— Anglican Communion at the UN (@AnglicanUN) November 1, 2021
Earlier on Monday, the Archbishop of Canterbury gave an interview to Radio 4's Today show. Later on, he had to apologise for his remarks in which he compared coming deaths from climate change to the Third Reich:
I unequivocally apologise for the words I used when trying to emphasise the gravity of the situation facing us at COP26. It's never right to make comparisons with the atrocities brought by the Nazis, and I'm sorry for the offence caused to Jews by these words. https://t.co/T0Be5rpnc1
— Archbishop of Canterbury (@JustinWelby) November 1, 2021
Coronavirus hypocrisy
As ever, delegates were expected to wear masks, but as the Daily Mail's photos show, world leaders took theirs off and defied social distancing.
How nice for the great and the good!
As for everyone else, it was masks or no admittance:
Just saw a maskless security guard tell someone to wear their mask. Burst out laughing.
Public not interested
Thankfully, the general public are not interested in COP26. They have actual pressing issues with which to deal:
The BBC news website features 14 COP and climate stories at the top of the page, yet none appear in the top 10 most read list https://t.co/qB907D77Qw pic.twitter.com/4ZN0K7mh0K
— Guido Fawkes (@GuidoFawkes) November 1, 2021
Guido's post says that a poll shows the British public are unwilling to shoulder the cost for any nonsense arising from COP26:
The lack of correlation between the BBC's output and what people want to read, and what it suggests about the British public's true feelings towards tackling climate change, seems to be backed up by a poll by Portland this morning. It found that while the public supports hypothetically punishing climate-damaging behaviour, or the government incentivising green behaviour, just 7% say "my family and me, and other families like me" should pay most of the cost. Just 36% are willing to pay more than £50 a month on top of existing bills to limit CO2 emissions.
I plan to feature more on climate change tomorrow.
COP26: British pundits point out hypocrisy of the elites
October 28, 2021 in history | Tags: 2021, Boris Johnson, climate change, COP26, Dan Hodges, history, hypocrisy, Neil Oliver, Scotland, UK | 2 comments
Yesterday's post introduced COP26, to be held in Glasgow for two weeks, starting this coming Sunday.
Today's post looks at what British pundits think of the conference.
The British have had no end of preaching from Parliament on climate change. We have been told that we must scrap our gas boilers for inefficient heat pumps. We need to take fewer holidays, especially by air. We must stop eating so much meat. Schoolchildren are suffering from 'eco-anxiety', a word just added to one dictionary published in the UK.
The cost of all this 'greenery' leaves us with more anxiety. As with coronavirus, the cure is worse than the disease (emphases mine):
This week, Johnson unveiled his Net Zero strategy to turn Britain green by 2050 – but was warned by the Treasury that taxes and consumer costs could rise to cover the estimated £1trillion bill.
Meanwhile, our elites are flying around everywhere, Prime Minister Boris Johnson among them.
On October 24, the Mail on Sunday examined Boris's trips by air during May's local election campaign in England. Of course, as Prime Minister, his time is precious. However, to tell the rest of us that we have to watch our use of planes for annual holidays is simply hypocritical:
Boris Johnson has been accused of hypocrisy after it emerged he pumped out 21 tonnes of CO2 in just two weeks flying on his billionaire friend's private jet while lecturing about climate change.
The prime minister travelled more than 1,200 miles on JCB tycoon Lord Bamford's jet in the fortnight leading up to May's local elections.
At least two more journeys were made in the businessman's helicopter, according to The Sunday Mirror.
If he had travelled by train, Johnson would have used up a fraction of the CO2, while a car would take a year to produce the same emissions as the £47million Gulfstream jet spews out in just one hour.
It comes as the prime minister prepares to welcome global leaders to Glasgow for the Cop26 climate summit.
Last month, he called on his UN counterparts to 'blow out the candles of a world on fire' and tackle climate change together in a powerful speech in New York.
Greenpeace's chief scientist Dr Doug Parr said: 'Prime Ministerial actions have consequences far beyond those of any Hollywood star or royal, and Prime Ministerial hypocrisy is deeply corrosive of public trust.'
