Christopher Monckton – the British hereditary peer formerly known as ‘Lord’* – has revealed plans of a possible Government plot to silence him.
The renowned climate change sceptic has had a turbulent visit to our shores, with a string of appearances cancelled, an on-air dust up with Adam Spencer, and a reported order from Fairfax to remove the title ‘Lord’ when referring to his Monckness.
This morning, Monckton told the taxpayer-funded public broadcaster (please do note the irony here) that he had wind of a plot to shut him up. He told Adelaide breakfast radio duo Matthew Abraham and David Bevan:
What is happening is that several months ago we got wind of a concerted attempt by, effectively, agents of the government - I’m not going to say that they’re paid or employed by the government but they’re people who will do the government’s bidding because they support the government and therefore support the carbon tax - ringing around and trying to disrupt our venues by saying look there is no possible case against a carbon tax, the climate is a terribly serious problem, we’re all doomed unless a carbon tax is brought in therefore you mustn’t allow anyone like Lord Monckton to come and give the opposite points of view.
An equally plausible ‘plot’ is that Monckton is himself the witting or unwitting agent of the government. He is out there kicking own goals for the climate change sceptic movement. In the same way euthanasia advocates were concerned that the sometimes-overly-enthusiastic Philip Nitschke was damaging their campaign, those who don’t think climate change is real and those who are opposed to a carbon tax should be concerned at who is getting airplay for their issues.
He comes across as a belligerent, glass-jawed, plummy voiced conservative who is genetically inclined to distrust all science.
I won’t go as far as Anson Cameron, who described him in almost loving terms as:
“The type of peer who used to be widespread but is now all too rare.”
“Since antibiotics got on top of syphilis the poms seem to be running short of truly potty peers,” said Cameron on The Drum, lamenting that banning Monckton removes the fun of debunking him.
Monckton is, really, turning the arguments against climate change and climate science into a joke – and Prime Minister Julia Gillard needs all the help she can get as the final shape of the carbon tax emerges, and could turn out to be the shape of a final nail in her political coffin.
He’s become this buffoon of a character, whispering of underhand plots, and repeatedly linking advocates of action on climate change to Nazism. He’s not doing his cause any favours at all.
He said of these murky unnamed characters who can apparently cancel events with a single anonymous phone call that they might be “what Lenin calls ‘useful idiots’”.
Meanwhile he is drawing attention away from valid arguments about the carbon tax to focus on his own self-important, self-created crises.
Useful idiots, indeed.
* According to The Australian, Monckton says while he no longer has the right to sit in the House of Lords (a law change in 1999 stripped hereditary peers of that right) he still has the right to use the title because they “have not yet repealed the Letters Patent creating the peerage”, so he is still a member of the house.
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