It's raining, it's pouring, that'll be the global warming...



Bill Giles, the nation’s favourite weatherman was in no doubt. Britain was burning up. Within 20 years, Dundee would soon be as balmy as Berkshire. France would be virtually uninhabitable, as the Dordogne turned into a desert.



So convinced was Bill by the imminent threat of global warming that he was ripping up his English country garden in Oxfordshire and planting olive trees instead. That was back in 1996.



To be fair to Bill, he wasn’t the only one suckered by the great global warming scam, although as a qualified meteorologist he should have known better. For the past 15 years we have been bombarded with ever more hysterical predictions about the momentous effect ‘man-made’ global warming would have on Britain.

A national favorite: Bill Giles is one of many who have been warning us of the imminent collapse of our climate for the past 15 years

There would be grapevines growing in the Pennines; the Midlands would resemble a Grapes of Wrath-style dustbowl; and in Torquay, giant wildebeest would sweep majestically across the veldt . . .



Unfortunately for these alarmists, the weather has continued to have other ideas. If the warmists were right, the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee would have been blessed with continuous, scorching sunshine and half the country wouldn’t be under three feet of water right now.



Britain’s weather has always been unpredictable. You might have thought they’d have got the message when snow fell in October 2008 on the very day the ‘Climate Change’ Bill was being debated in the House of Commons.

Ridiculous: For the past 15 years we have been bombarded with ever more hysterical predictions about the momentous effect 'man-made' global warming would have on Britain

But, then again, you might just as well try to convince an Islamist suicide bomber that if he’s expecting to be greeted in Paradise by 72 virgins, there’s an outside possibility he may be disappointed.



G.K. Chesterton wrote memorably that when people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing, they believe in anything. Never has that been more true than in the case of those who worship at the altar of global warming. Even though temperatures peaked in 1998 and the world has been getting colder ever since, the warmists refuse to be deflected from their conviction that the planet is in meltdown.



When it became apparent that temperatures were actually falling, they simply changed the name of their religion from ‘global warming’ to ‘climate change’. The cooler weather was merely a ‘blip’, they declared. Keep planting the olive trees.



Those of us who had the audacity to pour scorn on their new orthodoxy were smeared as ‘deniers’ — no better than Nazi apologists who maintain the Holocaust never happened.



The virulence of their character assassination merely serves to underline the desperation of their dishonest cause. All evidence to the contrary is discarded. Try pointing out that we had ice fairs on the Thames hundreds of years ago and that Britain experienced a well-documented warm period in medieval times and you can expect a torrent of self-righteous abuse.



They’re not interested in history, they’re only interested in the here-and-now, which is why the warmists have no sense of perspective and will brook no argument.



Thus, the recent drought was proof positive that the world will soon run out of water. Yet the fact that it hasn’t stopped raining since is dismissed as statistically irrelevant.



There is, of course, no accounting for any kind of religious fanatic. They are immune to reason and consider any heretic who challenges their sacred tenets to be fundamentally evil.



The central conceit is that everything bad which happens in the world is man-made and only man can do something about it. They refuse to acknowledge that there are forces bigger than themselves at work.



This is abject nonsense. Whenever there has been a man-made disaster, nature has been quick to clean up.



After Saddam Hussein flooded the Persian Gulf with crude oil, we were told the pollution would last two million years. It was all gone in six months.



Similarly, when the BP pipeline burst in the Gulf of Mexico, it was billed as a catastrophe of biblical proportions which would wipe out an entire ecology. Two years later, tourists are back on the beaches and the seafood restaurants are doing a roaring trade.

Taking advantage: Businesses have spotted a lucrative opportunity to cash in on everything from useless War Of The Worlds wind turbines to state-subsidised solar panels

If the great global warming lie was confined to the usual weird beards and dope-addled hippies left over from the Woodstock Generation, none of this would matter much. But ‘climate change’ has been appropriated by big business and big government for their own ends.



Politicians quickly seized on it as a way to expand their own empires, pass new laws and levy an exciting new range of fines and taxes. Here in Britain, Westminster remains in thrall to the green lobby, setting insane targets for carbon reduction, which will destroy what’s left of our manufacturing industry and lead to a serious energy shortage within a few years.



Despite the financial crisis and unsustainable levels of government spending and borrowing, the public sector continues to hire ‘climate change’ advisers and auditors on salaries of up to £65,000.



