Windmills for Africa... a policy to DIE for



You can always tell when politicians run out of rational arguments. They start issuing death threats. If we don’t do exactly what they say, we’re all going to DIE!

Either that, or we want other people to DIE! Which amounts to pretty much the same thing.

For instance: unless we cut the drink-drive limit to half a pint of milk, thousands of people are going to DIE! If we don’t cut the speed limit to 5 mph, tens of thousands of people are going to DIE!

Scare story: The push to ban smoking in pubs was a hot topic for debate before it came into force in 2007

If we don’t ban smoking in pubs, hundreds of thousands of people are going to DIE! If we don’t stop putting salt on fish and chips, millions of people are going to DIE!

If you talk back to officious security staff at the airport, every single plane is going to be blown up by terrorists and tens of millions of people are going to DIE!

If you restrict the rise in benefits to 1 per cent a year, trillions of poor people are going to DIE!

Sorry, run that one by me again. Apparently, because Boy George has increased the welfare budget by less than the rate of inflation, the ‘poor’ face a stark choice between ‘heating or eating’.

The Left have been wheeling out this particular scare story for a while. It was dusted off this week for the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement. He’s not even cutting benefits, he’s merely cutting the rate at which they go up.

But according to Labour, the TUC and every state-sponsored quango and ‘charity’ in the land, it means people are going to DIE! Osborne might just as well be sending in the provisional wing of the Bullingdon Club to pitchfork newborn babies in their incubators. This is what passes for political debate in Britain these days.

No one in Britain is having to choose between ‘heating or eating’. It’s a neat soundbite, but it’s complete nonsense.

Yet these self-styled Grim Reapers are never challenged. The Boys in the Bubble take dictation and the broadcasters roll out the red carpet. If people were really having to choose between ‘heating and eating’, the ‘poor’ wouldn’t be so fat — or else they’d all have frozen to death by now.

New measures: During his Autumn Statement this week, Osborne didn't say that he would be cutting benefits, he's merely cutting the rate at which they go up

But the most absurd manifestation of the ‘We’re all going to DIE!’ lunacy came not from a hand-wringing, Left-wing Labour politician, but from a so-called Conservative ‘climate change’ minister.

Someone called Greg Barker — no, I’ve never heard of him, either — announced that unless we spend £3 billion of British taxpayers’ money building windmills in Africa and promoting ‘greener’ farming in Colombia, we’re all going to DIE!

Speaking at a United Nations summit in Doha, Barker warned menacingly: ‘If we turn our back on the developing world we will see more failed states, we will see countries struggling and failing to deal with the impact of dangerous climate change. And ultimately, we pay the price in British lives.’

No, we won’t.

Barker went on to warn that ‘climate change’ would be a ‘very aggravating factor’ that could threaten the future stability of countries such as Somalia, Eritrea and Afghanistan — and by extension nurture terrorists who may threaten Britain.

No, it won’t.

If an Eritrean, Somali or Afghan suicide bomber decides to blow himself up on the London Underground, it will be because his head has been turned by the constant diet of poisonous propaganda churned out by the mad mullahs of the global Islamist death cult.

It won’t be because British taxpayers failed to put up a wind farm in the Tora Bora mountains.

Barker was echoing the alarmism of his lame-brained Lib Dem boss at the energy department, Ed Davey, who tried to justify spending billions of pounds we haven’t got subsidising a variety of greenhouse-related projects around the globe.

As well as giving British money to German and Japanese firms to erect windmills in Africa, Davey is also bunging the Colombians £21 million of our hard-earned to develop ‘greener’ cattle farms. Never mind that this comes at the same time as another Government-funded quango is warning that unless we stop eating dairy produce NOW we’re all going to DIE!

And, anyway, it wasn’t that long ago we were being told that the ‘eructations’ from cattle were the single biggest cause of global warming. Make your minds up.

The biggest cash crop in Colombia is not cattle, it’s cocaine. Where, exactly, does dopey Davey think this largesse is going to end up? My money’s on the Medellin Cartel. Yet he’s quite happy to keep on doling out the cash.

