Labour Party political elites in the U.K. are flocking to support a new green campaigning group called Labour Climate and Environment Forum (LCEF). At its launch last year, senior Labour politicians present included Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves and former leader and Net Zero champion Ed Miliband. LCEF claims its team comes from all parts of the labour movement as it seeks a collectivist Net Zero solution to tackle “climate and ecological breakdown”. As we have seen in numerous articles in the Daily Sceptic, none of these types of elite organisations arise from the grassroots. LCEF is funded by the European Climate Fund (ECF) and Clean Air Fund (CAF), both supported by Extinction Rebellion (XR) paymaster Sir Christopher Hohn. Also in the mix is Gower Street, a fund that is currently helping to pay for the latest offshoot of XR.
LCEF is run by Paul McNamee who has worked for the Green Alliance and recently for London Mayor Sadiq Khan. He is said to have advised on the Ultra-Low Emission Zone, Khan’s controversial poor person’s punch-down, and “the Mayor’s presence at COP27”. Sitting on the Advisory Board is Polly Billington, a former BBC journalist, and a key adviser to Ed Miliband in the previous Labour Government that set the U.K. on the path to its unrealistic Net Zero agenda. She was previously instrumental in establishing the local government network UK100. This network targets local authorities by demanding they accelerate Net Zero with various anti-car activities. Needless to say, public consent to such personal restrictions is not seen as a priority. The investigative journalist Ben Pile notes that UK100 is an opaque organisation, “though it admits to being funded by ECF and CAF, both of which are substantially supported and controlled by the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation and therefore Hohn”.
Money of course makes no distinction between political tribes when there is public policy to be altered in the interests of the few. Net Zero offers huge opportunities for organisations peddling unfounded climate collapse scares and funded by billionaires to influence lawmakers to collectivise the economy and human society. Since such an ambition requires a complete re-engineering of modern industrial society, by happy chance, vast amounts of diverted money, mostly taxpayers’ hard-earned, are available to fund almost any crackpot green scheme and technology going.
As the Daily Sceptic recently noted, almost half the ruling Conservative Party backbench MPs in the U.K. Parliament belong to a Caucus promoting extreme Net Zero ideas that is funded by a small group of green billionaires led, quelle surprise, by the ECF and CAF, along with Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisers and Oak Foundation. The Caucus is part of the Conservative Environment Network (CEN) which is run by Ben Goldsmith. For his part, Goldsmith is one of five trustees of the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation.
The LCEF appears to have a number of links with the Green Alliance, which says it is an “independent think tank and charity focused on ambitious leadership for the environment”. In 2019, it was able to signal its considerable virtue by dropping long-standing funding arrangements with Shell and BP. Happily, and perhaps again to no great surprise, new funders in the form of the ECF, Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace were able to take up the financial slack.
The LCEF funding from Gower Street is also of some interest, since this relatively small operation seems to pick a number of grantees at the more colourful end of the Net Zero spectrum. The funding for a new XR offshoot, run by XR old hands Gail Bradbrook and Stuart Basden, helps “make good on the potential of Extinction Rebellion”. Cash to Stop Ecocide International helps develop green ‘lawfare’, while the World Environmental Crimes Unit builds a database on individuals “holding back action on climate in the U.K.” Peers for the Planet, a group of 150 members of the U.K. House of Lords, is helped in its mission to put climate change at the top of the political agenda. Grants are also made to the Green Alliance and the CEN.
The sheer scale of the money that is available to fund all these groups from a relatively small number of very rich people is beginning to attract wide attention. It dwarfs the individual contributions made to major political parties in the U.K. The Labour and Conservatives make do with income in the recent past between £30-50 million a year each, but Michael Bloomberg and Sir Christopher Hohn have each contributed $45 million to C40 alone This is a green activist group comprising 100 city mayors around the world. and it is currently chaired by Sadiq Khan. Like C100, it aims to push local areas to press ahead with numerous Net Zero measures including personal movement and diet restrictions. But for Bloomberg, even that $45 million to C40 is chickenfeed compared to the $1 billion that he has given to groups seeking to shut down America’s gas and coal power plants. The goal is to “shut down every last U.S. coal plant” and “slash gas plant capacity in half, and block all new gas plants”.
