No10 petition - Stop wasting taxpayer's money on climate change propaganda designed to frighten our children.

I've just submitted a No10 petition to "Stop wasting taxpayer's money on climate change propaganda designed to frighten our children.":

The government's latest TV advertisement on climate change is pure propaganda designed to frighten our children. Showing kids a puppy drowning in the centre of what looks like a British town is beyond fiction. It shows a weakness of argument for a government to have to resort to fear to bring the public "in line". This advertisement should be pulled immediately.

I'll provide a link if the petition is accepted.

Click on the drowning puppy to view the advertisement.

Kid scaring climate change advert should be banned

I have seen some dirty low down tricks in my time, but this takes the biscuit. The government have spent six million pounds of our money on an advertising campaign aimed to frighten both adults and kids into believing in climate change. The advert will be shown at prime time during the Coronation Street break. I'll let you watch it for yourself, but one highlight is a dog drowning in the centre of what looks to be a British town.

In my opinion there is nothing balanced in this advert. It has been designed to frighten - not to educate - and it should be banned.

Petition:

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Stop wasting taxpayers' money on climate change propaganda designed to frighten our children.

The government's latest TV advertisement on climate change is pure propaganda designed to frighten our children. Showing kids a puppy drowning in the centre of what looks like a British town is beyond fiction. It shows a weakness of argument for a government to have to resort to fear to bring the public "in line". This advertisement should be pulled immediately.

In the current economic climate, surely the government can find something better to spend six million pounds of taxpayers' money on.

Click HERE to sign the petition.

Click HERE to watch the advert.

UPDATE: I've emailed a complaint to ITV.

UPDATE 2: I've received a reply from ITV:

Thank you for your email.

All television advertisements are checked to ensure that they meet the requirements of the Broadcast Act, as detailed in the Television Advertising Standards Code rules and regulations. From the 1 November 2004 Ofcom, the broadcasting regulators, contracted out the responsibility for the code to the Clearcast. The investigation of complaints about apparent breaches of the Code was also contracted out at this time to the Advertising Standards Authority, through its broadcasting arm ASA(B).

Commercials are viewed and cleared prior to transmission by Clearcast at 2nd Floor, 4 Roger Street, London WC1N 2JX. Website http://www.clearcast.co.uk/clearcast The subject matter, content and treatment of all commercials are always given serious consideration to determine their suitability for transmission. All claims and statements made require substantiation, and particular care is needed to ensure that advertisements are not misleading.

For your information the contact details for the ASA are as follows:-

Advertising Standards Authority

Mid City Place

71 High Holborn

London WC1V 6QT

We have made a note of your concerns, which will be logged and viewed by senior management.

Once again thank you for taking the time to write to us and your comments have been noted here at ITV.

Kind regards

ITV Viewer Services - AT

Government expenditure on research into climate change

From Hansard written answers:

Climate Change: Research

Mr. Tyrie: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what estimate he has made of spending from the public purse on research into climate science in the last three years.

Mr. Woolas: Government expenditure on research which relates to climate change in 2006-07 (latest available figure) was approximately £139 million. The majority of this amount was provided through the research councils. DEFRA's total expenditure on climate change research (including projects of a cross-cutting nature which are of relevance to climate change) over the last three years was £79.4 million (£23.7 million in 2005-06, £24.7 million in 2006-07, and £31.0 million in 2007-08). DEFRA's spend on climate science research over the last three years totalled £52.7 million (£15.7 million in 2005-06, £17.4 million in 2006-07 and £19.6 million in 2007-08).

Just thought you would like to know what your money is being wasted on.

Another good reason to leave the EU - "artificial roles" for men and women

There's been a new evil uncovered by the EU. An evil of such malevolence that the EU's Vice-Chairwoman of the Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality, Swedish MEP Eva-Britt Svensson, believes that each member country should have a body to which the public can address complaints. The evil in question comes in the form of advertisers using "artificial roles" for men and women - women cleaning the kitchen, men polishing their cars.

Jesus H Christ (on a frigging bike). So when we see a man polishing his car on a TV Ad, we should be so outraged that we contact our "Artificial role body" to put a stop to it. From now on, are only women allowed to be seen to polishing cars and men must be seen doing the washing up? The result of this genius from the EU, is that every single role will be reversed in advertising because advertisers will fear breaking some ridiculous artificial roles rule. What gets me is that this stupidity is aimed at Women's rights and has bugger-all to do with equality. I have yet to see (in my thirty eight years on this planet) a woman polishing a bloody car. I have however seen countless men washing the bleeding pots.