The flights on the Gulfstream G650 jet would have released around 21.2 tonnes of CO2, the third of a person's annual emissions …
To offset those journeys alone, 130 trees would have to be planted.
On the polling day for the local elections, Johnson appeared virtually at Germany's Petersberg Climate Dialogue where he urged leaders to propose more than 'hot air' to help prevent climate change.
He said: 'I'll be seeking commitments from the G7 members to use their voices and their votes, wherever and whenever possible to support the transition to net zero (carbon emissions), kickstart a green industrial revolution, and build economies that withstand whatever our changing climate throws at us.'
But the day after he stepped on to a private helicopter to open a Coventry school then boarded a private jet to the North East after the by-election win in Hartlepool.
Speaking of flights and climate change, the Mail's Dan Hodges had more that day on COP26:
The whole purpose of COP26 was meant to promote global environmental sustainability.
Instead, it is being turned into a catwalk for the green showboating of the global elite.
Or, in the case of Japan, showplaneing. Last week it emerged that a specially configured Boeing 777 had been flown 6,000 miles (without passengers) solely to see whether the pilots would prefer to use Prestwick or Edinburgh airports when the official Japanese delegation arrives.
It's also been announced that when the runway of choice has been chosen, special measures will be put in place to ensure arriving dignitaries can be whisked speedily to their destinations.
How nice for them!
It's less nice for commuters in and around Glasgow:
Unfortunately, COP26 has become so bloated that nearby roads will become gridlocked, so leaders will be ferried to their hotels along the Clyde Expressway, which has been turned into a VIP lane.
In addition to rail workers going on strike during the conference, bus workers are also expected to do the same:
The Unite union, with a commendable eye to the main chance, has announced that more than 1,300 bus workers will use the conference to go on strike over pay.
Dan Hodges thinks that Boris should cancel COP26, because a) the timing isn't right with coronavirus and b) it's too hypocritical:
Pressing ahead with COP26 while the globe is still struggling to contain Covid is the equivalent of forcing someone back into a burning building to carry on removing the asbestos.
Yes, the threat from global warming represents a real and present danger. But this morning, Covid and its economic impact are a more imperative one.
In order to tackle environmental challenges, people are going to be asked to make significant sacrifices.
And that will involve politicians – and the burgeoning green lobby and their sponsors – taking public opinion with them.
But instead of showing families that they have a plan for saving their planet, our leaders again seem intent on giving the impression they reside on an entirely different one.
COP26 is about to replace Davos as the event that most gratuitously frames the arrogance, hypocrisy and entitlement of the global ruling class.
Their gigantic jets will descend upon Prestwick.
And they will alight and tell us how we each need to reduce our global environmental footprint.
Their motorcades will speed along their exclusive expressway.
And they will get out, then inform us we have to do our bit by walking our kids to school. They will assemble for their plush banquet.
And after dessert and coffee, they'll retire to put the finishing touches to speeches that lecture us about eating sustainably.
Worst of all, they think no one will notice their green doublespeak.
That this grotesque 'do as I say, not as I do' grandstanding will pass everyone by amid a kaleidoscope of polar bears, Greta Thunberg and homilies about our grandchildren.
Which might actually be the optimum outcome.
As for us plebs on the sidelines:
… those concerned about where the next booster jab is coming from, or how they will cope with soaring fuel prices, will blink and miss this UN imitation of The Fyre Festival.
Because if they don't, those same people aren't going to be happy.
As I've written before, a dangerous disconnect is opening up.
Between those who believe that everyone has bought into their liberal, environmental consensus and those who want a recognition that we live in a complex world of competing priorities, not all of which revolve around the level of carbon emissions in 2050.
Neil Oliver, of the popular programme Coast and current host of a GB News weekend show, wrote a column for The Times last Sunday from the average Briton's point of view, especially during the coronavirus crisis. Scotland, incidentally, recently brought in vaccine passports:
Assorted world leaders together with thousands of hangers-on are coming to Glasgow to talk about how us proles have managed to set fire to planet Earth. Things are so bad here on the third rock from the sun that it will be nothing less than miraculous if anything other than a cinder is orbiting our star by the time they turn up, in their private jets and chauffeured cars, for two weeks of po-faced pontificating at the SECC.