If Davey wants to play Lady Bountiful and salve his Liberal conscience, let him give his own money away. Someone should remind the Minister for Windmills he was elected to serve the people of Surbiton, not Sudan.

The reason Mrs Thatcher kept getting re-elected was because she treated the public’s money as if it was her own housekeeping. That’s a lesson that has been lost on the latest generation of politicians.

Something turns their heads after they get elected. Through a combination of self-importance and summit-itis, they quickly forget those who put them into office.

Imagine Davey knocking on doors in Surbiton and presenting his manifesto. Obviously, he wouldn’t mention his mate Vince Cable’s plans for a ‘mansion tax’.

But nor would he say: ‘Vote for me, madam, and I promise to put up your taxes to pay the interest on billions of pounds of borrowed money that I intend to give to South American drug barons and spend on building windmills in Africa.

‘Otherwise, you’re going to DIE!’

Paula's got a lot of bottle



Paula Hamilton was in the news this week after losing her licence for drink-driving

This week’s edition of Back To The Future stars former model Paula Hamilton, who once appeared in a Volkswagen advert.

She was in the news again after losing her licence for drink-driving. Over the years, she has trotted out her ‘battle with the bottle’ tale so often, I assumed she had drunk herself to death by now. Still, it gave her another chance to parade her self-pity in print.

During the Nineties, her struggle with booze was almost a permanent feature in the tabloids.

So much so that I once wrote up the story from The Bottle’s point of view.

I wonder what happened to him. Recycled, probably. Much like the Paula Hamilton story.

Before I went on holiday, I suggested that Parliament should be relocated to the Outer Hebrides while the Palace of Westminster was being refurbished.

Since then I have heard from a number of Mail readers in the Hebrides who are horrified at the prospect of being invaded by politicians.

Perhaps the Falklands would be a better bet. Maybe not, though. After a couple of years of putting up with British politicians, the loyal citizens of Port Stanley would be banging on the door of Buenos Aires demanding to be let in.

I'm a celebrity - get me a lawyer



The Nonce Squad have managed to find someone alive to arrest. Stuart Hall may be 82, but at least he’s a celebrity collar. He joins Dave Lee Travis on police bail as the Old Bill trawl through the BBC roster for alleged sex offenders.

We are told the arrest of Hall — best known for It’s A Knockout 30-odd years ago — is not related to the Jimmy Savile inquiry, perish the thought.

We are told the arrest of Stuart Hall is not related to the Jimmy Savile inquiry

I have no idea whether he is innocent or guilty.

That’s for a court to decide. But would these charges ever have come to light were it not for Savile?

Hall’s mob-handed arrest was the equivalent of the very public ‘perp walk’ popular with American law enforcement, designed to give the impression of guilt.

Police took away sacks of potential ‘evidence’. What do they expect to find, given that his alleged crimes date back to the Seventies?

Mind you, we’ve seen this before in the case of journalists hauled in over phone-hacking and bribery allegations. Their homes have been ransacked by investigating officers. Looking for what?

I’ve spoken to former colleagues on The Sun who have had everything from old bank statements to intimate love letters confiscated. They have neither been charged nor exonerated as the investigation grinds on. It may be years before they can get on with their lives.

The Jimmy Savile inquiry has surpassed even phone-hacking in terms of hysteria and manpower. There are more Met police officers working on Savile than on the child protection team and more on phone- hacking than armed robbery.

Police have also appealed for anyone who claims to have been molested by that novelty northern nonce Cyril Smith (deceased) to come forward. What is that supposed to achieve?

A couple of weeks ago I joked that there would soon be TV adverts from spiv law firms aimed at anyone who had ever watched Top Of The Pops to file a claim for compensation. The Old Bill have beaten them to it.

Yesterday, in another high- profile arrest, PR agent Max Clifford was taken in for questioning on suspicion of sexual offences. Sacks of material were seized from his home.

Look, right from the start I haven’t been trying to make light of what are serious allegations. I’ve always said the guilty should be brought to justice. But the scale of these investigations is insane.

And Jimmy Savile remains dead.

A naked man who climbed a statue of Prince George, Duke of Cambridge, in Whitehall has been jailed for 12 weeks. He was convicted of possessing an offensive weapon.

You couldn’t make it up.