Is this what our money is being wasted on? We are paying for people like Eva-Britt Svensson to come out with crap like this:

Awareness among consumers and the public about the influence of advertising has great importance. Today, for instance, no advertisement that increases pollution can be used. Advertising for different products must show a responsibility for the environment and prevent climate change. The purpose of my report is to help make it impossible to use gender stereotypes in advertising.

And like a good politician she managed to squeeze some climate change bunkum into a statement about Gender Equality.

To say this woman is supposedly anti-EU she seems to have the right EU mindset.

If you are green, but fly, you are now ‘eco-hypocrites’

According to new research presented at the Royal Geographical Society, if you are generally green but fly, or go on "jaunts" (as described on the Royal Geographical Society website), you are now classified as ‘eco-hypocrites’. Nice.

I'm pretty sure that you are not going to boost the green cause by calling people who try to live in an environmentally friendly way 'eco-hypocrites’ for flying to their holiday destinations.

You can read the full article on the Royal Geographical Society website by clicking HERE (Prepare to be very annoyed).

EU Car CO2 reduction fiasco.

According to the European Parliament website:

There are a staggering 220 million cars on Europe's roads and that number is growing all the time. The CO2 they emit is 12% of the yearly total for the whole European Union. This week MEPs debated proposals by the European Commission to increase fuel efficiency and substantially cut CO2 emissions within 4 years. In October Members called on Europe's car makers to meet even tougher CO2 emissions targets. In the mid-1990's voluntary targets on CO2 emissions from cars were set at 120g of CO2 per kilometre by 2012. Since then heavier and more powerful cars have made that target unrealistic. At present average levels are 160g of CO2 per kilometre. The Commission is proposing penalties of up to €95 per gram, per kilometre for manufacturers who don't meet the targets. The European Parliament approved a target of 125g CO2/km by 2015 and a long-term target of 95g CO2/km by 2020 last October.

This all sounds great, even if you are a climate change sceptic, cars with greater fuel efficiency are going to be needed with the predicted rise in fuel costs. However there is one glaring problem with the EU's proposal - and that is that it is in direct conflict with one of its own directives which requires all new motor vehicles (from 2011) to be fitted with daytime running lamps. Research undertaken for the Department for Transport indicated that the requirement for new types of motor vehicle to be equipped with dedicated daytime running lamps would result in an increase of about 5 per cent in fuel consumption. We have 5 million new vehicles on our roads each year, God alone knows how many new cars there are across the EU each year.

So that's every new car in the EU burning five per cent more fuel - just how exactly is that going to fight climate change?

Nick Clegg should Apollo-gise for this rubbish.

Nigg Clegg, the true master of talking out of your arse is off again, this time he says we can be self-sufficient in energy by 2050 without building new coal-fired or nuclear power stations. He has announced a massive five page (yes five full pages!) ‘Apollo Project for UK Energy Independence’. The main thrust of his brilliant plan is to "Source all energy requirements from within the EU by 2030 so that the country does not need to import energy from unstable regimes." Sounds good but if Clegg were to pay a visit to this planet for a short while he would realise that the idea of sourcing our energy requirements from within in the EU by 2030 is a work of science fiction:

From the EurActiv Site:

Oil and gas reserves are unevenly distributed around the globe, and the largest reserves are situated in politically or economically insecure regions (Middle-East, Russia). North Sea oil and gas fields have already been exploited beyond their peak, leaving Europe dependent on non-EU countries for future supply.

The Commission Green Paper on security of energy supply (November 2000) drew a sobering picture of the EU's energy situation. If no action is taken, it predicted, the EU's energy dependency will climb from 50% in 2000 to 70% in 2030. The particular situation for the main imported fossil fuels was described as follows:

Oil:

45% of EU oil imports originate from the Middle East;
by 2030, 90% of EU oil consumption will have to be covered by imports

Gas:

40% of EU gas imports originate from Russia (30% Algeria, 25% Norway);
By 2030, over 60% of EU gas imports are expected to come from Russia with overall external dependency expected to reach 80%.

Coal:

By 2030, 66% of EU needs is expected to be covered by imports.

To back up this massive five page document, Clegg points us to his Liberal Democrat policy paper 82 (2007) in which he claims that the Lib Dems will Increase the Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation to require at least 10 per cent of all fuel sold on UK forecourts to come from renewable sources by 2015. Isn't this just another example of the Lib Dems living in cloud cuckoo land when we know the damage Biofuels are causing?

