You might think, generously, that surely, for better or worse Brown is our leader after all, he wouldn’t lie or twist the facts to bully us into submission would he?

    This what Brown said, as quoted in the Sunday Telegraph”.

    "With only days to go before Copenhagen we mustn't be distracted by the behind-the-times, anti-science, flat-earth climate sceptics. We know the science. We know what we must do.”

    This was Brown’s perfidious call to action as the Copenhagen climate summit gets underway.

    Look at that quote and the bullying tone, trying to pretend that climate change sceptics are somehow “behind-the-times” as though being modern makes it more likely that you are telling the truth. “Anti-science”, is a smear, insinuating that anyone who dares to disagree hasn’t done their homework and deliberately distorts facts (after ClimateGate that is a laugh is it not?). “Flat-earth” is another nasty personal insult, made worse because those Brown is defending are academics that have distorted the truth, and have threatened the careers of anyone daring to stand in their way.

    The final part of the quote is the most insidious of all – “We know the science. We know what we must do”. It is almost like listening to Joseph Goebbels, he of the big lie and 3^rd Reich fame, because if Brown did bother to look at the science he wouldn’t have a leg to stand on.

    If you doubt my words, here is what Richard Lindzen, Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and probably the best-qualified climate expert in the world has to say.

    In an article in the Wall Street Journal, Lindzen said claims that climate change is accelerating are wrong and bizarre. Any slight warming is not surprising because we are still emerging from the last little ice age from the 15^th to 19^th century. Yes, there has been a sharp increase in man-made carbon dioxide (CO2), but not enough to change the climate because it is ridiculously small compared with other greenhouse gases like water vapour.

    Lindzen said the IPCC’s attempts to demonstrate that humans were behind climate change have failed completely, and he is outraged that the warmists, in league with politicians like Brown, have talked up the panic notion that the future of the world is endangered.

    “(this is) a scandal that is, in my opinion, considerably greater than that implied in the hacked emails from the Climate Research Unit; namely the suggestion that the very existence of warming or of the greenhouse effect is tantamount to catastrophe. This is the grossest of “bait and switch” scams. It is only such a scam that lends importance to the machination in the emails designed to nudge temperatures a few tenths of a degree,” Lindzen said.

    “The notion that complex climate “catastrophes” are simply a matter of the response of a single number – Globally Average Temperature Anomaly – to a single (cause) CO2 – represents a gigantic step backward in the science of climate. Many disasters associated with warming are simply normal occurrences whose existence is falsely claimed to be evidence of warming. All of these examples involve phenomena that are dependent on the confluence of many factors.”

    “…….normal occasional occurrences of open water in summer over the North Pole, droughts, floods, hurricanes, sea-level variations are all taken as omens, portending doom due to our sinful ways. All of these phenomena depend on the confluence of multiple factors as well,” said Lindzen.

    For Brown to contend that those disagreeing with him are somehow ignorant and unwilling to engage in intellectual argument is the language of the fascist bully, seeking to justify actions that us citizens will pay for in huge tax increases, and in the ruination of our economy. That’s bad enough.

    What’s even worse for the voters of Britain is that the cowardly Tory party has fallen for this silly, sophomoric environmental tune, and only seeks to urge Brown to take even more radical, ruinous actions.

Jonathan Porritt

Models Claim To Predict 2100, But Failed To See Current Weather

“CO2 Is Good For You”

 “Kyoto-Like Agreements Will Lead To A World Command Economy With Totalitarian Overtones”

   Thank goodness they weren’t a bunch of bearded, sandal-wearing nutters. I spent a day in Brussels this week at a contrarian climate change conference organised by former Tory now “non-attached” MEP Roger Hellmer, and as a journalist who has relentlessly pedalled for years the idea that the conventional wisdom that humans were warming the climate was wrong, I had this nagging thought at the back of mind that perhaps in the flesh, these professional climate change deniers might turn out to be a bunch of maniacs with a few lose screws who write protest letters in green ink.

    Nothing could be further from the truth.

    The presentations were powerful, lucid and compelling. The speakers were impressive, convincing and fluent, each one an obvious master of his trade. To divert the audience momentarily from this serious subject, James Delingpole,  Spectator columnist and author, had the audience in fits of laughter as he lambasted Prince of Wales adviser Jonathon Porritt for taking himself much too seriously despite being wrong about everything. Porritt caused outrage earlier this year when he said fat people were bad for the climate, and that families should not have more than two children to keep their carbon footprint low. Delingpole said it was important to ridicule the likes of Porritt and Guardian columnist George Monbiot, who would have us back living in caves if their policies were taken seriously.

