James Delingpole's Blog, page 26

Was John Lennon a secret Reagan Republican?

You know what? I think the answer's probably no. But why let that get in the way of the delicious schadenfreude I'm feeling right now over the recent claims by his former personal assistant Fred Seaman – and the apparent discomfort it is causing lefties.

In new documentary Beatles Stories, Seaman tells filmmaker Seth Swirsky Lennon wasn't the peace-loving militant fans thought he was while he was his assistant.

He says, "John, basically, made it very clear that if he were an American he would vote for Reagan because he was really sour on (Democrat) Jimmy Carter.

"He'd met Reagan back, I think, in the 70s at some sporting event… Reagan was the guy who had ordered the National Guard, I believe, to…

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Frogs, scorpions, greens, lies…

Thanks to the miracles of modern technology etc this post comes to you courtesy of an American Airlines flight 30,000 odd feet over the US on my journey to the Soviet Socialist Republic of California. I'm going there to address some of the few remaining sane people there who haven't yet been driven out by the state's bonkers fiscal and regulatory regime, or been driven to destitution by measures to protect the Snail Darter de nos jours – an obscure fish called the California Delta Smelt.

I'll try to keep this a short post because laptops play havoc with my neck. And because of where I'm headed, I thought I'd pay tribute in this one to LA resident Phelim McAleer co-author – with Ann McElhinney – of the Not Evil Just Wrong documentary debunking CAGW.

McAleer is kind of the anti-Michael Moore: using similar guerilla video techniques but against the liberal-left…

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Communitarianism is a freedom-hating totalitarian philosophy like any other

The most unsettling aspect of modern politics is that the Enemy is no longer plain in view. We may feel in our bones that we are as oppressed, disenfranchised and generally shat upon, in our way, as those who suffered under Nazism, Marxism and fascism. But the actual evidence doesn't seem to bear this out.

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Does Mitt Romney prefer dog-poop yogurt?

Whoever eventually wins the US Republican presidential nomination one thing is as sure as eggs: it won't be a candidate who takes the wrong side on "Climate Change." (H/T Climate Depot)

Mitt Romney didn't understand this. He was under the unfortunate impression that it is one of those safe, bi-partisan issues where you can demonstrate how reasonable and electable you are by adopting an accommodating centrist position. And this is why, as Rush has correctly noted, his presidential aspirations are toast.

Jon Huntsman, slightly more canny, has been frantically trying to dissociate himself from his previous position as an ardent supporter of Cap N Trade. "It wasn't me. The big boys made me do it," he has been saying. Or words to that effect. But this probably the equivalent of a bourgeois intellectual in 70s Cambodia…

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The science is settled: US liberals really are the dumbest creatures on the planet

Today I am in New York on my publicity tour for Watermelons and as I sat at breakfast this morning, chomping on an Ess-a-bagel and reading Thomas Sowell's Basic Economics I found myself wondering – not for the first time – why it is that liberal-lefties manage to be so utterly wrong about everything.

"Because they're stupid," said a libertarian friend of mine.

"Oh come on, not all of them surely? A bit misguided, maybe but…" I protested.

"No really they're stupid because they're not interested in facts. They just want to construct their pretty little narrative about the world, regardless of whether or not it has any bearing on reality. And then they want to dump it on us. And ruin our lives. So not…

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This government simply hasn't a clue about 'Climate Change'

Last night I was rude to a Minister of the Crown. His name's Greg Barker, he's the Minister for Climate Change, and – or so he tried to allege in a flabby speech to the Conservative Future (formerly Young Conservatives) in the Commons last night – he's actually a Conservative MP not a Liberal Democrat or a Green or a Communist one.

So I asked him what it was that first drew him to the Conservative party. Was it because he'd always nurtured a burning desire to drive up inflation? Or to increase fuel bills? Or to transfer money from the poor to the pockets of rich landowners like Earl Spencer and Sir Reginald Sheffield Bt? Or to destroy the British economy? Or to despoil the British countryside?

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Stuff of legend

A few years ago, my at-the-time-quite-impoverished screenwriter friend Jake Michie told me about this brilliant new children's TV series he'd dreamed up about the Knights of the Round Table. All the male leads would be young and pretty with boy band haircuts; Arthur would be a bit of a rugger-bugger lunk, while the real hero would be a younger Merlin who would use his magic to get his pal out of all sorts of scrapes; and obviously there'd be monsters and demons and suchlike to stop the kids getting bored.

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Churchill's conservatives are, 'like, total Nazis', says Dr Goebbels

Herr Ubergronwindfarmwirtschaftsselbstmordfuhrer Huhne, yesterday

Winston Churchill and his fellow Conservatives are "like, a bunch of total Nazis", Germany's Reich Minister of Propaganda told a conference yesterday.

"All we're trying to do is make Europe (and those parts of the Soviet Union and anywhere else in the world we overrun) the Greenest Continent Ever. And what's that fascist Nazi Churchill trying to do? Why only to derail our plans at every turn with his obsessive right-wing fixation with liberty and economic freedom and sovereignty and not killing people who disagree with you. That man's a zealot, I tell you. A total zealot. Does he not care a damn about all the polar bears that would have been saved, all the fractions of a degree which would have been shaved off global climate change, all the green jobs which…

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Greenpeace and the IPCC: time, surely, for a Climate Masada?

And how are you feeling today, all you Greenies, after your most embarrassing week (well, one of the most embarrassing: the competition, it must be said, has been pretty stiff these last 18 months) since Climategate?

Just in case your only information sources are RealClimate or Guardian Environment let me explain, briefly, what has been happening out here on Planet Reality. In a nutshell, you've been caught with your trousers down yet again, viz:

An official IPCC report bigging up renewable energy as the power source of the future turns out to have been lead-authored by an activist from Greenpeace and based not on solid science but a wish-fulfilment fantasy scenario devised by, you guessed it, Greenpeace.

Here's how the press release of the IPCC'…

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No surprise that the BBC has been caught out in a lie

THE BBC has had to apologise after being caught out telling porkie pies in one of its Panorama documentaries.

Though it claimed to show genuine footage of exploited Indian child labourers sweating for a pittance to make cheap fashion for Primark, these scenes had in fact been staged.

A voice in the background heard saying: "Get on with the work little boy" and "keep quiet and get on with job" was provided by the Panorama crew's driver/translator.

Are any of you surprised by this? I'm not.

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