Climate change storm troopers claim police smear.

Why is that some people believe that it is their right to break the law to show protest?

The bean eating soap dodgers (a little unfair as the police confiscated 10 kg of handmade biodegradable soap) are not happy at the Camp For Climate Action 2008. The police have found a stash of equipment near to the camp and other items in the camp itself. Gary Beautridge, the assistant chief constable of Kent police, said that while most of the people at the camp were peaceful, it was "clear" a minority intended to use the equipment for "criminal purposes". The happy campers say that they are fighting battle against Climate Change. They intend to carry out a "mass action" to shut down Kingsnorth coal fired power station - Saturday, 9th August, 2008.

One camper Isabelle Michel said "This in no way justifies the way the police are treating the camp," she said. "It is disgraceful to suggest that the campers have criminal intent. "This is obviously an attempt by the police to distract us from raising issues about climate change." No Isabelle, they are trying to prevent some of the more radical members of your camp breaking the law and putting themselves and EON employees at risk.

Here is a list of the equipment found:

An adapted knife,
A knife block containing knives,
A large chain with a padlock,
Bolt croppers,
Climbing ropes
Padded suits.

This is not the equipment you would gather to hold a lawful protest.

OK, let's see what the ClimateCamp website has to say:

Join with thousands in the battle against Climate Change, Mass action to shut down Kingsnorth coal fired power station - Saturday, 9th August, 2008. This summer, the Camp for Climate Action will be located near Kingsnorth, a coal-fired power station that pumps 10 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year. We chose Kingsnorth, because while the current power station is scheduled to be knocked down, owners E.ON plan to build a brand new coal-fired plant in same place! Could there be a clearer case of business-as-usual, despite all the talk of climate change being the most important threat facing humanity? On Saturday August 9th, the climate camp will go beyond talk and culminate in a spectacular mass action to shut down Kingsnorth. Permanently!

What really gets me about this whole kerfuffle is the reasoning behind targeting EON and the Kingsnorth coal fired power station. I just don't get it. EON are demolishing a Power station that produces 10 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year, and they are replacing it with one that will reduce that figure by 40%. While this is not a complete solution, surely to God it is a massive step in the right direction?

Why Climate Change Sceptics are doomed to failure.

You could think that the title of this post sounds incredibly defeatist coming from a climate change sceptic. And you'd be right. In a way climate sceptics have to accept defeat. No matter what the weather does, it can be attributed to that elusive Global Warming (It has been missing for 11 years, but we are assured that it is still out there). If we have a wet summer it's all down to Global Warming. If we have a dry summer it's all down to......yes you guessed it..... Global Bloody Warming. No matter how many Global Warming theories are debunked the monster just keeps on growing. No matter what public opinion may be, the monster's momentum is relentless.

Governments are hot for Global Warming as it opens all sorts of new tax possibilities (especially in the UK). There's the increase in road tax on gas guzzlers, road tolls, bin taxes, fines on businesses, air travel tax and landfill tax. Landfill tax is a real money spinner for the government. In 1996 landfill tax was set at £7 per tonne. It is now £32 per tonne and will increase by £8 per tonne each year from April 2009 until at least 2010/11). There's a lot of money to be made out of Global Warming by greedy governments with an eye on our money (£1bn/year from landfill alone - and rising fast).

However, the main reason for an imminent defeat (at least on the argument of whether it is actually happening) for me and other climate change sceptics is this: If the global temperature does eventually go up (no sign yet) then the Global Warming alarmists will be proved right. But more crucially (and here's the irony of it all), if the global temperature fails to climb over say, the next twenty years, then the alarmists will throw their arms up in the air and claim in triumphant voices: "We did it! - we stopped Global Warming!"

That said, I still believe we should and must oppose the alarmists. The more we fight, the harder it will become for governments to pass Green Tax legislation.

The Great Wind Farm Swindle - Seven Thousand White Elephants.

This is a post I wrote a while ago, and now seems like a good time to put it back up:

The government has blown (excuse the pun) half a billion pounds subsidising the wind turbine industry. "So what, it's a worthy cause" I hear you say. Well, it turns out that it is anything but worthy and more worryingly, it is a total waste of our tax money. It is alleged that energy companies are receiving subsidies for wind farms that will never make any money, because they have exaggerated the potential of sites with not enough wind.