    Condemned

    But I came away fearing that the free world is about to condemn itself, via a climate treaty in Copenhagen, to a form of unaccountable world government which will impose huge taxes, ruin the world economy and our standard of living, and of course have no impact at all on the climate. If the Copenhagen conference fails to agree a new climate change treaty next month, as seems likely, it can’t be long until it finally does. Despite the overwhelming feeling at the conference that the Warmists’ theories make no sense, that doesn’t seem to be percolating through to the political powers that be.

     One speaker at the conference, Dr Benny Peiser from Liverpool John Moores University, expressed the strong conviction that the media bias towards embracing the notion that humans are changing the climate was on the wane. I’m not so sure. There’s not much sign of this in Britain, where the likely incoming Conservative government next year seems to have been taken over by the Warmists, who have installed radical environmentalist Zac Goldsmith as a top adviser. British Conservatives talk of introducing carbon ration books, and banning internal flights. Party members have been trying to outbid the Labour party in the race to embrace greenery, saying we must cut CO2 by 80 per cent by 2050.

    Data or models

    The keynote speaker was Fred Singer, Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia, and this venerable gent didn’t disappoint.

    Singer, who founded the Non-governmental International Panel on Climate Change and was editor of its 2008 report “Nature-Not Human Activity-Rules the Climate”, made the stark and unanswerable point that the warmists have to address. Given that the world’s temperature has been falling since about 1998 while CO2 output has relentlessly increased, how can the two concepts be linked? As Singer put it, are you going to believe the predictive models or the actual data which shows the computers are wrong. He was referring to the computer models compiled by Warmists and led by the U.N.’s IPCC, which predict various disaster scenarios by the end of the century if CO2 emissions are not slashed. The public is asked to believe that these computer models can predict the weather in 2100, when they failed to predict the actual falling temperatures from 1998.

    Singer also made the point, using Al Gore’s favourite “Inconvenient Truth” graphic which showed CO2 and temperature to purport to show CO2 was heating the planet. Singer said that the graphic shows just the opposite. The graphic shows that CO2 reacts over the centuries to changing temperatures; as temperatures rose, the oceans release more CO2 and vice versa.

    Unreliable

    U.S. Meteorologist Anthony Watts said in a speech that much of the data collected to back claims of a warming climate was taken by instruments that failed basic location rules which should determine that readings are accurate. About 90 per cent of the instruments were sited on concrete, or gravel, or alongside airports or sewage plants or on tops of roofs next to air conditioning units, which would provide basically useless data, but which was likely to record temperatures artificially higher because of their location. Professor Ross McKitrick of Canada’s University of Guelph, who helped destroy the infamous Hockey Stick graph with Stephen McIntyre, attacked those who relied on computer modelling for their projections, saying his researches showed models predicted more warming than was actually being recorded.

    Humans make four per cent of total CO2

    Professor Tom Segalstad of the University of Oslo, Norway, said it wasn’t surprising that there was little correlation between rising human produced CO2 levels and temperature because artificially produced CO2 only made up about four per cent of the total CO2 in the atmosphere. 96 per cent of CO2 was produced by natural causes. Contrary to what Warmists believed, CO2 only lasted in the atmosphere for about five years, not the 200 years or 1,000 years of popular myth. Rising levels of CO2 were good for agriculture, and the world should worry about falling levels of CO2 because this could threaten agriculture efficiency.

    Professor Fred Goldberg from Stockholm, Sweden warned that sun-spot activity, or rather the lack of it, pointed to an imminent cooling trend. Dr Hans Labohm, economist, and former Dutch delegate to the OECD, wasn’t impressed with European renewable energy schemes, and pointed out that Denmark and Germany, which made a big show of building windmills, hadn’t yet closed a single conventional power station. Wind power was three to four times more expensive than conventional coal or nuclear power, while solar was twenty times pricier.

    Renewables would never account for more than two or three percent of total energy, which didn’t matter, according to Labohm because “CO2 was good for you”, agreeing with previous speakers like Professors Segalstad and Singer. Labohm worried about what would happen to the world if the Copenhagen deal was completed in its mooted form.

    Totalitarian

    “Kyoto like agreements will lead to a world command economy with totalitarian overtones,” Labohm said.

    Most delegates to the conference, “Have Humans Changed the Climate” agreed that this wasn’t the case, but the overwhelming position in the real world where politicians rule is that CO2 is evil and the creation of carbon must be stopped, even if it means bankrupting Western economies and forcing us all into poverty. It remains to be seen if this movement will survive when voters find the bills for this exercise landing on their doormats, or are forced out of their cars and on to the buses, or are priced away from their exotic foreign holidays. There has been a flurry of opinion polls in Europe and the U.S. recently showing increasing disbelief in this climate emergency scenario. Maybe Dr Peiser is right, and the tide is turning. Fingers crossed.