That the Covid restrictions afflicting everyone else's life will be relaxed for the blow-ins should come as no surprise to anyone who's been paying any attention at all for the better part of the past two years. They won't need vaccine passports, for they are special while we are most certainly not. They have world-saving business to attend to while we have only lives to lead and more CO2-exhaling, dwindling food supply eating, resource-consuming weans to knock out from our overproductive loins.
A fleet of electric Jaguar Land Rover cars are at the disposal of the very best of them. It seems a day trip to Gleneagles may be on the agenda, but apparently limited charging ports at the luxury hotel and spa mean that generators dependent on the burning of old chip pan oil are to be sourced from elsewhere — on hand to top up the batteries and avoid any unwarranted delays for the panjandrums.
That all of the business of Cop26 could have been conducted via planet-sparing video calls will be apparent to anyone who has endured countless of same during the past months. Not one of the heads of state, far less any of the delegates, actually needs to move from his or her home office. All of the fossil fuel required for their journeys to Scotland might have remained unburnt, the atmosphere spared the release of all that carbon dioxide.
But no, as has so often been the case in recent, revelatory months, some animals' business is infinitely more important than that of others. Scum like us can remain at home and talk into computer screens, but those that matter really do have to travel for hundreds of thousands of collective miles so they might enjoy one another's company and thereby get so much more done.
Oliver then moves on to heat pumps, which are ruinously expensive for most people and do not work when the temperature falls below 4°C:
They don't work, they are ruinously expensive to install, require wholesale remodelling of houses — if not demolition and rebuilding from scratch — cost arms and legs to run, and deliver lukewarm water for tepid radiators and cold showers.
Boris and Carrie Antoinette in No 10 are presumed to think that heat pumps are absolutely the way ahead. Since we are the great unwashed after all and, as previously noted, it's already way too late for the likes of us to start showering anyway.
I am yet to read about our capo di tutti i capi and her husband revealing any imminent plans to lead by example and install, at their own expense, heat pumps of their own, but I freely admit that I do miss some headlines here and there.
There are so many excellent replies to the following tweet, that it's worth clicking on it and reading them. Here's one that mentions another bugbear of mine, meat eating:
A billionaires luxury ( private plane) remains silent.
A working man's luxury ( nice piece of steak) is mentioned every day.
Thinking I might buy a cow and plant some conifers.
— SasquatchOfTheMoor. (@SomersetOaf) October 25, 2021
I will be delighted when COP26 is over. I do not live anywhere near Glasgow but am eager to see a stop to this parliamentary pontificating over changing our behaviours to accommodate what might or might not be an improvement in climate.
All of these measures are a tax on the poor and middle class people.
Coronavirus: thoughts on the vaccines
October 1, 2021 in history | Tags: 2020, 2021, children, Chris Whitty, coronavirus, Dr Anthony Fauci, freedom, freedom of movement, history, hypocrisy, UK, United States, vaccine | 12 comments
Most of the British population has now had their two injections, myself included.
However, in terms of efficacy, the jury is out.
Since the summer, we have been told that boosters will be required as soon as this autumn.
This is what a Guido Fawkes reader had to say, referring to the implementation of vaccine passports in Scotland:
… the vaccine does not prevent infection, re-infection or onward transmission of those vaccinated, so is utterly futile as a warranty of safety for entering any type of premises. Indeed it gives a false warranty about those things. The lurgy may still be lurking.
Remember back in 2020 when Drs Fauci and Walensky told us that the vaccines are 100% effective and that vaccinated people do not carry the virus?
Not so, as we have discovered.
To make matters worse in this parlous state of affairs, the British public are now expected to help market vaccinations on social media. This campaign is called #ValuingVaccines:
This is a photo of a letter to young Britons urging them to get vaccinated. What is missing from it? Any mention of health benefits:
Note the mention of 'freedoms' in the last bullet point.
Here's a thought. Since when did our basic freedoms ever rely on getting a vaccine?
Also, minors eligible for the vaccine in the UK do not require their parents' consent. This is a mock-up of Chris Whitty, our chief medical officer. It's not far from the truth:
There are other issues with these notional vaccines.
