Former Conservative Defence Minister Tobias Ellwood MP has made the astonishing claim that changes in sea temperature due to climate change have severely limited Britain’s effectiveness as a naval power. Last week he told Talk TV that “our Type-45 destroyers can now not operate in parts of the world because the water is now too warm now because the engines can’t stay cool”. Did Ellwood let slip a major defence secret in that British warships shut down when local temperatures rise a degree or two, or did he just don a sandwich board and mangle a story to promote a dystopian Net Zero collectivist project? In other words, is he a knave, or just a bit of a berk?
Ellwood was being interviewed on Talk TV’s lunchtime CrossTalk programme following the fiasco at COP28. Your own correspondent was also invited to appear, and the segment can be viewed below starting at around 1hr 52 mins. Time was short and the Conservative MP used it to repeat the rarely challenged mantras that the climate was in crisis, and humanity faced an existential threat. And, it seems, state-of-the-art warships costing hundreds of millions of pounds are apparently immobilised by local weather.
So can the British navy only rule the waves if the sea temperature remains more or less constant? In fact, Ellwood could be referencing a story back to 2016 when it was discovered that Type-45 destroyers stopped working in waters much warmer than Portsmouth harbour. At the time, this was seen as a major design fault. Far from being connected to climate change, it was simply a matter of the installation of the wrong kit, notably a vital turbine intercooler. At the time, the Daily Mail explained that the design fault meant two Rolls Royce turbines slowed down in warmer waters such as the Persian Gulf, and they could not generate sufficient power to run the ship. As a short term fix, all six Type-45 vessels were fitted with extra back-up diesel generators.
Perhaps Ellwood, who was chairman of the Parliamentary Defence Select Committee from 2020-2023, did not get the memo from the Department of Defence in September 2022, noting that HMS Dauntless was back at base after three months testing her new engines “to the limit”. The trials were said to have “gone well”, and delivered a ship “which is now faster, more reliable, greener and ready to embark future weapons”. Again, the question must be asked: Is Ellwood simply making up climate scare stories on a congested TV slot knowing there is no time for him to be pressed on the matter, or does he know something about these trials that is not public knowledge?
One suspects the former since climate alarmists have long become used to spouting doomsday tall tales without the need to explain the science or their underlying political motives. Francis Menton from the Manhattan Contrarian recently wrote about the motives of many energy transition and climate change advocates. As between the options that the advocate is completely incompetent or an intentional fraudster, it might be better to be merely incompetent. “However, often the misdirection is so blatant that it borders on impossible to believe that the author could be so stupid as to actually believe what he or she is saying”, he observed.
The situation is only likely to get worse in the wake of the COP28 fiasco and a growing realisation among general populations that Net Zero is an insane objective that will cause massive economic and societal harm across the world. Dr. Friederike Otto peers into her crystal ball climate model and claims to be able to link individual weather events to long-term changes in the climate. Commenting on COP28, she said, “with every vague verb, every empty promise in the final text, millions of people will enter the frontline of climate change and many will die”. Meanwhile the Guardian reports that some scientists are calling for the power to prescribe climate policy. This power would extend to overseeing policy implementation in the 195 states signed up to COP. Sonia Seneviratne, an IPCC vice chair and co-ordinating lead author since 2012, said: “As climate change becomes worse and worse, it is becoming more difficult to be policy relevant without being prescriptive”.
There is democratic push back against Net Zero in many countries, but the U.K. is singularly ill-served by its current political representatives. Conservative MPs like Tobias Ellwood are fully supportive of the collectivist project, and share many of the society-changing, woke goals of the opposition Labour party. It is no surprise that Ellwood, along with hundreds of clueless MPs, spout climate tosh on every occasion, and have happily nodded through some of the most prescriptive and destructive Net Zero laws on the planet.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor
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What about Americans of Spanish heritage who believe they’re either male or female and don’t want their language mutilated by woketards¹? Are these also welcome?
¹ Latinx is a neologism invented by Democusans to avoid admitting that nouns are gendered in Spanish and that there are two kinds of these latinimals, a male (latino) and a female (latina) variant.
Talking of the US, I do chuckle when they go on about “Hispanics” as a discriminated against minority when what they mean is people from “Latin America” of mixed or full Central/South American Indigenous origin who happen to speak Spanish because the conquistadors imposed it, and they certainly don’t mean people of the conquistador race who are doing very nicely thank you- but they count as “Hispanic”
I think what they mean is People from Mexico or terrae incognitae even beyond that! and while the Spaniards reportedly mixed more with the Indian population than the Europeans who settled in Northern America, their descendents are still of European descent and have a culture mostly originating from here. They should really count as white but they speak neither English nor one of the European languages Americans usually ignore and hence, they’re global majority, too.
Unfortunately, I’ve long since stopped to find the incredible ignorance of these people amusing as they usually want to lecture all the world in an extremely patronizing way based on nothing but that.
