Mail clarifies green tax 'suggestion'

Another day, another clarification from the Daily Mail. This time, it's about 'green taxes':

Articles on June 9 reported comments from Dr Benny Peiser, director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, which suggested that ‘green stealth taxes’ are adding 15 to 20 per cent to energy bills.

According to Ofgem, the correct figure for environmental costs in domestic bills is currently no more than 9 per cent. We are happy to clarify this.

Only 'suggested'? Here's how the Mail reported this claim on 9 June:

It says very clearly in the sub-heading that a '£200 stealth charge is slipped on to your gas and electricity bill'.

The front page story was written by David Derbyshire and repeated the claims made by Peiser in an opinion piece which the Mail gave the headline:

Here's Peiser's exact words:

so-called green stealth taxes are already adding 15-20 per cent to the average domestic power bill and even more to business users.

There was an accompanying editorial from the Mail which said:

Yet the scandal is that these secret extras which add 15 to 20 per cent aren’t even itemised on our gas and electricity bills.

The following day, Derbyshire repeated Peiser's claim of 15-20% on a £1,000 bill in another article.

And on 15 June, an article by Lauren Thompson explained how the 'Mail revealed last week' that experts ('such as Peiser') said green taxes added £200 to domestic bills.

As yet, the clarification has not been added to any of these articles online, but as Mail editor Paul Dacre has made clear burying corrections is a 'myth', that surely will happen...

But then, as Dacre said that the claim newspapers bury corrections is:

one of the great myths of our time

you might have thought today's Mail would run this clarification on the front page, where the original claim was made.

It didn't.

The fact-checking website Full Fact looked at Peiser's figures on the day they were reported by the Mail (and others) and cast doubt on their accuracy then. Why didn't the Mail also query his claims?

Sunday Times retracts climate change story

Yesterday, the Sunday Times published the following apology on page two. It is, explains Roy Greenslade, not just a complete retraction but a 'giant climbdown':

The article "UN climate panel shamed by bogus rainforest claim" (News, Jan 31) stated that the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report had included an "unsubstantiated claim" that up to 40% of the Amazon rainforest could be sensitive to future changes in rainfall. The IPCC had referenced the claim to a report prepared for the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) by Andrew Rowell and Peter Moore, whom the article described as "green campaigners" with "little scientific expertise." The article also stated that the authors’ research had been based on a scientific paper that dealt with the impact of human activity rather than climate change.

In fact, the IPCC’s Amazon statement is supported by peer-reviewed scientific evidence. In the case of the WWF report, the figure had, in error, not been referenced, but was based on research by the respected Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM) which did relate to the impact of climate change. We also understand and accept that Mr Rowell is an experienced environmental journalist and that Dr Moore is an expert in forest management, and apologise for any suggestion to the contrary.

The article also quoted criticism of the IPCC’s use of the WWF report by Dr Simon Lewis, a Royal Society research fellow at the University of Leeds and leading specialist in tropical forest ecology. We accept that, in his quoted remarks, Dr Lewis was making the general point that both the IPCC and WWF should have cited the appropriate peer-reviewed scientific research literature. As he made clear to us at the time, including by sending us some of the research literature, Dr Lewis does not dispute the scientific basis for both the IPCC and the WWF reports’ statements on the potential vulnerability of the Amazon rainforest to droughts caused by climate change.

In addition, the article stated that Dr Lewis’ concern at the IPCC’s use of reports by environmental campaign groups related to the prospect of those reports being biased in their conclusions. We accept that Dr Lewis holds no such view – rather, he was concerned that the use of non-peer-reviewed sources risks creating the perception of bias and unnecessary controversy, which is unhelpful in advancing the public’s understanding of the science of climate change. A version of our article that had been checked with Dr Lewis underwent significant late editing and so did not give a fair or accurate account of his views on these points. We apologise for this.

The original article can be read here.

Littlejohn isn't even trying

Today's Richard Littlejohn column isn't the slightest bit lazy or unimaginative.

Oh wait, it is.

A few days ago, the Advertising Standards Agency ruled that two Government adverts about climate change were in breach of their Code.

Littlejohn says:

The Government has been ordered to drop two adverts based on nursery rhymes which exaggerated the risks of so-called 'global warming'.

...the Advertising Standards Agency said they amounted to scaremongering and didn't reflect the growing scepticism over claims that the planet is heating up.

Of course, that's only half the story. The ASA investigated five ads and cleared three of them. Generally, it did not find the ads in breach on truthfulness, substantiation or environmental claims. The ASA also ruled the ads did not breach their clauses on 'distress' so they didn't actually say they 'amounted to scaremongering'.

Littlejohn then repeats all his usual points:

Despite the fact that the world has actually got cooler this century, mounting evidence that 'climate change' is a myth, and the revelation that alleged 'experts' in the field have been fiddling the figures to fit their theories, the hysteria goes on.

It's an interesting use of the word 'fact'.

Littlejohn doesn't seem to have read the ASA judgment. Because it says:

The ASA understood that, amongst the majority of scientists who worked in the field of climate research globally, there was a consensus that human activity was contributing to upward temperature trends globally and would continue to do so unless steps were taken by the worlds' governments to reduce GHG emissions, including CO2.

We concluded that, at the time the ads were published, there was not a significant division of informed scientific opinion on the issue amongst the world's climate scientists.

It may just be that Littlejohn is not considered in the 'informed scientific opinion' category.

So, it's not quite as clear cut as Littlejohn tries to imply, if you can imagine such a thing. He doesn't even mention the three adverts that were cleared.