One of them is the redefinition of the word 'vaccination', which has gone from disease prevention (I will always hold by the original and best) to producing immunity against a disease to the current protection from a disease. We've been had, folks, but most of my readers know that by now:
Now let's look at how long producing a vaccine has taken throughout history. With regard to coronavirus, we were told that vaccines take a lot less time these days. Perhaps. However, six months to market seems rather brief:
Now let's look at what six months to market has produced — a product that doesn't even work and could be injurious to one's health, if not fatal, depending on the individual. Some American youngsters have experienced heart problems after taking Pfizer or Moderna. The cure can be worse than the disease:
I am glad to see that 'vaccine' has quotation marks around it in this risk/benefit analysis:
Our notional betters, including journalists, say that the unvaccinated are causing the vaccine to fail. Hmm. That's a new one:
Now we have to worry about vaccine passports. France already requires them just to go to the supermarket. In other words, you cannot eat if you have not been vaxxed:
Speaking of supermarkets, here's Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, a former Labour MP, moaning about the lack of social distancing at Tesco. Yes, he named the chain. Yet, here's Burnham partying at Labour's conference this week as if it were the old days. The sheer hypocrisy of our leaders is mind-boggling:
Do what we say not what we do!
— Robert James 🏴🇬🇧 (@robjascfc) October 1, 2021
Those are my thoughts on the coronavirus vaccines, a necessary evil if one wishes to go out again.
I would have liked to give credit to the people who created these images, which I found in various places online. My compliments to everyone involved.
UK Coronavirus news: Lancet does U-turn on lab leak, Matt Hancock criticises anti-vaxxers
September 21, 2021 in history | Tags: coronavirus, hypocrisy, Matt Hancock, The Lancet, UK, vaccine | 4 comments
Two stories of interest today feature coronavirus.
The Lancet's U-turn on lab leak
With all the news from independent media outlets revealing more information about the possible origins of the coronavirus lab leak, The Lancet agreed to publish what it calls an 'alternative view'.
On September 19, the Mail on Sunday reported (emphases mine):
The Lancet medical journal has bowed to pressure over its heavily-criticised coverage of the disputed origins of the Covid pandemic by publishing an 'alternative view' from 16 scientists – calling for an 'objective, open and transparent debate' about whether the virus leaked from a Chinese laboratory …
The Lancet has agreed to publish an alternative commentary which discusses the possibility that laboratory research might have played a role in the emergence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
It also directly confronts the efforts of science journals to stifle debate by labelling such theories as 'misinformation'.
In the article, the authors argue that 'there is no direct support for the natural origin of SARS-CoV-2, and a laboratory-related accident is plausible'.
They add that the February 2020 statement 'imparted a silencing effect on the wider scientific debate'.
And they say scientists, 'need to evaluate all hypotheses on a rational basis, and to weigh their likelihood based on facts and evidence, devoid of speculation concerning possible political impacts'.
Science itself, they go on, should 'embrace alternative hypotheses, contradictory arguments, verification, refutability, and controversy' and rather than congratulating China on its supposed 'transparency', they call on the secretive superpower to open up …
The new commentary, published in The Lancet on Friday, said: 'The world will remain mired in dispute without the full engagement of China, including open access to primary data, documents, and relevant stored material to enable a thorough, transparent and objective search for all relevant evidence.'
One of the signatories, Professor Nikolai Petrovsky of Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia, told The Mail on Sunday: 'It might seem small, but after 18 months of complete denial, the very act of [The] Lancet agreeing to publish this letter acknowledging the origins of Covid-19 remains an open verdict, is a very big deal.
'For a leading medical journal like Lancet to agree to finally open its doors to a letter from scientists highlighting the ongoing uncertain origins of Covid-19, indicates how far we have come in 18 months in requesting an open scientific debate on the topic, but also indicates just how far we still have to go'.
Good news, at last.
Matt Hancock on anti-vaxxers
Matt Hancock hasn't been Health Secretary since June, but that hasn't stopped him banging on about the virus.
On September 19, he wrote an opinion piece for the Mail on Sunday: 'MATT HANCOCK: In all my time, I have never come across a group so dangerous as anti-vaxxers'.
