Pollytical Toynbee

I followed a link on James Delingpole's Twitter to an article written by Pol Toynbee that was so ridiculous I couldn't even finish reading it. She spouted on about how the Tea Party are directly responsible for the wonderful Obama not being able to save America (his plan, keep borrowing) and that they only exist because of Murdoch and his Fox News. Now you could say that the people in the US are seeing two sides to the story (we can't in Britain as our broadcasters are all left wing) and are making their own minds up. This would still offend Polly as she is stridently of the opinion that only noble, well-meaning souls such as herself should be allowed to organise the world. In fact, she seemed to be suggesting that Obama did not have enough power personally, so that as a latter day Sun King he could order people at a whim and then all in the garden (that he and Toynbee would inhabit, naturally) would be rosy.

Her beef continued with the outrageous suggestion that a smaller state (thus needing less money) was in any way useful. To her the state and all it's works are a manifest good. She then started wittering on about climate change deniers and people who cherry pick which bits of science they will adhere to and quote to support their case. Of course there are very few climate change deniers, but many who adopt a scientific approach and question the theories of others. In fact, it is (as was proven by the Climategate emails) those insisting on AGW who cherry pick, for the very simple reason that they know they are wrong. Toynbee realises this which is why she is also an advocate of allowing no debate on such subjects. But the funding dries up when the phrase 'no AGW, nothing to see here, move along' is the result of your research. It would be like Oxfam curing hunger.

I did see she included the AGW shibboleth that the 'deniers' are funded by big oil (the inference being I suppose that small oil are an altogether different, more collegiate bunch). There is no and never has been any evidence for this, but plenty that the AGW promoters are extremely well funded. If she wants to attack 'big oil' she should ask why we are struggling to replace the internal combustion engine, or at least one running on fossil fuel. Now that may well be because anyone coming up with a replacement would overnight destroy a massive, worldwide infrastructure for the extraction, transporting and refinement of oil based products. A bit like when Dyson couldn't get anyone interested in his amazing bagless cleaner, that he was trying to sell to companies who make most of their money from selling bags for their cleaners. Think about it. Electric cars that are as useful as a concrete bookmark have actually made it into production. They cost much more than a useful car, they have a theoretical range of 100 miles (as long as you don't accelerate quickly, or use the aircon or lights), take a very long time to recharge (using electricity generated how?) and the batteries in which cost several thousand pounds and may last only 5 years. How has something so clearly impractical made it into production? Simple. The EU insists car manufacturers reduce the 'emissions' of the fleet of cars they produce and it distracts you from the fact that they haven't come up with a proper replacement technology yet. Or perhaps to convince you that to do so may be beyond the wit of Man.

Toynbee often gets accused of hypocrisy for the robust reason that it is true, but she is also so wrong-headed on so many things. I don't mind a differing political perspective, but when something is wrong, it is wrong. (Please don't now introduce the left's favourite 'narrative'. No there aren't differing truths).