For all its talk of campaigning on behalf of the wider Labour movement, the LCEF, like the CEN, is further proof of the disconnect between the current crop of politicians and the wider voting public. None of these operations arise from the grassroots. They are funded by a few elites and are part of global political campaigns. Ben Pile estimates that both Bloomberg and Hohn are funding green organisations to the tune of $200 million a year each. Money buys influence and vast quantities are pouring in to bypass the wishes of local electorates. The LCEF might wish it had support from the wider labour movement, but the truth is that it does not need it. It operates within the political system trying to exert influence on profoundly undemocratic policies. In the process, of course, it is supporting any number of virtuous, and rather comfortable, ‘Islington’ lifestyles.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
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Ooh look, we’re allowed to comment under this one.
Yes – I tried to offer support for Melissa Kite but the comments option disappeared.
any explanations? would be decent of them to tell us why, otherwise its not helpful to the beliefs of the people who put together the site and its supporters. If we are truly meant to be open and honest and about freedom of speech an explanation would be the right course of action
It’s simply a law of nature that editorial control will be exercised for reasons nobody understands. This follows from the fact that nobody ever intentionally violates a sites content policy as that’s not a useful course of action. Because of this, it’s best understood as form of bad weather.
Maybe, but on a site owned by the head of the Free Speech Union, a site dedicated to questioning and debate, it’s not a good look.
The British Royal Family is a protected species.
Well, I don’t know why DS would be especially keen on protecting them, and in any case they chose to publish an article on the subject.
Maybe they regret it. And in any case it’s basically a republish of a Spectator article. So if anyone is in trouble, it’s the Spectator.
Unless the comments were obnoxious, which it doesn’t sound like they were, then they been pressured into shutting comments down.
Indeed though why not pull the whole article then
I think the BTL commenters should consider going on strike until we know more. Or decamp to the Lockdown Sceptics subreddit where we manage to keep it fairly civil with very light touch moderation
Or use every comment section to comment about the Melissa Kite article, until they explain what happened.
Let’s make a list of everyone who is up for making one a post in every comment section about the Melissa Kite article and DS comment censorship:
stewart
I don’t think we will let it drop
yes could everyone comment here what they did write before it was stopped.a nd continue to coment on the kate article just comment here
yes it does seem very strange and obvious to me that the shots have caused charles and kates and the queen’s a nd maybe prince Phillips health problems .
it seems they want to take out the royal family because they are independent of the government or are supposed to be .
that plus the stress caused by a certain couple
Sadly, Royalty appears to have embraced the promulgation of government agenda that wisely was not practiced by previous generations of royalty. Bet they think twice before doing it again.
Aye from me
I thought they would’ve not had the real thing and had a saline solution. I would’ve made that point on the original article. I hope OFcom haven’t got the DS over a barrel already!
I always wondered whether Faucci was stupid or evil. Stupid if he actually took the real thing or evil if he pretended to.
And I couldn’t decide which of the two disturbed me more.
In a strange way I think the latter disturbed me less but couldn’t quite say why.
I will second that tof.
The purpose of the FSU is to provide legal support to its members when they get into trouble because of free speech issues.
Unions don’t tend to fully represent what they claim to exist for and can be directed by other factors. A Free Speech union has no reason to be different.
See if an explanation is forthcoming next week as it is Easter weekend.
It’s a strange business. I could understand Meghan endorsing a BigPharma product but I would have thought that Kate would have turned down any offer.
Hancock is a liar and a criminal and along with over 600 others has no legitimate place in the House of Commons. If Hancock owned any decency he would have withdrawn his accusation of antisemitism against the Honourable Andrew Bridgen and offered a grovelling apology but as we all know he thinks he’s batting for the big boys now and he can say and do as he pleases. If anybody should have been ejected from the Con party it was Handicock. Yet again Fishy’s rag tag mob are revealed to be a bunch of spineless, treasonous wannabes who besmirch this country by their very existence.
My hope now is that Andrew Bridgen is fortunate enough to have the trial heard by an honest lawyer although on this matter my expectations are low. I feel sure that Fishy would not want to suffer the fallout of a clear Andrew Bridgen victory, unless of course Handicock is to be offered up as a sacrificial victim. Still, if he is at least it will provide DS subscribers with a smile and some small degree of satisfaction.
Salute Andrew Bridgen.
unless of course Handicock is to be offered up as a sacrificial victim
It’s surely the right day to crucify someone.
This is what Hancock is party to. What a triumph.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-nhs-chief-teaching-granny-to-suck-easter-eggs/
And this is how the filthy, Gates-funded, socialist rag that is the Guardian report it: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/mar/28/andrew-bridgen-must-pay-matt-hancock-legal-fees-of-40000-in-libel-claim
Know your enemy.