With a title like that, who needs the editorial?
He writes the way he talks:
While of course we need to be vigilant, we can start restoring what makes life worth living. Families are once again able to reunite with their loved ones. Weddings, christenings and family celebrations are back on. Businesses can open up again with more confidence. In fact, by some measures, Britain has the fastest economic recovery of all the major Western nations.
Then he goes off on a tangent:
However, almost unbelievably, there is still a persistent yet thankfully small and shrinking group of people determined to try to stop this progress. In all my time in public life, I have never come across a group so blinkered and dangerous as the anti-vaxxers …
Getting the jab isn't just about protecting yourself, but about protecting others. It's not just about you, it is a social and moral obligation.
Good grief. I am so glad that Sajid Javid is Health Secretary.
This is probably the nicest thing he says about people hesitant to get the vaccine:
I understand that some people are hesitant. It's ok to be unsure and ask questions.
He then trots out all the pro-vaccine statistics, including this old chestnut, which is highly dubious:
The vaccines protect you, with about 112,000 deaths prevented because of the vaccines.
Then he returns to excoriating people who don't want to get the vaccine:
The people I reserve my vitriol for are those who promote anti-vax lies. I find it hard to believe, but it's a shocking fact that there is a small number of aggressive, noisy, threatening people who think it is right and fair to try to stop others from getting vaccinated.
The lengths to which these people will go are extraordinary. They pump out scaremongering material and videos, with discredited arguments. They try to play on people's fear of the unknown. They create conspiracies and spread misinformation. They've even sent me death threats just because I played a prominent part in the vaccines rollout.
First of all, if anyone pushed fear and scaremongering, it was Matt Hancock in his coronavirus briefings.
Secondly, if any people went to extraordinary lengths over this 'pandemic', it was Matt Hancock and the British government with lockdowns, 'because they work', so we needed not one but four. I've lost count.
Thirdly, millions must be more than furious with the man who laid down the law about physical restrictions — no visits to the elderly, severely restricted funerals, damp squib weddings, no church — for months on end then shows his blatant hypocrisy by canoodling with his assistant. Thank goodness for security cameras and for The Sun publishing the photo on the front page a month later.
Finally, he never gave MPs the granular data that he was looking at. MPs asked him for the data on which he based his decisions, but he never produced the information. Yet, he expected them to vote based solely on what he told them. I do wish there had been more of a revolt, but Labour were quite happy to approve any and all restrictions. What a parlous state of affairs.
In other Hancock news, in late August, he and his girlfriend took a summer holiday together at a modest resort in the Swiss Alps. It's a pity she hasn't gone back to her husband, who seems like a nice guy.
On September 7, Hancock returned to the backbenches for the first time since 2012:
Hancock's First Backbench Intervention Since 2012 https://t.co/RogpoluGF8 pic.twitter.com/8KpgrIs8I0
He's no doubt smarting from that and last week's reshuffle.
To think he was so confident that he would get another Cabinet post.
I do not think he will win re-election should he run again. His constituents are still irked with him for leaving his wife, whom they adored.
UK coronavirus news: will Matt Hancock be investigated?
June 29, 2021 in history | Tags: 2021, Conservative Party, coronavirus, England, funeral, history, hypocrisy, lockdown, masks, Matt Hancock, Parliament, Trevor Phillips, Wimbledon | 4 comments
Yesterday's post covered former Health Secretary Matt Hancock's final 48 hours in that post.
Marital breakups
When Harry Cole's story broke in The Sun on Friday, Hancock asked for privacy because he wanted to spend time with his children.
However, on Monday night, Cole reported (emphases mine):
The ousted Health Secretary quit on his wife Martha last week after 15 years and is now understood to be living with his lover.
https://t.co/VQmEefBQEx
— Politics For All (@PoliticsForAlI) June 28, 2021
Her husband is devastated:
Gina, 43, has called time on her own 12-year marriage with Oliver Tress after her affair was exposed.
Oliver, 54, the millionaire Oliver Bonas founder, is said to be "devastated" by the shock revelations, as family pals confirmed the split …
A neighbour in Wandsworth, South West London, said: "Gina and Matt are giving it a proper go and Olly was left reeling.