Will, I appreciate that your job on the Sceptic brings you face to face day in, day out, with this sort of idiocy. But, that last sentence. “What haven’t the Conservatives banned this kind of nonsense yet.” No, just no.
Back in the days of Livejournal a friend wrote a post along the lines of “When Mrs Thatcher was first elected Keith Joseph undertook to repeal a tax law every year. What laws would you repeal? Here are some of mine.” Followed by the hunting ban, serious crime prevention orders, hate speech &c, &c, about a dozen reeled off without effort.
What happened in the comments thread was very interesting. Almost invariably, “I wouldn’t repeal laws, but I’d ban people who do this, that and the other.” You see this in “King for the Day” interviews as well “What would you do if you were King For the Day?” Almost always, “I’d make it illegal to do this.” “I’d ban these people.”
Banning seems to be a natural, human instinct. We should oppose it. Rather than banning adverts like the one above, we should repeal enough laws that it becomes natural to mock and ridicule them at every opportunity without fear of redress.
Excellent idea.
Totally agree as long as my tax £ is not being spent on it
Agree. They can say what they like as long as my tax is not spent on any of it. Mock it by all means.
What is required is a VACCINE. ——–What? Yes a vaccine for the Liberal Progressive Virus spreading all over the western world faster than a speeding bullet. If we take it and get the booster at Christmas we should see a reduction of symptoms whereby thoughts of social justice are eliminated, and equal justice returns.
I’m a black transgender lesbian in a wheel chair, although only when filling in forms, so should be guaranteed to get the job.
I feel like I face enough barriers and stigmatism as it is, do I also have to be an autistic drug dealer on top of everything else?
Clearly schizo too. That’s another plus
Have you ever robbed a bank? Or maybe even just mugged a little old lady?
Yes? you’re a shoo-in!
Gleefully they, and I, knew that I’d fucked with them at the interview being a very manly beardy Welsh lad…but they wouldn’t admit the flaw. It was a funny interview.
Needless to say, they didn’t offer me the position. It went to someone who Didn’t Earn It.
I am sorry to inform you that on this occasion your application has been unsuccessful.
May they find what they’re looking for.
Thats the best suggestion yet. They deserve to find someone that ticks all the boxes, except none of them will be working class.
This is insulting to group ‘working class’ with that collection. It’s doubly insulting as working-class is lumped with benefit-class as if there is some equivalence.
In addition the idea that someone identifies as deaf and/or disabled implies that they might not be but wish to say that they are.
(Why) haven’t the Conservatives banned this kind of nonsense yet?
Because they’re not actually conservative. That’s why..
If they’re successful in their search, the effects will be well-deserved.
(I did have a momentary thought that this might be a spoof?)
There’s a good pool of applicants who sit on the benches of Westminster or move in government circles. They probably meet most of the person specs for the job.
Was my idea as well: Criminal class could really be replaced with Civil servants and other Labour members welcome. We’d even take NHS managers if we must.
I think its a suitable job for the M.P.’s who are about to lose their seat at the next election, criminal class being at least one of the criteria they fulfill
I could simply self-identify with the above criteria
It’s Camden, what else would you expect?
It would have been easier simply to say straight white blokes and blokesses need not apply.
I can envision a Python-esque comedy sketch with a Theatre boss interviewing a prospective CE candidate:
“So, what do you think qualifies you for this position?”
“Well, I’ve never had any experience in the entertainment industry, but you see I’m just a poor immigrant crook who likes to cross-dress and call myself a woman. I have Attention Deficit Disorder if that helps. Oh yes, and I represent the Global Majority…can’t you tell?”.
“You start on Monday!”
Not really an issue for anyone wanting to apply (I wouldn’t) since it seems that anyone and his dog can identify as neurodiverse these days based on what I would consider to be normal variations in personality.
If whatever we’re supposed to call black/Asian people today is what they mean by global majority, then shouldn’t white people be considered a minority group that now needs protecting? Thought not.
Why does the state sponsor something which is obviously a communist ‘art project’? If there are really people interested in this people’s theatre, that is, people beyond the theatre people themselves, why don’t they pay for it?
This “Global Majority” phrase is an interesting piece of wokery. It seeks to widen the population of the UK to include the whole world, which is ofcourse how the open border leftists want everything to be. —A free for All. One planet, One Government, all of us happy and inclusive in our Progressive Utopia.
Yes, and where with a closed border UK the Ethnic Minority are prioritised, in an open border global ‘community’ we now become the ethnic minority, except the rules change so that our minority culture is subordinated within our own borders.
Perhaps related?
“These men are not incompetent or stupid. They are craft and brilliant. Consistency never has been a mark of stupidity if the diplomats who have mishandled our relations were merely stupid they would occasionally make a mistake in our favor. The fact that not one single mistake has fallen in our favor I would suggest that’s not incompetence that’s people working to a script.”
James Forrestal