The government are miles away (or kilometres as our EU friends prefer) from achieving the target of providing 20% of our energy from renewable sources by 2020. Despite blowing (there I go again - sorry) half a billion pounds of our money, the energy companies have failed to provide even 0.5% of our requirements. For a wind farm to be viable it must have a load factor of 30 per cent. But Jim Oswald, an engineering consultant, found that the average across the country was 28 per cent.

Michael Jefferson, policies chairman of the World Renewable Energy Network believes that the subsidies are encouraging energy companies to exaggerate the amount of potential wind energy a farm can supply. Mr Jefferson said: "We should be putting our money where the wind is and that is quite often not where the development pressure is."

In a previous post about nuclear power’s life-cycle emissions it turned out that the life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions for nuclear plants are lower than that of wind farms. Now it turns out that on average these farms are not even financially viable.

For God's sake (and ours) let's stop pandering to the EU green brigade, and get some nuclear power plants built.

Labour MPs warn of rebellion - again (Planning).

How long does it take for a government to realise that its policies are a load of old "pony". It's not as if there haven't been any obvious signs:

Your party is polling lower than any time in its history.

You lose a safe seat up north by a massive swing.

The police are taking part in mass demonstrations.

Your Leader has an approval rating lower than a snake's jake.

You are becoming dizzy from performing U-turns.

Your grass root supporters give you two weeks to get your sh*t in one sock or step down.

You face a summer of industrial action.

Your Cabinet ministers are jockeying to replace you.

Your MPs are rebelling week in week out - if it gets any worse they will start calling Brown "Darth" as he seems to spend most of his time fighting the rebellion.

I could go on but I'm getting bored.

Anyway, this brings me to today's threat of a rebellion from the Labour backbenchers. MPs are worried that removing the need for ministerial input into planning will make the system less accountable. No less than sixty backbenchers have signed a motion criticising the proposal to create an independent Infrastructure Planning Commission. Basically the Government want to railroad planning for major projects without the pesky public getting involved.

In their defence the Government claim that they are:

"firmly committed to this important package of reforms to the planning system which are critical to meeting our long term objectives for the economy, to address climate, and for our society".

It looks like someone has been using the random bullsh*t generator. Friends of the Earth do not agree that this Bill will help fight climate change. Their planning campaigner Hugh Ellis said:

"The Planning Bill is an environmental disaster. "The government wants to fast-track major developments - such as airports, roads and power stations - through the planning system without considering their impact on climate change and with little regard for local opinion. "Ministers must listen to the mounting concern, and put people and the planet at the heart of our planning system."

Back to the drawing board me thinks.

Hat tip to The Spine for the picture.

Energy Crisis in the UK - Go Nuclear go Green.

The following is taken from the NEI (Nuclear Energy Institute) Website:

An International Energy Agency (IEA) analysis found that nuclear power’s life-cycle emissions range from 2 to 59 gram-equivalents of carbon dioxide per kilowatt-hour. Only hydropower’s range ranked lower, at 2 to 48 grams of carbon dioxide-equivalents per kilowatt-hour. Nuclear energy’s life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions are lower than wind (7 to 124 grams of carbon dioxide-equivalents) and solar photovoltaic (13 to 731 grams of carbon dioxide-equivalents), according to the agency. The life-cycle emissions from natural gas-fired plants ranged from 389 to 511 grams of carbon dioxide-equivalents per kilowatt-hour.

Many nuclear critics have claimed that new nuclear plants would need to use lower ore uranium, which requires more energy to extract, and therefore would have higher emissions. In response, British Energy conducted a follow-up study that showed even with a very low uranium ore grade, CO2 emissions would remain very small. If Torness used this ore for all its fuel, its emissions would only rise from 5.05 g/kWh to 6.85 g/kWh.

To view a chart showing the the amount of CO2 produced by different forms of energy, click HERE (You need PowerPoint to view this).

To find out more about the life cycle of nuclear energy, click on the graphic above.

Hugh Thompson - The world has too many people.

One of my readers, Cassius (Hugh Thompson) sent me a very interesting email yesterday about world population and its effect on the environment. Hugh has put a great deal of thought into the subject and has produced an article on "Optimum Population" (along with an easy view slide show). I'm using part of Hugh's email as a preamble to the full article:

The jury is surely still out on the degree to which Man is having a harmful effect on the environment, but I would suggest it is an outrageous gamble to try to do nothing about it in the belief it is just a natural cycle—because that belief may be wrong.

The trouble, imho, is that the topic has been got hold of by the politicians and the PC brigade, with the result that the subject is no longer looked at as dispassionately as should be the case—it should not be a matter of party politics.

