James Delingpole's Blog, page 74

Power cuts are a much more serious problem than 'Climate Change'

Today is the day when, in lieu of their gap-year jackarooing in Australia or eating magic mushroom omelette in Bali, Climate Camp protesters named Xan, Freddie, Minty, Tigger, Pidge, and Twig will run riot through London's business district in protest at the outrageous, disgusting capitalist system that enabled Daddy to put them so cruelly, harshly and disgracefully through Eton, Westminster and St Mary's, Calne.

More gag-inducingly still it is the day when dozens of celebrities will gather at Th

Oasis: just how rubbish were they?

Over in the Daily Mail today I have a go at Oasis, the popular beat combo which has just split up. (Or so Noel Gallagher says, and since he's the only one in the band who can write songs, that'll be it till he changes his mind for the lucrative reunion tour).

To be honest, I probably don't loathe Oasis quite as much as I make out in that article. When you're writing polemic there isn't much room for nuance like - "Well if someone put on Champagne Supernova right now I'd probably feel a pleasant n

Oasis are vulgar, over-hyped, under-talented and the face of yob Britain

Summer is nearly over and so too are our holidays. But joyously and unexpectedly, one final chink of bright sunshine has appeared on the horizon to drive away our back-to-school blues: Oasis, the most overrated band in the history of British music, have finally done the decent thing and split.

This isn't just another desperate publicity stunt designed to boost what little interest there is left in their ailing brand. At least let's hope not.

This time, according to the band's chief songwriter, Noe

Why Stevenage is the final frontier in space technology

It's so tantalisingly close, this strange octagonal aluminium box with its shimmery array of circuitry. I see wires coated in silver, connectors of gold, and parts so delicate that even in this temperature-and humidity-controlled, dust-free environment they have to be protected with pink translucent plastic bags.

In two years' time, this box - the inside of a satellite - will be blasted four times further out into space than any human has ever been.

That's why I'm so desperate to touch it. Imagine

Any Questions

Click here to listen to James on BBC Radio 4's Any Questions. Also on the panel are Jonathan Porritt, Kate Mosse and Mark Stephens. Chaired by Jonathan Dimbleby. (22/08/09)

What is it that greens like Jonathan Porritt so LOATHE about nature?

For some time now, I have been struck by a strange paradox about the more radical members of the green movement: if they love nature so much, how come they expend so much energy trying to destroy it?

I'm thinking, for example, of their championing of biofuels - a disastrous idea which not only helped starve the poor by causing a massive hike in global food prices but which has also led to still further devastation of their beloved rainforests. And also of the windfarms with which they plan to car

Any Questions? Yeah. Why is British broadcasting so incorrigibly liberal-left?

Tonight I shall be appearing on BBC's Radio 4's Any Questions. This, I should explain for the benefit of non-British readers, is about the closest thing we have over here to an Arena of Cruelty now that bear-baiting, public executions and feeding Christians to lions have all been banned.

Me. Any Questions. Tonight. Middle Wallop, Hants.

With Any Questions - as on its TV equivalent Question Time, and indeed on any current affairs programme conducted by the incorrigibly liberal-left BBC - the chie

If the NHS is 'fair', give me unfairness any day

Did I ever tell you about the time the National Health Service relieved me of my piles? It's a painful story — and for many of you, no doubt, already far, far more information than you want. But I do think it goes a long way towards explaining our ongoing Eloi-like subservience to the great, slobbering, brutish NHS Morlock which we so rose-tintedly delude ourselves is still the 'Envy of the World'.

Look, if you don't want to read about piles (''roids' if you're American), I should skip on a few p

Redfaced Greenpeace insists 'we didn't make it up' - we just 'emotionalised the issue'

Here is a deliciously watchable video of Gerd Leipold, the leader of Greenpeace, squirming like a stuck pig under cross-examination by the BBC's Stephen Sackur when accused of putting out scaremongering misinformation. (Hat Tips: Not Evil Just Wrong and Watts Up With That)

In a July 15 press release entitled "Urgent Action Needed As Arctic Ice Melts", Greenpeace shrieked that there will be an ice-free arctic by 2030 thanks to global warming. Interviewing Leipold on the BBC's Hardtalk programme, S

Charlie Brooker on Hannan: not even close to being funny

Charlie Brooker's columns are so funny and brilliantly written they actually make you want to buy the Guardian. As a media satirist, he is second to few - right up there with Armando Iannucci and Chris Morris. When he mocked me mercilessly in print about a documentary on the Upper Class I made a few years back, I considered it the most tremendous honour.

Why is he so great? Well apart from his gloriously surreal analogies, his no-holds-barred fearlessness, his mastery of Swiftian invective and hi