James Delingpole, the Telegraph’s resident Climate Change Denial kook, has used his column today to launch a personal attack upon Sir Paul Nurse (pictured here).

One wonders what Sir Paul did to be highlighted like this.

Could it be the fact the Sir Paul won the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine … nope.

Perhaps it is because Sir Paul is the current President of the Royal Society and Chief Executive and Director of the Francis Crick Institute … nope

Ah but wait, none of that matters, because in Delingpole’s eyes … Sir Paul has committed the hideous crime of agreeing with the current scientific consensus that man-made climate change is real.

In fact, Sir Paul did a fantastic Horizon program all about Climate Change one year ago. In it he carefully presented all the evidence, but being impartial he also interviewed the deniers and presented them with the same details. Yep, Delingpole was interviewed by Sir Paul and shown to be the complete pratt on camera in front of millions.

Sir Paul Nurse, came across as enthusiastic, open-minded and eminently reasonable. One hates to draw conclusions about the wrongheadedness of the views of a climate change-denier such as, say, James Delingpole, simply because he has an unfortunate manner, but that’s my job.Nurse’s interview with Delingpole was notable for forming a centrepiece to the programme, and because Delingpole complained he was stitched up on his blog, claiming that a good three hours of him being reasonable and cogent was edited out in favour of one scene where he looks like an idiot. To be fair, there are two scenes where he looks like an idiot. In one he explains that he never reads peer-reviewed scientific literature on the subject of global warming because “it’s not my job”. In the other, he condemns the scientific consensus on global warming – and consensus in general – as unscientific. When Nurse presented him with a perfectly reasonable analogy about having cancer and choosing a remedy of one’s own devising over the “consensus” treatment, Delingpole was clearly offended by the apparent comparison to devotees of quack medicine. Later, the programme featured an HIV-positive man who doesn’t believe HIV causes Aids and follows a yoghurt-based treatment of his own devising, who probably didn’t like being lumped in with Delingpole much.

Ever since then (that was 24th Jan 2011 … over 1 year ago) Delingpole has used his Telegraph column to launch personal attacks that reek of spit and bile against Sir Paul whenever he deemed it appropriate.

Sir Paul gave the BBC’s 2012 Dimbleby Lecture a couple of nights ago and did a brilliant job (yes I watched it all). He gave a passionate and galvanizing view of scientific practice and its consequences.

And what did his No.1 fan Mr Delingpole make of it all? He was thrilled and lauded his praises upon Sir Paul … oh wait, perhaps not, it just provoked today’s pile of anti-Nurse bile.

Does this in any way degrade the reputation of Sir Paul? Nope not at all, in fact I’d argue that anybody being attacked by Delingpole would consider it a badge of honour. In the end all Delingpole is doing is to diminish his own credibility even further (if that is actually possible).

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