 Neil Winton – November 19, 2009

    This data will be used to justify wrong-headed actions which will destroy western economies, and have no impact on the weather.

    In his book “The Real Global Warming Disaster”, Booker said the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change used distorted data in the infamous “Hockey Stick” graph, often re-wrote the “Summary for Policymakers” to draw conclusions about the fate of the climate that weren’t substantiated by the science, and were party to political pressure to silence dissenting scientific voices.

    The IPCC’s computer model-generated forecasts call for substantial, climate-wrecking temperature increases over the next century, unless CO2 emissions from the burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil are slashed. Some Western nations now say they will cut CO2 by 80 per cent by 2050. Expect most of us to be back living in caves if that happens. 

    Most governments and many scientists beg to differ with Booker and say a Copenhagen meeting in December must agree severe limits on CO2 to stop catastrophic warming. Curiously, the world’s mainstream media has given warmists a free ride, possibly on the grounds that checking the facts might ruin a good story. It’s much more interesting to write about how we are all going to die unless our heroic politicians step in and save us. But as pay day looms, maybe we can expect a change of heart.

    Our “heroes” in the E.U. are suggesting that we pay upwards of €100 billion a year to poor nations by 2020 so they can avoid increasing their consumption of fossil fuels on their way to combating poverty and disease.

    According to Booker, this is a potentially disastrous course of action which will cripple western economies, and have no discernible influence on the climate.

    Booker said IPCC scientists, which Al Gore was telling BBCTV’s NewsNight include up to 2,500 of the world’s top scientists from Albania to Zimbabwe, were in fact a clique of about 50 mainly British and U.S. scientists with axes to grind.

    The “Hockey Stick” graph, which showed that current temperatures were the highest for 1,000 years and climbing, was in fact generated by using a computer programme which ignored data unfavourable to the cause, and was designed to produce the inevitable result. Booker points out that global temperatures climbed to substantially higher levels by 1200, some 600 years before the Industrial Revolution’s coal-burning started, slipped down from 1350 to 1850, before climbing erratically to present day levels still below 1200’s. Booker says that if, as the IPCC claims, global temperature reacts to increasing carbon dioxide (CO2), this data has to be explained.

    During the twentieth century, global temperatures declined from the 1940s to mid-1970s as CO2 emissions accelerated, rose again until 1998, and have been sliding since, as CO2 emissions climbed. This would seem to suggest that CO2 is not linked to global warming.

    Last month BBC climate correspondent Paul Hudson pointed out that the IPCC’s computers had failed to predict the downturn in temperatures since 1998, but this hasn’t curbed the clamour by the so-called “warmists” to save the world.

    Booker says many eminent scientists now say that anyone looking for an explanation for climate change would be better off looking at the influence of the sun, but governments aren’t listening.

    He quotes Professor Richard Lindzen, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who he describes as the world’s leading atmospheric physicist, pointing to this wealth-threatening hysteria.

    “Future generations will wonder in bemused amazement that the early 21^st century’s developed world went into hysterical panic over a globally averaged temperature increase of a few tenths of a degree and, on the basis of gross exaggerations of highly uncertain computer projections combined into implausible chains of inference, proceeded to contemplate a roll-back of the industrial age,” Lindzen said.

    Also not emerging with much credit were the unbearably smug trio of mainstream political non-entities Messrs Straw, Huhne and “Baroness” Warsi. Poor Bonnie Greer was hopelessly out of her depth, as usual. Why does the BBC bother re-inviting this woman. She seems perfectly nice, but has nothing to say, apart from a few right-on thoughts lifted straight out of the Guardian. The more Straw, Huhne, Warsi, Chairman Dimbleby and the invited audience combined to humiliate Griffin, the more likely his impact was going to be favourable. Lots of high-falutin Congressional committees in the U.S. always look like unbearable bullies when they line up, say 20 strong, surrounding one hapless testifier. Even if it was Jimmy Hoffa, you couldn’t help feeling sympathy for the little guy.

    I had sat down, armed with my lap-top and tuned into my Twitter page, to say I told you so every time Griffin said something about his political philosophy which showed he clearly came from the left, as fascists do. But I waited in vain. The BBC had obviously other things on its mind than letting the viewers have any idea about the BNP’s (Banque Nationale de Paris) policies.

    Listening to the odious Peter Hain today still going on about how we are all too stupid to be able to listen to the BNP without becoming fascist beasts ourselves is getting a bit hard to handle. The Labour party has failed its core working class vote, by allowing their northern carzees to be over-run by unemployment and immigrants. This means that in the upcoming general election, even hard core Labour strongholds will be lost to the BNP. Silencing Griffin is all about this, not some breach in standards of decency.