"They had lots of friends here so we are all trying to help look after Olly."
Hancock's relationship seems to have been developing for some time, as the Mail reported:
The aide who kissed Matt Hancock in CCTV footage which ended his marriage and Health Secretary career was 'asked two years ago if they were having an affair'.
Gina Coladangelo, 43, is said to have denied the existence of any romance between her and Mr Hancock when she was quizzed by one of his allies.
Friends said on Saturday night the affair had been going on for months, despite others only seeming to find out when the steamy minute-long clip of them emerged.
One wonders why they did not get married after graduating from Oxford. They both read PPE and worked on the student radio station. The Mail explains why:
Matt Hancock's mistress Gina Coladangelo was way out of the disgraced former Health Secretary's league while they were studying together at Oxford, a fellow alumnus revealed last night.
Broadcast journalist Maxie Allen, who worked alongside the pair at university radio station Oxygen FM in the late 1990s, recalled that men were desperate to date Miss Coladangelo while 'low profile' Mr Hancock cut 'an obscure figure' and was 'not someone you would mark out as destined for greatness'.
Speaking to the Sunday Mirror, Mr Allen told the Sunday Mirror: 'She struck me as someone who would get what they want. He's done well. This wouldn't have happened if he wasn't the Health Secretary and she wasn't lobbying, that is blatantly obvious to anyone who knew them back then.
'Gina was very glamorous, very nice and very good looking – all the young men held a candle for her. She was suave, composed and elegant. Most men would have given their right arm to go out with her.'
The former Health Secretary, who read sports for the radio station while he studied Politics, Philosophy and Economics, was regarded as 'low profile' and 'not someone you would mark out as destined for greatness'.
He added: 'Hancock did the odd sports report but he wasn't well known. He was not the sort of person where he'd come into a room and everyone went, 'Oh, Matt Hancock's here'.
'He had a very slight presence, not someone you would mark out as destined for greatness. Whereas Gina was very well-known and high-profile and memorable. You never saw them talking to each other.'
Mr Allen recalled Miss Coladangelo's 21st birthday party at her parents' home in Royston, Hertfordshire, and remarked: 'It was a glamorous affair. They had a few bob. Gina is not the sort of person to get drunk and make a scene. She was very composed and elegant.'
Affair unfair to the public
The Mail's veteran columnist Richard Littlejohn put the affair into perspective for us in a time of lockdown:
Clearly this wasn't simply a 'moment of madness'. It's emerged that the affair has been the talk o' the steamie, as they say in Scotland, for months.
When wasn't it going on?
So all the time Hancock was ordering us — on pain of prosecution — to keep our distance, not to hug our grannies or make love to anyone outside our immediate household, he was getting hot and heavy with his old university flame — a woman he'd put on the public payroll so he could keep her in close proximity for whenever the fancy took him.
So it would seem. He personally appointed her to her post, which required only 15 days of actual work per year:
🚨 | BREAKING: Matt Hancock personally appointed aide Gina Coladangelo to the £15k government job (for 15 days work per year), No10 confirms
Cross constituents
In Newmarket, Suffolk — the heart of Hancock's constituency — people were unhappy with their MP. The Mail interviewed several of them on Sunday:
Today Newmarket locals said they were 'happy' that the MP for West Suffolk had resigned from the Cabinet as they accused him of 'hypocrisy and double standards' over coronavirus restrictions.
Residents described how they had been prevented from visiting their grandchildren by Mr Hancock, while some admitted they only voted for him in 2019 to keep Labour out. Others were thrilled to hear that the minister whose regulations had kept their businesses shut had left the Government.
Graham Gladstone, 41, said: 'He should have resigned immediately. The defence from Boris Johnson shows a contempt towards British members of public who have followed the rules and NHS staff who have had to be involved in treating people and the consequences of the virus.
'It seemed typical of Conservative ministers to see what the public reaction was rather than think about the consequences of what he did. Especially after he publicly denounced Neil Ferguson.'
Hannah Grimwood, 32, who works at Argos and has lived in Newmarket for 10 years, said: 'I never liked him in the first place, I've been moaning about the man for years. I feel sorry for Boris Johnson, he had too much on his plate and too many people telling him what he should and shouldn't do.'
