IS CLIMATEGATE finally over? It ought to be, with the publication of the third UK report into the emails leaked from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU). Incredibly, none looked at the quality of the science itself.

The MPs’ inquiry – rushed out before the UK general election on 6 May – ducked the science because the university said it was setting up an “independent scientific assessment panel” chaired by geologist Ron Oxburgh.

After publishing his five-page epistle, Oxburgh declared “the science was not the subject of our study”. Finally, last week came former civil servant Muir Russell’s …