    It was interesting to hear that Jack Straw’s father was a Conchie. That will surprise nobody who knows this amoral lawyer, who will happily spout the line that the last person paid him to speak. Listening to him when he was Foreign Secretary justifying the Iraq war was always nauseating. If he had been in opposition he would have said exactly the opposite. But Straw can’t be all bad. Did you notice how he dumped his provincial librarian specs in favour of contact lenses when he had the hots for U.S. Secretary of State Condaleeza Rice?

    Griffin at least had his moment in the spotlight, even if the BBC made sure we only heard about racism. He did manage to get in a word towards the end about the teaching of sex to school children, which will have gone down well with his prospective voters. Griffin thought this shouldn’t happen, presumably because this is a moral matter best left to parents, not agents of the state.

    It was interesting to hear Times columnist David Aaronovitch saying today that Griffin’s thoughts on homosexuals and sex education (Griffin said he was disturbed by men kissing in the street, just like almost everybody else except Aaronovitch) showed how out of touch Griffin was. I’d wager that any politician advocating that sex education should be handled by parents and not schools would find themselves in a huge majority, with the likes of Aaronovitch out in the cold.

    Well done to the BBC for at least allowing us to meet Griffin. It was a pity that we were denied his views on the politics that matter, rather than outdated and boring arguments about holocaust denial and race.

    Hat’s off to the BBC! Finally, it seems to have woken up to its charter obligations to stimulate wide ranging, unfettered debate in Britain.

    Last week the BBC was doing it with Geert Wilders, the Dutch politician who was formally banned from entering Britain for the outrageous reason that others might break the law if he came to our country to speak. BBC Radio 5 Live had an extensive phone-in in which Wilders and assorted Muslims had their say. Excellent! Wilders told the truth about the danger of Islam in a way none of our useless politicians dare.

    This week, we will have the pleasure of hearing Nick Griffin, leader of the British National Party (or is it Banque Nationale de Paris?), on BBC TV’s Question Time. I’m not sure how nauseating Griffin’s performance will be, but it can’t be more sick-making than listening to the likes of Labour’s Peter Hain and Home Secretary Allen “Pat” Johnson saying Griffin should not be allowed to speak. Peter Hain, still a member of CND the last time has was asked, seems to think the BNP is vile and odious. Maybe. But who is he to stand in judgement?

    Doesn’t he belong to a party which recently lauded the traitor Jack Jones as a magnificent trade union leader, who it turns out was paid for spying by the Soviet Union during the height of the cold war? Even Prime Minister Gordon Brown paid tribute to the former TGWU leader after his death. I would describe Jones as vile and odious, and I wouldn’t be surprised if other lefties from the Labour Party weren’t similarly on the take during the 50s, 60s and 70s. But that shouldn’t mean it should be denied a voice, even though Jones clearly was on the side of those who would have destroyed our freedoms. The more we know, the better we can judge who to vote for.

    On Thursday’s Question Time, Griffin will be introduced as a far-right politician, when in fact he is a leftie. His party is against globalisation and free trade. He wants to tax the rich until the pips squeak.  The BNP wants to nationalise utilities, protect domestic industries, and retain the NHS. The BNP’s manifesto is a wish list of stuff most of which even the Liberal Democrats would agree with. It will be interesting to hear him speak on Thursday to see if my belief that the BNP is a socialist offshoot is true. Let’s face it, the Fascist Party in the 30s was led by ex-Labour’s Moseley.

    As former Tory bigwig Norman Tebbit put it so memorably; “the BNP is old Labour with racism”. 

One Failure Might Be Negotiable, But 4 Means “Thumbs Down”

I won’t be voting for a party that is afraid to stand up for solid, Conservative principles. Lucky old UKIP, I say.

    I’ve been agonising over whether to swallow my principles and vote Tory at the next general election. Yes, I know that a vote for UKIP or some other minor party is really a waste, but I find it difficult to reconcile my urge to see Gordon Brown and the Labour Party humiliated to such a degree that not only will they be crushed at the polls, they will do so badly as to prevent them returning to mis-govern us for at least another generation, with my unwillingness to stomach some of the worst, hand-wringingly wet, counter-productive drivel on offer from Tory party leader David Cameron.

    Cameron started off on the wrong foot four years ago with me when on his first interview with the Today programme, he talked about how he wanted to detoxify the Tory brand. “Brand! The Tory party is not a brand,” I shouted at the radio. After a year of this I quit the party, but that still doesn’t mean that I can’t vote Conservative at the next election, even though I voted UKIP in the Europeans.

