Letters From A Tory Daily views on British politics and the Conservative Party from a centre-right thinker who writes letters on his blog to politicians, journalists and many others.

“…a small group of dedicated if slightly disorganised researchers”
- the verdict of Lord Oxburgh’s inquiry into ‘Climategate’, which has cleared UEA scientists of malpractice.  He added that “whatever was said in the emails, the basic science seems to have been done fairly and properly.”  This verdict was obviously not in any way affected by Oxburgh himself being president of [...]

Praising the event, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said: “Earth Hour is both a warning and a beacon of hope. By switching off non-essential lights for an hour, people will join a symbolic display that can inspire the change we so urgently need. As we watch the lights go out from continent to continent, let [...]

Dear readers,
If you – like me – spent far too much time yesterday pouring over the details of the Budget, you might have missed a few other interesting headlines that slipped through the media net while everyone’s eyes were firmly focused on Alistair Darling’s eyebrows.  Here is a quick summary of what else happened on [...]

From the BBC and Telegraph:
The Met Office is to stop publishing seasonal forecasts, after receiving criticism over its repeated failures to predict long-term weather prospects. The national weather service has until now published an outlook for the country’s weather three months in advance. But after predicting a “barbecue summer”, before a wet July, and a [...]

“[There is] great cynicism now as a result of questions in popular culture and regarding credibility of IPCC data.”
- Russ Lidstone, chief executive of the advertising agency Euro RSCG, which commissioned an Ipsos Mori survey that found the proportion of adults who believe climate change is “definitely” a reality has dropped from 44% to 31%.  Overall [...]

Dear readers,
It is with some concern that I read in the papers that Iran could face tough new UN sanctions within weeks after it announced plans to step up its uranium enrichment programme. Iran’s nuclear chief, Ali Akbar Salehi, earlier said Tehran had told the UN’s nuclear watchdog it would start enriching uranium to 20% from [...]

From the BBC:
There has been an increase in the number of British people who are sceptical about climate change, a poll commissioned by BBC News has suggested. It showed that 25% of those questioned did not think global warming was happening, an increase of 10% since a similar poll was conducted in November. The percentage [...]

Dear readers,
I can barely keep up with the number of humiliating incidents for the IPCC at the moment.  As if Climategate and the revelations about manipulated data, destroying data and ‘losing’ data wasn’t bad enough, Rajendra Pachauri’s position as Head of the IPCC now appears untenable after it was found that yet more of their [...]

“We are trying to do our best …but to guarantee a zero fault product is probably not possible for any human enterprise.”
- Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, vice chairman of the IPCC, who says that climate scientists are “only humans” who can make mistakes like everyone else when writing their reports.  His comments come as the UN’s [...]

“They can’t attack the science so they attack the chairman. But they won’t sink me. I am the unsinkable Molly Brown. In fact, I will float much higher.”
- Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC, speaking yesterday in response to criticism of his leadership following the revelation that the IPCC’s claim that Himalayan glaciers could melt [...]

Dear Gordon Brown,
It wasn’t long after Kraft’s audacious takeover bid for Cadbury got the green light that the unions starting stomping their feet about potential job losses.  The deal ends more than more than 150 years of independence for the maker of Dairy Milk, which will now be subsumed within the world’s second-biggest food company.  [...]

THOSE WHO DESERVE SOME CREDIT:
The Guardian, Thursday: A senior civil servant has been appointed to conduct an independent review by next spring into emails hackers stole and published from the University of East Anglia’s climate research unit (CRU). The announcement that Sir Muir Russell will investigate allegations of wrongdoing on the behalf of the CRU [...]

Just look at how few people at the UN care what Brown thinks.  Not only were the back rows completely empty for his speech yesterday, even the front rows were poorly populated.

Dear Gordon Brown,
I was expecting to have to wait until the Labour Party conference before the problems began.  Boy, was I wrong about that.  A string of embarrassing incidents have now struck in the past 48 hours that further undermine confidence in your role as Prime Minister.  Needless to say, you deserve no sympathy for [...]

Dear United Nations,
Being an organisation that is supposed to represent every corner of the globe, I’m sure that many citizens were looking to you for a definitive plan of action to help ease the world food crisis.  Oh dear.  Normal business was resumed at the United Nations yesterday as plenty of speeches were made but no-one [...]

Welcome back to Gordon Brown’s School of International Relations, where we teach aspiring politicians how to behave towards our international counterparts on the basis of how Our Great Leader deals with them.  In the first lesson in the series just ten days ago, we learned how to induce despair, boredom and disgust when talking to other [...]