James Delingpole's Blog, page 29

Free Schools: the stake in the heart of the Progressive vampire

Last night I saw the future of education in Britain – and it worked.

The occasion was the launch of Katharine Birbalsingh's free school in Lambeth, South London. As a local parent I was naturally very interested in this because at the moment round these parts you have two options when your kids turn 11: either you consign them to the dustbin of whichever failing state school you're unlucky enough to get them into. Or you consign yourself to an old age of misery and penury by forking out for one of the many excellent local private schools.

Having just been in America, I know that in the States (Canada too) parents face very similar problems. And it has nothing to do with poor/ethnic kids finding it harder…

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Don't let the Watermelons kill the Shale Gas Revolution

Imagine if we were to discover a new form of cheap, clean energy so abundant that it will provide our needs at least for the next two centuries, freeing us from the pervasive early 21st century neurosis of having to worry about "peak oil" or "conserving scarce resources", causing a worldwide economic boom and with the added side-benefit of creating more fertiliser so that we can not only heat our homes more cheaply than ever before but also eat more cheaply than ever before.

Imagine how Environmentalists would react if such a miracle came into being.

Actually we don't need to imagine for the miracle is already here. It's called Shale Gas and is the subject of a thrilling new report…

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It's all jobs for the boys

Gordon Brown is rumoured to be in the running for the job of head of the International Monetary Fund. It's ridiculous that political failure should be rewarded with another top job; and the former prime minister is far from being the only example of this trend…

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Upstairs, downstairs at Highclere Castle – the real Downton Abbey

The library is home to nearly 6,000 books, dating from the 16th century. It was used as a meeting room by the Earl of Grantham (Hugh Bonneville) in Downton Abbey, where he would discuss the workings of the house with his butler, and where he interviewed his Irish driver

This time last year, Highclere Castle was just another struggling English family home with the usual 5,000-acre estate, 50-plus bedrooms, portraits by Van Dyck, Victorian gothic design by Charles Barry (who also did the Houses of Parliament), towers, follies, tapestries, heraldic shields and attached museum of Egyptian artefacts from Tutankhamun's tomb. And the usual collapsing roofs and millions of pounds worth of debts.

But what a difference a popular, prime-time, period drama series can make. Today the house is the most famous stately home in the world – known as Downton Abbey – with a future perhaps more secure than at any time in its 450-year existence.

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What exactly has the world ever done for Britain?

A FEW years ago I was wandering through a market in Omdurman in the Sudan when I was accosted by an angry old man. "Why did you leave us?" he said. "Things were so much better when you were here."

We British are so used to being told by foreigners how awful we are that at first I didn't understand his point. Then slowly it dawned.

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UEA: the sweet smell of napalm in the morning…

I wasn't going to crow, really I wasn't. But I'm afraid I can't resist, especially since it's my last blog post for a while and this is an event of some significance. I'm talking about the Press Complaints Commission's ruling on a complaint brought against this blog by our old friends at the University of East Anglia. They lost. We won. (And I do mean we: I'm hugely grateful to my legal advisers, as well as to experts including Steve McIntyre, Andrew Montford, Richard North and Christopher Booker.)

Because I'm about to dash off to Devon for some vital surfing R & R, I've only time to sketch in why this matters so much. Basically the UEA were trying to use the PCC as a way of gagging this blog from speaking unpalatable truths about the shoddy goings-on in its notorious Climatic Research Unit.

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I heart Glenn Beck

So Glenn Beck is to lose his show at Fox. If you want to know why this is a bad thing for the world, forget what you may think of his sometimes over-the-top, lachrymose schtick and his tendency towards overstating the case. Concentrate instead on the unbridled joy and delirium Beck's dethronement is already causing in left-liberal circles. The head of Glenn Beck on a platter is like Kwaanza come early for Keith Olbermann and George Soros and Barack Obama and CNN and CNBC and the New York Times and all the rest of that rag bag of Islamists, eco-loons, progressives, communitarians, and Gramsciites who would be so much happier if you didn't know about their plans to steal your freedoms, take more of your money, swell the size of government and destroy your liberty.

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Official: wind farms are totally useless

Before I take my break, I cannot resist drawing your attention to a new report on wind farms – perhaps the most damning I have ever read. What makes it even more significant is that it has been sponsored by an environmental charity. Normally the people most busily pushing these bird-chomping, bat-crunching, taxpayer-fleecing monstrosities on our magnificent landscape are those who claim, ludicrously, to be "green." Thank you, John Muir Trust, for reminding as that being "green" doesn't necessarily have to include economically suicidal schemes to destroy perhaps our greatest national asset: the British countryside.

Here's its summary:

PRINCIPAL FINDINGS in respect of analysis of electricity generation from all the U.K. windfarms which are metered by National Grid, November 2008 to December 2010. The…

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Earth does not have a cancer; the cancer is not man

Any minute now I'm going to lay off blogging for a while, for health reasons. But I can't pretend I'm going to find going cold turkey easy, especially not when there are stories like this around.

It concerns "wildlife expert" Chris Packham – presenter of some of the BBC's most popular nature programmes including Springwatch and a new series called The Animal's Guide To British Wildlife – and some deeply unpleasant remarks he made in the course of an interview with the Radio Times.

"There's no point bleating about the future of pandas, polar bears and tigers when we're not addressing the one single factor that's putting more pressure on the ecosystem than any other – namely the ever-increasing size of the world's population. I read the other…

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The ideological rot that is destroying English conservatism

One of the greatest advances for personal freedom in the last twenty years was the rise of the low cost airline. Suddenly, thanks to Ryanair, Easyjet and their many imitators, European travel was transformed from the rare luxury of the few into something almost everyone could enjoy, often two or three times a year. The range of destinations opened too, as smaller airports – Bydgoszcz, Montpellier, Beziers, Wroclaw, Kaunas, Riga… – became part of regular flight schedules. This in turn enabled people to buy properties in parts of Europe which, hitherto, they had barely realised existed. And with flights so cheap they could visit their second homes regularly, enjoying with their family and friends the glorious escapism which comes of owning your own special realm in another country remote…

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