    So I paid close attention to Cameron’s speech to the Tories in Manchester. Yes, it was a splendid, powerful, erudite speech in many ways. I loved his taunting of Labour with the cry that the Tories will have to solve Britain’s poverty problem. I was moved by his words about his poor son Ivan. His views on the need for a smaller state impressed me. I was entranced by his closing peroration about the sort of country Britain could be, shorn of the incompetent, arrogant clip-board Nazis of Labour.

    But there were major reasons why Cameron’s speech left me less than impressed. Firstly, his few words on global warming reminded me that he has fallen totally for the case presented by warmers like Zac Goldsmith that human activity is killing the planet. If he can’t be bothered to brief himself on something so important, why should I trust him on other things? The Tories will impose taxes on us in the name of climate change that will destroy our economy, and have no impact on the weather.

    Secondly, his words on Europe were disappointing, and left me with the impression that Cameron always weighs his words for impact, while making sure he is not committed to something that might be a bit difficult. So he railed against the Labour party for denying us the referendum on the Lisbon treaty, but balked at doing something about it that might cause trouble. He should have simply said that Britain’s ratification of the Lisbon Treaty by a Parliamentary vote fell short of the promise made to the British people at the last general election, so is therefore legally and politically invalid. Britain can only ratify Lisbon by a vote by the people in a referendum, and he should have announced his intention to do that as soon as he wins the general election.

    Thirdly, his views on the National Health Service leave me cold, although I realise that this is a difficult issue for the Tories because of the Labour lying machine, which is more interested in grandstanding for votes, than seeking the best way to deliver health care to the British. Cameron has milked the fact that he has been a serial user of the NHS, and can’t wait to tell us how much he loves it. But I want to hear at least hints of reform intentions, so that this failing, monolithic, Stalinist edifice can be pointed in a new direction.

    Some of the speeches at the conference were interesting. Shadow education’s Michael Gove was very impressive with his ideas about education vouchers and how he will set the system free with parents licensed to set up new schools without interference from socialist bureaucracies. Unfortunately, the Tories denial of the efficacy of grammar schools in liberating working class children was another reason I quit the party.

    George Osborne made the best of a difficult speech on how the Tories will tackle the massive deficit. But his refusal to accept that low taxes might spur the economy to recovery and eventually provide higher revenues to tame the deficit, was annoying, although I gather from rumours in the current Spectator magazine that there is a tax-cutting agenda being worked on in the background.

    The most crass moment came from Chris Gayling, and it wasn’t his gaffe over the appointment of General Sir Richard Dannatt. Grayling’s claim that putting higher taxes on alcohol would solve the problem of drunken violence, made him sound like some 50s Scandinavian Sandelista. Please, Grayling, don’t make the rest of us pay more for something which won’t change behaviour anyway. And can you think of anything that is less Tory than this idea?

    But it was William Hague who finally made my mind up for me. Now Hague has been a big favourite of mine. He is very funny, speaks superbly well, and used to have an agreeable, right of centre view of the world. Hague has been lobotomised though. Listening to his performance on BBC Radio 4’s Any Questions Hague had been stripped of personality so as not to frighten the horses. He didn’t even dare criticise the ridiculous award of the Nobel Peace Prize to U.S. President Barack Obama. (I found out this morning that the nominations for the award closed in February, which meant that Obama had been in office for less then 3 weeks when he was given the award). Hague also followed the feeble party line on climate change.

    I won’t be voting for a party that is afraid to stand up for solid, Conservative principles. Lucky old UKIP, I say.

More Half-Truths Spread By BBC About Climate Change

Smug, Arrogant King Should Have Been Challenged, Not Humoured

    Last night’s Hard Talk with Stephen Sackur on BBC World was a travesty of a programme which kids itself it is grilling guests with tough questions.

    By failing to brief himself properly, Sackur made sure the programme breached BBC guidelines, which insist on fairness and balance. (I know, BBC, that you never do, but that’s what the rules say you should do).

    Last night’s interviewee was Sir David King, the former chief scientific advisor to the British government and committed warmist. King has a long record of arrogantly insisting he is right about climate change. He once foolishly said it is more dangerous than Islamic terrorism. King regularly dismisses opponents by hurling personal insults rather than engaging them in scientific argument. He says those that disagree with him are all apparently in the pay of big oil or coal, even though the ranks of sceptics are full of eminent and independent climate change experts like Professor Richard Lindzen of MIT and Dr Fred Singer of SEPP. (I could provide Sackur with a massive list of highly qualified scientists for his next climate change interview).

    Towards the end of the interview on Hard Talk, King did what he does best – he sought to undermine the reputation of those who deign to disagree with him by hinting that they were corrupted by money. King also dissembled, when he said the science proving human influence over the climate was strengthening. The reverse is the truth.