That is a preamble to a message I should like to promulgate: that for all the well-meaning (but possibly ridiculous) attempts to curb carbon emissions and other deleterious environmental depredations made on the environment by Man, the real problem is the sheer numbers of the human population. It is just a simple truism, that the more there are of us on the planet, the more we will consume and impact on the environment. At some stage the size of the world’s population will, or already has become, unsustainable.

Presently, we seem to be trying to bail out water from a sinking boat but failing to stem the waves (of population) threatening to swamp us.

This is a hobby-horse of mine and I remain puzzled why so many so-called "environmentalists" fail to see, or intentionally avoid seeing, that human over-crowding is the crux of many problems.

I recommend that you read Hugh's full article by clicking HERE.

p.s Hugh is also a dab hand with a camera. Click HERE to view his excellent gallery.

A Green message to David Cameron. E-Day.

Being a bit of a man-made climate change sceptic, I had to have a little chuckle over the result of E-Day. E-Day was billed as the UK's first energy saving day. Unfortunately for the organiser Dr Matt Prescott, when the energy consumed during the trial was measured it turned out to be slightly more than the "business-as-usual" projection. This could be blamed on a slight reduction in temperature during the day.

No doubt my little chuckle will enrage environmentalists. However, I also get a little peeved when I'm told by people such as Dr Richard Chartres, the Bishop of London, that it's a "moral imperative" to believe in something that I'm very sceptical about. In a way I applaud Dr Prescott for trying to do something about a matter he passionately believes in. I also have no problem with the way he's gone about achieving his goals. The Doctor called on people to use freedom of choice to take action - and that, I'm all for. What I'm against is compulsion to pay green taxes.

The level of media attention for E-Day and the low level of public participation should send a message to our political leaders: whilst initiatives such as Dr Prescott's should be encouraged (they cost nothing, but could achieve a great deal), compulsion will only turn public opinion away from similar schemes. I'm a sceptic, but I'm willing to concede that I could be wrong. For that reason I do try to use as little power as possible. But I do this because it has no financial impact upon my family. There are many ways that our politicians could reduce CO2 emissions without taxing us all into poverty. Here's one stupid idea, that if they had the sense to scrap, could drastically reduce our CO2 output.

Throwing Money To The Wind. (The Great Wind Farm Swindle).

This is a post I wrote a while ago, and now seems like a good time to put it back up:

The government has blown (excuse the pun) half a billion pounds subsidising the wind turbine industry. "So what, it's a worthy cause" I hear you say. Well, it turns out that it is anything but worthy and more worryingly, it is a total waste of our tax money. It is alleged that energy companies are receiving subsidies for wind farms that will never make any money, because they have exaggerated the potential of sites with not enough wind.

The government are miles away (or kilometers as our EU friends prefer) from achieving the target of providing 20% of our energy from renewable sources by 2020. Despite blowing (there I go again - sorry) half a billion pounds of our money, the energy companies have failed to provide even 0.5% of our requirements. For a wind farm to be viable it must have a load factor of 30 per cent. But Jim Oswald, an engineering consultant, found that the average across the country was 28 per cent.

Michael Jefferson, policies chairman of the World Renewable Energy Network believes that the subsidies are encouraging energy companies to exaggerate the amount of potential wind energy a farm can supply. Mr Jefferson said: "We should be putting our money where the wind is and that is quite often not where the development pressure is."

In a previous post about nuclear power’s life-cycle emissions it turned out that the life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions for nuclear plants are lower than that of wind farms. Now it turns out that on average these farms are not even financially viable.

For God's sake (and ours) let's stop pandering to the green brigade, and get some nuclear power plants built.

Save the planet - Eat a kangaroo (their farts are green).

Skippy could come to the rescue once again. Only this time old Skip could save the entire planet. Scientists have discovered that Kangaroo flatulence does not contain the greenhouse gas Methane. It's all down to the bacteria living in the Kangaroo's stomach, and scientists are trying to find a way to transfer the bacteria to cattle and sheep. Another plus point is that the bacteria is also 15% more efficient at digesting food, which would mean a reduction in feed costs.

It could take several years to develop a method of transferring the bacteria, so in the meantime scientists are recommending eating less beef and lamb in favour of good old Skippy. Peter Ampt of the University of New South Wales's institute of environmental studies said: "It's low in fat, it's got high protein levels it's very clean in the sense that basically it's the ultimate free range animal. "It doesn't get drenched, it doesn't get vaccinated, it utilises food right across the landscape, it moves around to where the food is good, so yes, it's a good food.''