The warmists refuse to be deflected from their conviction that the planet is in meltdown

In the private sector, businesses have spotted a lucrative opportunity to cash in on everything from useless War Of The Worlds wind turbines to state-subsidised solar panels. They are cheered on by the BBC and the Met Office, which continues to get the weather forecast spectacularly wrong while concentrating on its new role combating ‘climate change’. Meanwhile, back on Planet Earth, it’s Flaming June in Britain and it’s still raining.



What, then, became of Bill Giles, one of the original prophets of global warming doom? If you watch daytime TV, you may have spotted Bill advertising a home equity release scheme on behalf of a finance company.



Is he planting olive trees in his garden in Oxfordshire? Er, no. He’s playing golf on a time-share complex somewhere hot.



On the firm’s website, Bill writes: ‘I was delighted when they invited me to appear in their new TV advert, particularly when they offered to fly me to Spain to avoid the cold, wet UK weather!’



Be fair, though, Bill has been proved right about one thing. Yesterday the weather in Dundee was exactly the same as the weather in Berkshire — a balmy 53f (12c) and raining.



It smells like weed, Guv’nor



Police in South London have staged a unique identity parade. They are looking for the rightful owners of 31 plants recovered after a raid on a local burglary suspect.



Householders are being invited by Clapham nick to reclaim stolen box plants and bay trees, which were found in the back of a van belonging to the alleged thief.

Suspicious characters: Could number 4 please step forward and turn to your left?

‘Take your time, madam. Are you sure this is the aspidistra in question?’



Detectives are anxious to interview two men dressed in flowerpots, who are known only as Bill and Ben. They were last seen in the company of a woman called Little Weed.



Police have also circulated the description of an alleged fence, answers to the name of Larchlap . . .



The proliferation of bookmakers’ shops is transforming our High Streets. Once, if you asked directions, you’d be told: ‘Go past the Post Office, turn left at the library and right at the police station.’



Now you’re more likely to be told: ‘Go past William Hill, turn left at Paddy Power, right at Ladbrokes, and it’s directly opposite. If you come to Coral’s, you’ve gone too far . . .’



Decorated: Freddie was involved in 91 bombing raids during the war - and survived being shot down twice

Ultimate sacrifice?



World War II hero Freddie Johnson has been refused a ticket to attend the unveiling of the memorial to Bomber Command in London’s Green Park.



Mr Johnson, 91, a highly-decorated rear gunner who was shot down twice, could have expected to be a VIP guest after helping to raise money for the memorial appeal.



But he has been told that all 6,500 tickets have already been allocated.



Given that Mr Johnson put his life on the line for our freedom, would it be too much to ask one of the superannuated desk jockeys at the MoD to make the ultimate sacrifice and give up their ticket?



Half a pound of crack cocaine, half a pound of treacle



A campaign has been launched by to save traditional nursery rhymes.

The English Folk Song and Dance Society believes too many have been sanitised to remove ‘unsuitable’ and ‘inappropriate’ references to death, disease and drunkenness.



Rhymes which have been rewritten include This Little Piggy, who now eats ice cream instead of roast beef, for fear of offending vegetarians.

And Humpty Dumpty didn’t have a great fall any more — he ‘bungee jumped’. This got me wondering what other nursery rhymes might be rewritten to suit modern political reality . . .



Old MacDonald had Dale Farm, Now it's an illegal travellers' camp...

Georgie Porgie pudding and pie

Kissed the girls

And got put on the sex offenders’ register.



Old MacDonald had Dale Farm

Now it’s an illegal travellers’ camp.



There was an old woman who lived in a shoe.

Because of the savage cuts in housing benefit.



Dr Foster went to Gloucester

To protest against the NHS reforms.



Polly put the kettle on.

Do it yourself, you sexist pig!



Jack Sprat would eat no fat

Because his wife was morbidly obese and

had to be winched out of her bed by the

fire brigade.



Hot cross buns, hot cross buns

Plus VAT at 20 per cent, hot cross buns.



Red sky at night, Tottenham’s alight.

Red sky in the morning,

global warming.



As I was going to St Ives,

I met an imam with seven wives.

It’s his culture, innit.



The Grand Old Duke of York,

He had ten thousand Air Miles.