    If Sackur had done his homework, he would have known this was not the case, in spades. Sackur blew the chance to shine light on this issue. Either because he didn’t have the guts to do it, or because he was ill-briefed about the formidable amount of scientific evidence casting doubt on the theory that human activity is changing the climate.

    Sackur did admit towards the end of the programme that public opinion wasn’t convinced that human induced global warming was really happening. If he had been properly briefed, he would have quoted the likes of Lindzen and Singer to challenge King, and at least made clear that despite the efforts of the BBC to pretend that the issue is closed, that is far from the truth.

    Why does the BBC continually breach its own guidelines about fairness and balance over the issue of climate change? Surely, as the hugely important Copenhagen climate change approaches, the BBC should be seeking to educate the public, not batter it into submission with crude propaganda.  

Warped View Of Copyright Law Used To Stifle Criticism

     The BBC refuses to respond in a forthright way to my accusation that it used gutter-press tactics to attack a local doctor, then tried to intimidate me into remaining silent by crude threats about copyright.

     The BBC is attempting to use copyright as a means to shut down criticism of its editorial standards.

     The copyright law is pretty clear. If I sent a letter to X, I retain that copyright, and X cannot publish it without my permission.

    But if X is the nation’s biggest media outlet, financed by the taxpayer, and the letter contains a reaction to a report that is already in the public domain and published by X, to say that it is copyright and can only be published with the BBC’s permission is clearly ridiculous. Any jury in the land would see through the threat as an attempt to suppress information that should be public.

    The BBC’s letter, this time from Mr Larner, appears below. I’ve asked Mr Larner to comment on the last paragraph, but so far he hasn’t responded. To reply to this email, you have to go through a tortuous process on the BBC’s complaints website. You can’t simply reply to the email. It’s all part of the BBC’s plan to deflect criticism, I suppose.

Dear Mr Winton

I write in response to your recent submission via the BBC Complaints website addressed to BBC Director-General Mark Thompson regarding BBC South Today.

My name is David Larner and I am the BBC Information Complaints Co-ordinator with responsibility for the BBC's English Regions therefore this matter has been escalated for my personal attention. As I'm sure you'll appreciate, the Director-General receives more correspondence than he can deal with personally, so correspondence is forwarded to us in BBC Information so we can respond on behalf of the BBC's management.

Thank you for providing your further personal views on the matter of BBC South Today's reporting of Dr Rodney Tate, which I note you have chosen to also publish on your website.

As the programme's Producer has provided you with a full and detailed response explaining the context of the report in question which featured a former patient who did not wish to be identified, there is little I can add here other than to reiterate that Dr Tate was offered a full right of reply on the matter but declined to comment, as is his right.

I note that you make comment upon the BBC's Editorial Guidelines whilst appearing to be unfamiliar with the detail contained therein, therefore I copy below the web address for this published document in order that you may familiarise yourself with them: www.bbc.co.uk/editorialguidelines.

Noting that you have published Richard Spalding's reply on your website, I would remind you that the copyright in written replies on behalf of the BBC

- including my own here - rests with the BBC. I would further remind you that publishing, reproduction or distribution of copyrighted material requires formal permission from the copyright holder. (my italics)

Yours sincerely

David Larner

Complaints Co-ordinator

BBC Information

Neil Winton – August 19, 2009

(Here’s the rest of the saga)

Apologise, reprimand South Today, insist it never happensagain

Sunday, July 5, 2009 at 6:15PM

To: The Director General, BBC

From: Neil Winton

Can I insist that you change your editorial guidelines to outlaw the disgraceful reporting by BBC SOUTH TODAY on June 17, which smeared Dr Rodney Tate.

I’ve attached a copy of my email to The Editor, South Today, and the reply, in the form of a blog published on my website.

Apparently, your editorial guidelines now apparently state, as if you were the Sun/Mirror/Star – “Feel free to use an anonymous interviewee, back to camera, to say suggestive things about a person, as long as that person is in a weak position, and has a background that can be used to make them look guilty. It doesn’t matter that the content of the interview adds up to nothing, it is the impression that counts. It doesn’t matter what harm you do to this person, it is the story above all”

Can I suggest that you change your editorial guidelines to something like this.

“When you have an anonymous interviewee, because of the danger that innuendo can cause, the content of the interview must be compelling, and move the story on in an important way. For an anonymous interview to be used, the content of that interview must speak for itself, bringing important new information to public attention. You will never descend to “no smoke without fire” journalism.”

I’m sure you will agree that BBC South Today’s behaviour in this case was inexcusable and obnoxious. You should apologise to Dr Tate, reprimand BBC South Today, and lay down guidelines to make sure these tactics are left to the gutter press, which you sadly seem so keen to emulate.