Miss Grimwood's partner Gary Holliday, 42, added: 'If you make the rules you have to follow the rules. He's only human but when it's happening a couple of times or more then members of the public are going to think it's not fair.'
Cross Conservative MPs
Conservative MPs were also angry at Hancock's hypocrisy. No doubt their inboxes were filling up with complaints from constituents. A crucial by-election is also coming up in Batley and Spen on Thursday, July 1, which the Conservatives hope to win. More on that later this week.
The Telegraph's Christopher Hope had the story about Hancock's decision to resign on Saturday:
The Daily Telegraph understands that this view crystallised in a "fairly direct" conversation with Mark Spencer, the Government's chief whip, at lunchtime on Saturday, who told him that 80 Tory MPs had complained to the whips' office about him in the 24 hours after he refused to resign.
Mr Spencer fed back the concerns in a call to Mr Hancock at midday on Saturday. "There were 80 Tory MPs saying he should go at that time," a source said.
The number of complaints means that more than one in four of the party's 363 MPs complained about Mr Hancock.
Sky News interview about funerals
On Sunday morning, Trevor Phillips interviewed a Conservative Cabinet member, Brandon Lewis, about Hancock's hypocrisy.
On his Sky News show, Phillips related the story of his daughter who died during lockdown on May 11 this year, six days after Hancock's steamy clinch with his aide. Phillips's daughter did not have the virus. She was anorexic.
"Explain to me why I shouldn't tell you where to get off?"@TrevorPTweets speaks out about losing his daughter during lockdown, at the same time Matt Hancock broke COVID rules.
Brandon Lewis accepts "the frustration and anger".#Phillips: https://t.co/IWqi5Um7f0 pic.twitter.com/pXEe5jvCDL
— Trevor Phillips on Sunday (@RidgeOnSunday) June 27, 2021
The Evening Standard has the dialogue:
Mr Phillips told Mr Lewis he wanted "to do something I wouldn't normally do and put a personal, private, question to you".
He continued: "Over the past two days, every Cabinet minister, including you, has come out to essentially defend the Prime Minister and Matt Hancock.
"The pictures that we saw were of an encounter on May 6.
"On May 11, my family buried my daughter who had died not of Covid but during the lockdown.
"Three hundred of our family and friends turned up online but most of them were not allowed to be at the graveside, even though it is in the open air, because of the rule of 30.
"Because of the instruction by Mr Hancock."
Before allowing Mr Lewis the chance to respond, Mr Phillips finished by saying: "Now the next time one of you tells me what to do in my private life, explain to me why I shouldn't just tell you where to get off?"
Mr Lewis failed to acknowledge Mr Phillips' loss, and said: "Look I absolutely accept the frustration, even the anger, from people and the situations they've been through.
"I've lost friends whose funerals I've not been able to go to, that is such a tragic situation for any of us to be in, which is why it's so important for all of us to do what we can to keep ourselves and family members safe."
He again defended disgraced Mr Hancock, adding: "What Matt did was wrong and that's why he apologised and acknowledged that."
Mr Phillips is covering for Sophy Ridge on the channel's Sunday morning politics show.
More double standards
With regard to coronavirus restrictions, here is a video of Wimbledon from Monday, June 28. The stands are full. There are no masks nor is there any social distancing:
Lovely to see a sold out Wimbledon when there are still limits on weddings and funerals 👏👏👏
— Aliskull (@Aliskull) June 28, 2021
However, football matches are still restricted in audience numbers and require mask wearing:
Covid doesnt like watching tennis
— David Pez (@DavPez) June 28, 2021
And here we are, being told to wear masks in shops, when we are there for far less time than it takes to watch a day's worth of tennis at Wimbledon.
However, since the Hancock photos and video emerged, some shops are no longer asking for masks to be worn.
Together with growing exasperation at the never-ending cycle of lockdowns, people are taking matters into their own hands – with small retailers discouraging mask-wearing while massive anti-lockdown protests sweep through London calling for Mr Hancock's arrest.