But the adverts updated nursery rhymes to make their point. So Littlejohn says:

It also got me wondering what other nursery rhymes could be updated ...

The Daily Mash wondered the same thing two days ago...

His lack of imagination runs to the rhymes themselves. He criticises the climate change ones for not scanning and not being true.

And guess what? He then writes his own which don't scan and aren't true.

Also they're repetitive, and incredibly unfunny. Almost indescribably awful.

Not unlike that time he went through the TV listings to put Alan Yentob in every programme.

So we get this:

Wee Willie Winkie runs through the town, Upstairs and downstairs in his nightgown.

Trying escape the lynch mob who think he's a paedophile.

When they catch him they'll string him up, the dirty nonce.

And later this:

George Porgie, pudding and pie, Kissed the girls and made them cry,

Now he's on the sexual offenders' register.

And on health we get this:

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.

So they took him to an NHS hospital, where he caught MRSA and died.

And this:

Three blind mice, three blind mice, See how they run, see how they run.

This ward's been crawling with mice since the NHS contracted out the cleaning.

Could that last line sound any more like he just isn't trying at all?

Of course, 'the foreigners' cop it too:

Doctor Foster went to Gloucester,

But when he got there

He found they'd already given the job to a foreign GP who can't speak English.

And:

As I was going to St Ives, I met a man with seven wives.

He said he'd come from Somalia,

And was now living on benefits in a £2.5 million townhouse in Kensington.

He runs through every one of his usual targets - Muslims, single mums, gay men, CSOs, equality, diversity - and fails to come up with a single new or interesting thing to say about any of them. He even references the foot-and-mouth outbreak which happened either three or nine years ago, depending on how generous you feel.

Oh, and because he says he never makes up health and safety stories, it's worth mentioning this one:

Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard, To get her poor doggie a bone.

When she got there, it was groaning with oven chips, turkey twizzlers, bumper bags of crisps and lashings of fizzy drinks.

But there weren't any bones because elf 'n' safety had threatened to prosecute the butcher if he didn't stop selling them.

Presumably there is more to his column - these dreadful 'rhymes' are all that's online - but the Mail have spared us. Err, kept it for the people who buy the paper.

[Update: thanks to Uponnothing for the comment below. I apologise. I should know better by now. Apparently, those 'rhymes' are all Littlejohn has come up with today. No wonder he gets paid over £700,000 a year and was recently named the sixth best columnist in Britain...]

(Hat-tip to Red Arrow at Mailwatch Forum)

It's 'PC gone mad' on gritting and knife-wielding popstars

The front page of the Sunday Telegraph from two days ago hasn't entirely held up under scrutiny.

The main story - a classic bit of health and safety gone mad nonsense which also appeared in the Mail on Sunday - suggested that if you try to clear the snow from outside your house, and then someone slips on it, you will be sued.

This was, they said, the 'warning' from the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH).

Alas, before Sunday was over, the IOSH issued a statement denying this:

This is not the IOSH position on gritting public areas. Neither has IOSH issued this as guidance.

Ah. And:

The words are, in fact, taken from a Croner contribution to the 'Just Ask' column of SHP magazine, in February of last year.

The IOSH Communications Director Ruth Doyle added:

'To lift this wording from an outside contribution to SHP magazine, published nearly a year ago, and pass it off as ‘IOSH guidance’ is completely irresponsible.'

Not content with that, they issued a second statement on Monday, which began:

The leading body for health and safety professionals is urging businesses and communities to do the right thing by clearing snow and ice from public areas.

Blasting the 'irresponsible' and 'inaccurate reporting' of the Mail on Sunday and the Sunday Telegraph they repeated - in bold - that the papers' claims were:

not the IOSH position on gritting public areas.

And yet, both articles remain online, exactly as they were.

(Another Mail on Sunday story has also been challenged by the person quoted in it. Climate expert Mojib Latif has said he 'cannot understand' the paper's interpretation of his views on climate change).

The Sunday Telegraph's other main story was about Myleene Klass apparently being 'warned' by police for waving a knife at some intruders who appeared in her back garden. The story rocketed around the media (including two articles in the Guardian) as commentators lined up to dismiss the police for their political correctness gone mad.

Even David Cameron spoke out about it, despite admitting he:

did not know the full facts of the case.

Yet something just didn't seem quite right.

For one thing, Hertfordshire Police issued a statement saying:

'Officers spoke to reassure the home owner, talked through security and gave advice in relation to the importance of reporting suspicious activity immediately to allow officers to act appropriately,' says a spokeswoman.

'For clarification, at no point were any official warnings or words of advice given to the home owner in relation to the use of a knife or offensive weapon in their home.'

Hmm. The fact that her agent Jonathan Shalit had fed the story to the media raised an eyebrow. Klass then said she had 'no regrets' - given the amount of free publicity she's had, no wonder.

A local paper tried to get some clarification from her agents following the police denial, but all they got was this:

'We are not making any comment on this as the police are now backtracking on what was said so we are leaving it there.'

Which could be read as: blanket coverage got, job done. Because, as Glen McNamee noted, a new TV singing contest (yes, another one) is about to start on ITV and she's co-hosting it with Alan Titchmarsh (appealing, isn't it?).

And perhaps the main reason to be sceptical that all might not be as it seems?

Richard Littlejohn was using it as an example of how PC the police have become these days. Needless to say, he made no mention of the police's statement but he did manage to spew out the hilarious 'Mind How You Go' and 'Yuman Rites'.

He's imaginative that way.

(Hat-tips to Liberal Conspiracy, Enemies of Reason, Glen McNamee)