Neil Winton | Post a Comment | Share Article

Sunday

28Jun

BBC South Today Uses Crude, Tabloid Tactics To SmearDoctor

Sunday, June 28, 2009 at 7:20PM

The BBC can truly be a malign, bullying and worrying influence.

The BBC’s operatives, when challenged, always put on an air of superiority and talk about their world class standards. Most of the time, this is a dangerous illusion, it seems to me. The BBC is a monopoly, is funded by government edict, often has the gutter standards of the worst tabloids, and unlike the rest of the media, is still immune from the recession’s impact.

Recently on BBC South Today I saw our state news provider at its worst. It used the inconclusive meanderings of an anonymous source to traduce the reputation of a doctor. Because this doctor was once subject to a court case for which he was found not guilty, and had since been struck off by the GMC, the BBC felt it could run the story without fear of retribution. Just like the worst examples of our gutter tabloid press. Nudge, nudge; wink, wink; there’s no smoke without fire, don’t you know.

I contacted the editor of South Today.

His reply is published below.

This is what I wrote –

The Editor

BBC South Today

From: Neil Winton

I watched the lunchtime report on Dr Tate today, and again this evening on BBC South Today. It was a travesty. It was irresponsible journalism. The report at 1.30 interviewed an anonymous woman, whose accusations amounted to only that the doctor looked at her. He was the doctor doing the examination for goodness sake. Of course he looked at her. I wasn’t sure that this was so because the lunchtime report didn’t have subtitles, I don’t think. It was very difficult to make out what the women said.

The version this evening had the transcript. How dare you use such a thin amount of evidence to try and traduce Dr Tate. Then you followed it up with some stern words from a lawyer, based again on the thinnest of evidence, but assuming his guilt from the film you had shown.

It may well be that the other charges you mentioned may indeed be stronger, but to air evidence on a case like this on zilch evidence is totally irresponsible. It seemed clear from the film, (I’m no doctor, I don’t really know) that .......... woman .... presumably had lost her baby (although you didn’t explain this, another example of irresponsible journalism) and felt that Dr Tate was somehow responsible for this.

Once you have aired accusations like this, it is hard to undo them. But I hope, as Editor, you will admit that this is not the way to report on serious cases, and that you will make sure the journalists responsible will be reprimanded.

I ought to point out that I know Dr Tate slightly. He is a member of my golf club. I know him well enough to say hello to, but that’s it. I have no knowledge of his background...... But that surely doesn’t justify your sickening and irresponsible trashing of his rights.

Regards

Neil

(I’ve edited this version)

This is the BBC’s response

Dear Mr Winton

Thank you for your e-mail about our report on Dr Rodney Tate on June 17. Please allow me to explain some of the background before I answer the issues you raise.

Five days before the report was aired - June 12th - we carried a short piece saying that Dr Tate had been struck off the Medical Register by the GMC.

Seven patients had complained that he had violated their privacy and performed examinations without their consent. He was a well known GP in Brighton, having practised at the Old Steine Surgery for 36 years.

The story you were unhappy was a follow-up. On the basis of the GMC's decision, several patients had approached a lawyer called Sarah Harman. She was featured in our report and had told us that the patient we interviewed was considering suing Dr Tate and that others were doing the same.

We took the decision that, with the history of the GMC's findings the previous week, it was a valid story to run. We pointed out that Dr Tate had not been convicted in a criminal court of any offences. He was acquitted in 2006. That is an important fact in this case and was clearly stated in the graphics part of the report.

However, an equally important fact was that he had been struck off by the GMC - the professional body which regulates doctors. Based on the fact that the GMC had ruled his behaviour was inappropriate and struck him off I took the decision that the story was important enough to run. Any action by the women would not suggest guilt of a criminal offence, it would be a civil matter.

The woman we interviewed was prepared to talk on the condition she was not identified. This is something we are happy to agree to in sensitive stories such as this one. Her interview was relevant as she was one of the complainants in the GMC case. No sexual intent was proved her case but his behaviour was considered inappropriate which amounts to more thanas you arguea mere examination. So the report we carried was not based as you assert on 'thin evidence'. It was based on fact - that Dr Tate had been found guilty by a professional body of inappropriate behaviour in a working environment . A second fact is that patients are considering suing him. There is an important difference in language here - we did not state that they are definitely suing him.

I should also add that we did approach Dr Tate for an interview but he declined to comment. So rather than 'trashing his rights' we gave him the right of reply and he madea decision not to take it.

I hope this sheds some light on why weran the story.

