Green policies, green papers and why it’s worth listening to a dying Government

July 14, 2009 by
Filed under: Politics 

There are a number of reasons why it is hard for the Government to have its ideas taken seriously. It is unpopular, Gordon Brown is communicatively challenged, and its future policy plans are seen as irrelevant given it is unlikely to be in a position to enact them.

To take one example, this is an important week for the debate about climate change. After a mini blip, world temperatures are resuming their upward climb. Predicted weather extremes may have a major impact on crops and food prices. It got remarkably little attention, but there was important progress at the G8 summit, something for which the UK deserves some credit. Against all expectations just a few months ago, a substantial agreement at Copenhagen now seems possible. And later this week we will see the Government’s own plan outlining how it intends to meet the very ambitious long term target it has set for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. It remains to be seen whether the public will be interested or willing to give Brown any credit.

From green policy to green papers; today’s report on social care may also be greeted with a shrug. After all, Labour has been putting off this issue since 1999, it hasn’t got time to act on its various recommendations before the next election, and anyway, on the toughest issue – who pays and how – the paper offers options rather than a recommendation. But regardless of whether Labour will be able to implement its strategy, the package deserves serious debate.

As I understand it, the green paper is bold in two contrasting ways. On the one hand, it seeks to turn social care from being a service for the poor to one that is universal. It does this by guaranteeing that everyone needing care – regardless of their income – will be entitled to advice and guidance from the state. On the other hand, the green paper clearly implies that of its various payment options it favours the social insurance (or as it is inelegantly referred to ‘co-payment’) model. In this scheme people are opted in (another example of nudging here) to an insurance scheme whereby they commit a lump sum either at retirement or death to insure social care costs. In this way, risk is pooled and care is affordable to both the individual and the state.

I am told that there were some in Government who opposed the publication of such a radical plan fearing a public backlash against being asked to pay. But the green paper’s advocates have two things going for them: first, focus group research showing that if people believed that insurance would protect them from the risk of having their other assets gobbled up in care fees they were happy to pay; second, the new health secretary Andy Burnham – perhaps sensing this is may be one of his last opportunities to make a big policy impact – has been a strong champion of radicalism.

Politically, things still look grim for Labour. The economic recovery is fragile and slow. There is a constant stream of criticism about the Brown style of leadership. From what I hear of the canvass returns from Norwich North, England are more likely to win the next four Ashes tests than Labour coming close to winning the by-election. Yet, despite that, or maybe even because of that, the policy ideas of a Government that has little to lose from being bold are worth taking seriously.

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12 Comments on Green policies, green papers and why it’s worth listening to a dying Government

  1. Martin Robinson on Tue, 14th Jul 2009 8:53 am

    2. “England are more likely to win the next four ashes tests than Labour even coming close in the by-election.”

    Therefore might there be a chance that Labour and the Conservatives end the by-election with an honourable draw?

  2. Brian Hughes on Tue, 14th Jul 2009 10:35 am

    3. It’s a shame that all the parties currently pinching votes from Labour appear to have far more isolationist stances wrt the environment (to name but one topic) than it does. The Tories are busy isolating themselves in Europe, the Greens seem to want us to close our borders almost as quickly as we close our industry and even the Lib Dems are no longer the internationalists they once at least pretended to be.

    The G8, Copenhagen and other hard-slog diplomatic routes will provide the solutions to global warming if there are any. Not sorting rubbish into boxes or flagging down coal trains!

    By the way, I wouldn’t write off Labour’s election chances just yet even if it does do badly in Norwich (where perhaps they should have chosen Paul Collingwood as candidate). Governing parties are supposed to get thumped in by elections, it’s those held between1997 and 2007 that have been the aberrations…

  3. matthewtaylor on Tue, 14th Jul 2009 12:30 pm

    4. As someone who once won a council seat on the toss of a coin (really!) I like the idea. In fact a hung Parliament is still very possible given by how much the Tories have to win to get an overall majority. So Labour can do very badly and still nick a draw – just like England!

  4. William Shaw on Wed, 15th Jul 2009 2:18 pm

    5. Gordon Brown’s achievements at the G8 are worth mentioning, and yes, there is a depressingly little attention being paid to them. But one reason might be that more serious journalists are wary of trumpeting another “achievement” which may well unravel at a later stage.

    Te headline moment is that the G8 have signed up to an 80% reduction in admissions by 2050. But as there is no baseline agreed, it’s hard for everyone to know that that means. The real hard work – to convince everybody to adopt the same baseline as the UK who have pledged to cut them to 80% of 1990 levels – hasn’t been done yet. To cut them from a 2009 baseline results in a much smaller figure,.

    So the agreement reached so far is effectively a headline rather than a result and in itself is less exciting than we are being told that it is by press officers.

  5. William Shaw on Thu, 16th Jul 2009 6:16 am

    6. … that said, Ed Miliband’s White Paper yesterday really was exciting.

  6. Derek Smith on Thu, 16th Jul 2009 9:10 am

    7. “After a mini blip, world temperatures are resuming their upward climb. Predicted weather extremes may have a major impact on crops and food prices.”

    It is a pity that our Chief Executive has determined to import into the RSA a pattern of lies and alarmism cultivated by New Labour. He must know full well that the latest satellite data from NASA show that global average temperature has continued to fall from the peak recorded in 1998 and that increased carbon dioxide from the present 0.028% of our atmosphere will improve the yields of growing crops.