Shops in Thirsk, North Yorkshire, placed signs in windows showing Mr Hancock kissing Miss Coladangelo, who studied politics, philosophy and economics at Oxford at the same time as Mr Hancock in the 1990s and is married to Oliver Bonas founder Oliver Tress.
The signs say: 'Welcome to House Interiors. Don't wear a mask if you don't want too (sic). Matt doesn't'.
The article has a photo of the sign, which is as amusing as it is true.
Hancock's house was also targeted. It's a pity he was not there to see it:
Police were pictured removing a sticker put on Mr Hancock's London home, where his wife Martha and their children live. It says: 'Our forefathers gave their lives to keep this country free, and you're just going to sit back and let it become an authoritarian hellhole, over a virus with a 99.9% recovery rate?'
Television presenter Kirstie Allsopp pointed out:
the incident showed how 'it was one rule for you, another for us', tweeting: 'I remember footage of Hancock whipping of his mask as he entered No 10, not even keeping it on in the corridors as school children were made to do, I knew then it was one rule for you, another for us.'
Humour at Hancock's expense
On Monday, June 28, an amusing video went viral of a man enquiring of Hancock at the gates of Downing Street:
Cheeky Downing Street cops crack jokes about Matt Hancock pic.twitter.com/AkKiXJzs02
— The Sun (@TheSun) June 29, 2021
The clip, filmed by company boss Dan Wright on Monday afternoon, has gone viral and been viewed more than a million times already.
In the video, Mr Wright asks the group of armed policemen: 'Is Matt allowed to play? Is Matt allowed to come out and play?' The smirking officer then responds: 'No, he's cleaning his locker out at the moment' – to roars of laughter from his colleagues.
Passerby Mr Wright, of Chelmsford, Essex, also bursts out laughing while a second armed police officer quips: 'He's had his play already.'
It is to be hoped that the House of Commons will not forget the Hancock debacle any time soon.
Debates on coronavirus restrictions this week have been lively, even though Hancock was only the subject of one Urgent Question, which related to the security camera in his former office.
Julia Lopez, the Parliamentary Secretary for the Cabinet Office, also fielded questions from MPs about Hancock's use of his personal Gmail account for Health Department contracts.
More on those tomorrow.


text:
Q: separated schemes Here's a dangerous question:
We all know that a variety is an integral scheme, separated and of finite type over an algebraically closed field. Now, if I remove the separated hypothesis, I get the class of schemes which are made by gluing together (finitely many) classical affine varieties and applying the famous fully faithful functor $Var_k \longrightarrow Schemes_k$. Thus, separatedness must relate somehow to the "way of gluing" together these affine varieties, (which is kind of confirmed when you look at the uber-classical example of the double line). Is there someone here that can explain what way of gluing we ban when restricting to separated schemes ?

A: Basically it's the sort of gluing that would violate the (discrete) valuative criterion for separatedness.  See Chapter II, Section IV of Hartshorne for example.
For example, if you are gluing $U$ to $V$ (say separated noetherian schemes) along a common open subscheme $W$, if you want the result to be separated, you presumably want to require that:
For every spec of a DVR, $Z =$ { generic Pt, closed Pt } with a map $Z \to U$ such that,
the generic point of $Z$ is sent into $W$, then the closed point of $Z$ is also sent to $W$ as well whenever the map {generic Pt} $\to W$ extends to a map $Z \to V$.

A: The necessary and sufficient condition on a schemes $\{U_i\}$ and gluing isomorphisms $\varphi_{ij}:U_{ij} \simeq U_{ji}$ between opens $U_{ij} \subset U_i$ ($i, j \in I$) that the gluing $X$ be separated is that the graph map $U_{ij} \rightarrow U_i \times U_j$ defined by $u \mapsto (u, \varphi_{ij}(u))$ is a closed immersion (or equivalently, has closed image) for all $i, j$.  This is seen by intersecting $\Delta(X)$ with the opens $U_i \times U_j$ that cover $X \times X$.
(Taking $i=j$, this says that all $U_i$ are separated, which is automatic when all $U_i$ are affine; in such cases the closed immersion condition forces all $U_{ij}$ to also be affine, so in the context of the question one loses nothing by requiring all $U_{ij}$ to be affine open prior to stating the closed immersion condition.)

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