Regards

Richard Spalding

Producer

BBC South Today

My comments

Nothing you say alters the fact that the interviewee, hiding behind anonymity, leveled accusations against Dr Tate that amounted to very little indeed. It seems to me that you ran this story because you knew that because of Dr Tate’s record, it would be very difficult for him to deflect even these flimsy accusations. Offering him the right of reply is meaningless in this context. Because you knew Dr Tate was in a weak position, it was alright to attack him, even if the material you had amounted to very little indeed. The material did not take whatever case might be forthcoming against Dr Tate any further. It simply made him look bad, even though what was said didn’t amount to much. You set up a bad context, then filled it with nudges and winks but no fact.

It seems to me that an ethical and responsible organisation would have declined to run this material, unless the participants were willing to come up with something substantial. This is the gutter journalism of the worst tabloids, not what I would expect from the BBC.

    It is impossible to have a rationale debate in Britain about health care. For some reason, many British people have allowed themselves to be brainwashed into thinking that the NHS is, or was, the envy of the world. This was never true. Sure it has one big advantage; it delivers services to everybody, regardless of income or status. But that’s it. It’s a classic Labour party idea; we get wonderful equality, but it’s the equality of crap for all.

    If you take the trouble to look at data published on comparative outcomes of health services, the NHS comes very close to the bottom in the civilised world. Look at cancer survival rates. Look at MRSA disease rates. Look at the National Institute for Clinical Excellence and its not so NICE arbitrary ways (You can only have this expensive drug to save your sight until you have lost the sight in one eye).

    The U.S. system by contrast is clearly the best in the world in terms of standards for those lucky enough to have health insurance, and that’s a hefty percentage of the population. The U.S. needs reform, to include the 40 odd million without insurance (about 250 million have it). So the trick for the Americans is first - don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater - don’t screw up the best system in the world when you reform it.

    As American politicians look around the world for ideas on how best to reform health care, they will quickly avert their eyes from the debacle that is the NHS. And yet it is impossible for any politician in Britain to stand up and say the simple truth. The NHS might have been a noble idea when it was first floated in the 1940s, but it has outlived its usefulness. (It wasn’t really a noble idea, it was a trick to make us all clients of the state, taking the gruel we were given and asking no questions, but all done with the politicians saying it was good for us, and fairer and equal etc).

    There are better ways to deliver healthcare. Look at the French and German systems for instance. These countries insist their citizens are insured. Everybody pays for what they use, then they claim it back on the insurance. There are safety nets for the poor, but there is no doubt that health outcomes in France and Germany are better than in Britain. There are no waiting lists, because the system reacts to demand for operations by using market mechanisms to move investment to where it is required. There are no wards. Try and explain to an American what a ward in a hospital is. You will get blank looks. Because we Brits have been forced to take second rate care for so long and it has been doled out like a charity, not something we’ve paid for (which of course we have), we meekly accept this degradation, which includes mixed wards too.

    So here we go again, with Dan Hannan’s remarks on American TV inspiring this ludicrous non-debate between the Tories and Labour. David Cameron knows as well as anybody that the centralised, wasteful, Stalinist NHS stinks. But he also knows that the Labour party is fiendishly clever at trashing the arguments of anybody seeking to improve health delivery by repeating over and over the holy mantra that the NHS is sacred, and can never be touched, and the Tories want to change this glorious system, which doesn’t come close to doing what it says on the tin.

    Cameron is so desperate not to rock the boat which seems certain to deliver him into Downing Street next year, that he criticises Hannan as an eccentric. As soon as the cry goes up about the NHS, the media, led by the state-financed BBC, can be relied on to fuel the ya-boo arguments about who loves the NHS most. Watching Andrew Lansley (Tory) and Andy Burnham (Labour) argue about how much they are devoted to this failed organisation is too contemptible, too depressing for words. They do think we are children.

    Any Questions on BBC Radio 4 on Friday night conspired to have a panel who all more or less said the NHS is the way to go, even though none of them were politicians. The BBC reports this argument as though it’s the paid PR man of the NHS. (Incidentally, the cretins who produce this programme, managed to invite an audience in Rye, deep in true blue Sussex, who remained silent when one panellist criticised hated, reviled Gordon Brown, but cheered communist union agitator Bob Crow to the rafters!)

    So the debate about health drones on pointlessly, with never a word about what is the best way to deliver health care. All we hear are silly claims that this party loves the NHS more, and thinks it is a national treasure. If Cameron was a Margaret Thatcher or a Norman Tebbit, one might hope that this professed love of the NHS was a smokescreen which when the election was over, might reveal a plan to design something more sensible and efficient for us Brits. (Just copy what the Germans and French do Dave, it’s not very difficult).

    I fear that the awful, glib Cameron believes what he says about the NHS, and so mediocrity will be the watchword in healthcare for us in Britain for the foreseeable future.