Having just read The Groan’s version of the initial hearing it seems as if the author of this article, Ms Sally Beck, has got the wrong end of the stick. Andrew Bridgen has been hit with a bill of £44k for the criminal Hancock’s legal fees. So the seemingly ‘honest’ judge Steyn is nothing of the sort. If Andrew Bridgen goes to full trial I tend to the view that his chances of success are between slim and none. And Slim just left town.
An attempt at a full trial would no doubt be a major financial risk. However, if he has the assets he might take the risk, perhaps with the possibility of Hancock becoming bankrupt.
Off topic apologies:
This is what the future of the UK looks like!
https://www.gbnews.com/news/yobs-storm-shopping-centre-causing-mayhem-security-struggle-contain-antisocial-chaos
Apology not required Dinger. If we don’t post Off-T on the latest thread it doesn’t get seen.
If that is what the kids get up to, then brace yourself for “charger rage” from the gangs of owners this weekend.
Needless to say that Bridgen is a hero who has our support, and Hancock is a psychopathic cockroach.
That said, it’d be beneficial to have all the facts, and not too much spin –
I would happily contribute to a crowdfunding campaign to support Bridgen.
Quote
In a ruling last week, Mrs Justice Steyn “struck out” certain parts of Bridgen’s case but did not dismiss the whole claim, instead giving the independent MP a chance to make amendments and “remedy the deficiencies”. Bridgen was ordered to pay £44,300 in legal costs to the MP for West Suffolk in a court order on Thursday.
Steyn added that if Bridgen, a former Conservative MP, did not provide the details of his amended claim or did not successfully make the required application, the libel claim would be thrown out entirely.
yes why comments closed on article about kate. is it because the site would have been
shut down or what was eager to read the comments please allow them back
I wish I knew more about libel laws. From what little I have read, the case is not clear cut. To be clear, I think the accusation of antisemitism is preposterous and dishonest. But I don’t think it’s the same as falsely accusing someone of having done something specific. I doubt anyone thinks worse of Bridgen because of what Hancock said – his supporters and detractors will both see what they want to see in Hancock’s statement. Hancock just expressed an opinion, albeit a despicable one that I doubt is sincerely held. I am not sure the law is the correct remedy – I would much rather see Hancock defeated in the court of public opinion, and answer for other crimes he may have committed. That said, a court case at least well get the issue debated with the protagonists testifying under oath.
Regular readers will know how much I despise Hancock and support what Bridgen is doing.
Testifying under oath is a concept for the little people to be concerned with. Given what those like Hancock have done and participated in, what would “under oath” mean to them in a corrupt system?
Possibly though he wasn’t smart enough to delete his WhatsApp messages so he may have privately said something that incriminates him which he’d get in trouble for lying about – but yes it probably is not going to make much difference
Even if Andrew Bridgen had quoted someone who said, or even if he had expressed a personal opinion, that it was a bigger crime than the Holocaust: so what?
Are people not entitled to draw their own comparisons and come to their own conclusions?
What’s that in Stop Press ?????… Does that mean Hancock has succeeded, HELP
Hancock has not succeeded. Bridgen’s claim rolls on. However, it would be helpful to know what part(s) of his claim were struck out and what the required amendments to it will be
Hancock has blood on his hands just like Fauci for the deaths of thousands of people.
I just hope he dies VERY VERY SLOWLY and VERY VERY PAINFULLY.
Tell you what TDS is in danger of losing my support if they start closing down the comments section. Why are we suddenly not allowed to comment on Kate and Wills and what happened to free speech? Come on Tobes pots and kettles are springing to mind here. TBH I’m a bit shocked.
I am not just a bit shocked but hugely shocked and angry. However, I do believe that DS may have been leant on heavily by TPTB/RF to remove the comments. Was DS threatened with legal action? How interesting it would be to be able to read them. Perhaps DS did this to protect itself as well as its commenters. If it did not agree to remove them, perhaps it might have been threatened with an application for an order of the court to reveal the identity of commenters?
Under the general rules of costs « Orders for costs made against a claimant may only be enforced after the proceedings have been concluded and the costs have been assessed or agreed ». So if Bridgen amends his claim, he can continue with it and hopefully win it and get a costs order against Hancock. The interim order for costs against Bridgen must eventually be paid however.