In his Mail on Sunday article today (keep scrolling) David Rose reveals that the BBC - at least in Scotland - has a new policy of protecting climatologists from challenge on air.

A BBC executive in charge of editorial standards has ordered programme editors not to broadcast debates between climate scientists and global warming sceptics. Alasdair MacLeod claimed that such discussions amount to ‘false balance’ and breach an undertaking to the Corporation’s watchdog, the BBC Trust. Mr MacLeod, head of editorial standards and compliance for BBC Scotland, sent an email on February 27 to 18 senior producers and editors, which has been obtained by The Mail on Sunday. It reads: ‘When covering climate change stories, we should not run debates / discussions directly between scientists and sceptics.

If dissenters from the climate consensus are not to be allowed to put their case directly, there is presumably little point in having those arguments put by BBC interviewers. So from now on the pronouncements of climatologists will be treated as holy writ and the most alarmist scientists can be allowed to scaremonger without fear of contradiction. The consensus over the existence of the greenhouse effect is used as a pretence that all aspects of the climatology are beyond debate.

Coming so soon after the brouhaha over the Lawson/Hoskins discussion on the Today programme, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the BBC are dancing to the tune of the environmental movement. The effects of the 28gate seminar seem to live on.

The end of the licence fee cannot come soon enough.