  7. Derek Smith on Thu, 16th Jul 2009 9:12 am

    8. Please could you outline the RSA’s “moderation” process for comments here.

  8. matthewtaylor on Thu, 16th Jul 2009 10:54 am

    9. Hi Derek – it’s Barbara here, Matthew’s PA, just responding to your query about the moderation process. When people post responses for the first time, Matthew / I have to approve them – I normally check the site every couple of hours – hence the delay in your post appearing. Once the first post has been approved, that’s it – you should be able to post without waiting for moderation from now on. And in case you are wondering if there is any censorship – the only thing we have ever done that for is a ‘video nasty’! Hope this helps.

  9. William Shaw on Thu, 16th Jul 2009 10:59 am

    10. @ Derek Smith. “Global temperatures have been falling since 1998″? Pause your indignation for a second to reflect on why this magical year 1998 is invoked by this argument – more of a meme really – that has been popular on the internet for the last three years. Why not 1997? Or 1999?

    Because if you use those years the data shows something rather different. If you’re serious about your argument, don’t start by basing your data on an anomalous year.

    For that matter, the data from 1998-2008 doesn’t even show that global temperatures have been falling since the temperature spike year of 1998. You might be interested in this New Scientist article debunking the myth.

    Since 2007, there has not been a single major scientific body worldwide that dissents with the IPCC thesis that global warming is a) happening, and b) manmade.

  10. Derek Smith on Thu, 16th Jul 2009 4:17 pm

    11. I’m sorry, William, to have mentioned 1998 but this was the peak year chosen by the warmists to launch their stampede to renewables based on “decades of warming”. If it were “anomalous”, because of an El Nino contribution, then I would happily settle for the alternative conclusion that average global temperature has peaked “anomalously” and now fallen back to the long-term average. All the reliable satellite data agree on this as you will find out if you consult records available from the Hadley Centre, from NASA and from the University of Colorado.

    This contrasts with the predictions of models used by the UN-IPCC which predicted increase in carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere (correct) matched by a concomitant increase in global average temperature (incorrect). Since CO2 did increase but global temperature fell back to the average, then CO2 is not the cause of any previously-observed warming. Scientists now predominantly associate such rises & falls of global temperature with the cyclic solar activity which incidentally explains the Roman and Medieval warm periods, the Little Ice Age and so on back for many thousands of years.

    I am sure that the New Scientist and other popular science mags contain commissioned articles debunking the many climate-change myths but the fundamental satellite temperature observations stated above have not been “explained”. Since we are trading references, a good, readable account of the current scientific view is given by Roger Helmer MEP in a May 2009 report of the Bruges Group to the European Parliament entitled “Cool Thinking on Climate Change: Why the EU’s climate alarmism is both mistaken and dangerous”.

    For a more detailed analysis of where the UN-IPCC went wrong and a reworking of its data to reach correct conclusions, it is still difficult to better “Nature, not Human Activity, rules the Climate” by climatologist Dr Fred S. Singer and his collaborators dated March 2008. Having considered the evidence, 31072 American scientists, including several Nobel Prize winners, signed the Oregon Petition in May 2008 which stated inter alia that:-

    “There is no convincing scientific evidence than human release of carbon dioxide, methane or other greenhouse gas is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate”

    Concerning the vaunted melting of the Arctic and those “endangered” polar bears whose numbers have increased from an estimated 6000 to at least 50000 since the shooting them from aircraft was banned in the 1960s, the Arctic Sea Ice News & Analysis May 4 2009 of the National Snow and Ice Data Center stated:-

    “Arctic sea ice extent declined quite slowly in April; as a result, total ice extent is now close to the mean extent for the reference period (1979 to 2000)”.

    NASA figures for mean global temperature 2008-9 have recently been published and again show a slight fall. Predicted figures for major hurricanes, expected by IPCC commentators to cause widespread devastation have actually indicated a benign period or relative tranquillity. You can obtain data from Lloyds and other global insurer sites

    Sadly there is such quasi-religious fervour, combined with opportunist industrial acceptance of hefty subsidies on offer from gullible politicians together with the ludicrous trading of carbon credits, that the warmist juggernaut is going to be difficult to halt. However I believe that it is not the function of a learned society like the RSA to fuel the flames of our own economy’s funeral pyre.

  11. William Shaw on Thu, 16th Jul 2009 9:55 pm

    12. The famous Oregon Petition was originally created in 1999 and the 31,000 signatories have built up over 10 years since then. This is the one in which signatories were exposed as including one Dr Geri Halliwell who appears twice in the list, along with Dr Perry Mason, and Michael J. Fox.

    A petition is not peer reviewed science. Fred Singer is, indeed a climate scientist, but his views are not generally supported by the mass of his peers, though they have been supported by some US TV weathermen. As I said earlier, there is not a single significant scientific body worldwide which dissents with the IPCC thesis.

    Thanks for the discussion, but it would probably be better to draw a halt to this discussion now lest we become tedious.

  12. Derek Smith on Fri, 17th Jul 2009 3:11 pm

    13. Thank you, William, for your correction which I am happy to accept: I concede that only 31068 US scientists have expressed their scepticism of The UN-IPCC’s approach to climate change, rather than the 31072 I claimed. To these of course, we must add those “over 400 Prominent Scientists” from 25 different countries who gave evidence on oath to the U.S Senate Environment & Public Works Committee released in full (141 pages) on 20 December 2007 under the title “Senate Report debunks “Consensus”", though, as you will correctly respond, perhaps there may have been some overlap in respect of the U.S. witnesses.

    May I thank you in return for the discussion which I do not find tedious but rather necessary in helping to rid the RSA of a pernicious untruth which, promoted by a not-quite-dead government, is steadily destroying the fabric of our British economy. Let us stick to support of the Arts and Industry and drop the insidious “green” political infiltration which is creeping in to a formerly respectable, open-mnided and learned society.

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