I'll have a leg.

Question mark raised over weather station data used in climate change models.

An investigation carried out to determine the accuracy of weather station data used in the IPCC's (The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) climate change models finds disturbing evidence. It can be seen from the picture below (click to enlarge) that this weather station is installed far too close to a large building. It is this kind of poor sighting of weather stations that leads to a false warming effect on the world's temperature.



Pic: Theo Spark

Has Heather Mills McCartney gone totally barking mad? Drink rats milk?

Heather Mills McCartney is blaming consumers of meat and dairy products of fuelling global warming. O....K. She went on to suggest that people could drink the milk of rats, cats or dogs, rather than milking cows. Mouthing off at London's famous Speaker's Corner she was speaking to a group of journalists - and a few tourists - standing in front of a poster showing her in a sultry pose and skimpy top with the slogan: "Hey Meaty, you're making me so hot!"

Nothing wrong with her then. Nice one Paul.

How many rats do you have to milk to get a pint? Maybe I could get an EU grant not to keep rats for milking. Free range of course.

Gordon Brown, taxes for fun, plays the clown, and with my money he runs.

So Gordon Brown has announced his plans for a cleaner, greener Britain. The first thing I noticed when I clicked onto the BBC News site was his proposal for another great non-job - the "green hotline". God give me bloody strength. The hotline is to advise people on what they can do to cut their impact on the environment. Is that 'green' as in green and leafy like a cabbage. I must learn how to write a noise that adequately conveys the sound of me wailing whilst gnashing my teeth.

Brown then went on to tell us that the UK's emission target of a 60% reduction by 2050 could be increased to 80%. And I now promise to give every reader of this blog £1m in the year 2100 if they collect it from me, in person. So far the environmentally friendly Labour party have managed to supply a massive (wait for it) 2% of our energy from renewable sources. Not only that, but the little that they have managed to do has been pathetic.

Gordon said that Britain is "absolutely committed to meeting our share" of the EU's 2020 renewable energy target. What a total and utter load of rubbish. What about the documents that were leaked three weeks ago which detailed how Gordon Brown was to be told that the 20% target for renewable energy by 2020 faces "severe practical difficulties". This obviously translates to "it's not going to happen". It is well known that Brown is trying to get the target figure reduced, because he knows we have no way of hitting the current one. It is just more lies and spin, and I am getting sick and tired of being treated like an idiot by this man.

The shadow environment secretary Peter Ainsworth said Mr Brown's record on the environment consisted of "missing targets, then scrapping them, then cutting the budgets that deal with them. "Just this weekend, we learnt of a further £300 million of crippling cuts to key environmental services. "Until Gordon Brown learns that tough action is needed to back up his warm words, he cannot be the change the country needs." Liberal Democrat environment spokesman Chris Huhne said: "Boasts of a new green home service seem shallow when recent cuts to the New Millennium Grants will dissuade many homeowners from installing energy saving measures in their homes."

It's all lies I tells ya - lies!

Gordon Brown's re-heated Queen's Speech.

Gordon Brown has been struggling to come up with anything to put in the Queen's speech later today. This is no real surprise seeing as he broke with tradition and announced most of his so called "vision" at the State Opening of Parliament.

Brown is expected to pledge to build 3m homes by 2020 to fix the massive shortage in housing. This has already been announced so Gordon is just repeating a pledge that he thinks people want hear. What I want to know is if we need a minimum of 3m homes to be built in the next 12 years, how how many are we going to need to build in the following 12 years? And where are we going to build them. Eventually we are going to have a serious debate about immigration, without all the PC paranoia.

More old news to be announced will be the pledge to reduce carbon emissions by 60% by 2050. This is just a crowd pleasing load of rubbish, if he wants to make a real impact on carbon emissions he should set 5 year targets, or possibly even shorter ones. Not that I'm at all convinced about man made climate change.

There seems to be a pattern emerging here - Brown's next proposal is to make kids stay at school until they are 18. This has been already announced, and surprise surprise, this is not to be instigated until 2015. Is he going to announce anything that is actually going to happen now? And how does extending the school leaving age to 18 tie in with wanting lower the voting age to 16. Has he found out that under 18's are more likely to vote Labour?

There are other policies being revisited, most importantly the wish to raise pre-charge detention beyond 28 days. 56 days seems to be Brown's preference. He has however failed to come up with any decent reason for doing this.

What I would like to hear in today's speech is something new, that will happen now and have a real positive effect on our daily existence. I will not be holding my breath. More later.....

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