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“Cameron can fly around the world with a guilt-free conscience on the basis that Indian villagers, bent over double, are working by hand rather than using machines that emit carbon”

“Step Forward David Davis or Liam Fox”

Under Tony Blair, the Labour government had fallen so far in public esteem, it was assumed that even a misguided loser like Conservative Party leader David Cameron would win the next general election hands down.

Any suggestions that Cameron and his main man shadow chancellor George Osborne were taking the Conservatives in the wrong direction were greeted with cries of “Shoosh, don’t rock the boat, we want to get into power.”

The underlying assumption was that once in number 10, some of the more ludicrous suggestions of the immature Cameron could be dumped, or if not, it didn’t really matter because the long-forgotten limousines of power would finally be available again, and who really cares what the policies are.

The cave-in to the climate change lobby, and a little bit of help from Prime Minister Gordon Brown, has changed all that.

Because that winning assumption can no longer be made, I predict that last week’s publication of the Tory party’s “Quality of Life” report, with its vote destroying, childish climate agenda, will spell the beginning of the end for Cameron.

All the time power looked possible, Cameron was safe. The fact that he had trashed core values of the Conservative Party, and had in fact campaigned for the leadership on a deceitful prospectus, were forgiven because the boy was a winner. We can dump that assumption now.

Two bit PR man
Right from the start, from his very first interview on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme when I heard Cameron, a two-bit PR man, talk about the Tory “brand”, I knew this was a charlatan and snake oil salesman. It is deeply depressing that about 2/3rds of the Tory party membership were too dim to see this.

Cameron’s steady jettisoning of basic Tory values on education, taxation and healthcare was bad enough. His misguided, muddled rationale about why Tories lost 3 general elections has wasted time and also pointed the party in the wrong direction. (Voters were bored by the Tory government and finally trusted Labour to be economically competent. There was no need to change Tory direction all that much; power would return when boredom set in again, and Labour’s economic competence was in question. Cameron’s zeal for change ignores this).

But a Cameron’ speech on the environment during his leadership campaign in 2005 made clear that he was a fully subscribed, gullible believer in the lefty scam that humans are responsible for climate change, and therefore have the power to change the weather and save the planet. This almost religious belief by the left and eager-to-please intellectual lightweights like Cameron means that any intervention in the economy is justified by the belief that if we don’t “do something” the earth will die.

Feel-good nostrums
The “Quality of Life” report last week by barely educated rich kid and globalisation hater Zac Goldsmith and the former John Selwyn Gummer, full of feel-good nostrums that would embarrass a schoolboy, shows the party doubters that they have bought a pup. Trying to price domestic and holiday flights out of the market, introducing tax for supermarket car parking and office parking to try and make us take the bus, the sophomoric hatred of 4x4s and SUVs, and the mentally deficient drive towards a carbon-free economy, means that the Tories cannot now win the next election.

Global warming zealots like Cameron, Goldsmith and Gummer really believe that they have the power to change the climate. Anyone who has bothered to study the science knows this is baloney. If the likes of Cameron and the Liberal Democrats god help us start trying to make Britain carbon-free they will bankrupt our economy and destroy our living standards, reverse any progress the 3rd world has made towards prosperity, and when the dust settles, will find that they haven’t changed the climate all. Climate changes all the time, naturally. There’s nothing we can do about it.

Petrol almost a luxury
George Osborne is also driving this anti-carbon crusade. In an article in the Financial Times on September 13, he pleaded the case for raising green taxes. But surely, if the price of petrol gets any more penal, it will become a luxury item. Osborne showed how out of touch he is with a little tribute to last year’s Stern report, which sought to frighten us into handing over power to government to save the planet, but which was ridiculed as hopelessly inaccurate by many eminent economists and scientists.

Osborne talked about raising taxes on pollution to discourage polluting activities, but of course didn’t say which ones. Like climate change zealots, Osborne shows his confusion by saying carbon dioxide is a pollutant, when in fact it is a vital component of life on our planet.

A much more constructive approach would be to make sure that scare resources like oil and gas are used responsibly and economically, but without trying to bully us into submission by trying to make out CO2 emissions are somehow ruining the climate. Research on alternative fuels and the holy grail of a hydrogen based economy some day should be encouraged.
Offset hypocrisy

The likes of Cameron and pop stars like Sting and former U.S. presidential candidate Al Gore are always banging on smugly about how they assuage their airliner-induced carbon emissions by buying so-called “offsets”. An article on the Science and Environmental Policy website (www.sepp.org) “Is Carbon-Offsetting Just Eco-Enslavement?” points out the hypocrisy. Apparently Cameron buys “offsets” in a company, Climate Care, which encourages those in the 3rd world to ditch modern methods of farming by using more man-power. Rather than use diesel engines to pump water, this company encourages traditional labour intensive methods.

“Cameron can fly around the world with a guilt-free conscience on the bases that Indian villagers, bent over double, are working by hand rather than using machines that emit carbon. Welcome to the era of eco-enslavement,” says the author Brendan O’Neill.
Slaving for Dave’s conscience

What a wonderful image; Cameron and Al Gore glibly justifying their use of executive jets, in the name of Indians and the third world, saving the planet working their guts out to pump water.

It is truly amazing that Cameron moved so far so quickly given his lack of experience, not to mention his dopey ideas. He must go now. The trouble is, when you wonder about who would be the replacement you look at the Tory front bench and see mainly hand-wringers and apologists. Of the rising stars, Michael Gove is too young (Let’s not make the “young” mistake again please). That leaves the excellent David Davis or perhaps Liam Fox?

Neil Winton – September 17, 2007