A Government climate adviser – a member of the Climate Change Committee, no less – who backed a tax on frequent flyers has racked up 40,000 air miles in a year by jetting to environmental conferences. The Telegraph has the story.
Nigel Topping is one of the six members of Ed Miliband’s Climate Change Committee, which recommended in February that Ministers consider a new frequent flyer levy to cut emissions from flights.
The committee also suggested Ministers could increase air fares for holidaymakers by raising flight taxes and ban airline reward schemes. Its members, who report to the Government, have called for policies to “manage demand” among air passengers to cut carbon emissions.
But Telegraph analysis shows Mr Topping accrued 11 times more air miles in the last year than the average Briton, with travel to summits in high-end hotels on three continents. A former business champion for Glasgow’s COP26 summit, he now holds a variety of climate advisory roles.
In the last 12 months, he has attended conferences in Barbados, Azerbaijan, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, the Netherlands and the US.
One summit, the International Mangrove Conservation and Restoration Conference in December, was held in the five-star Bab al-Qasr hotel in Abu Dhabi, with a private beach, infinity pool and chauffeur service.
It came days after Mr Topping’s trip to the UN’s desertification conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 3,000 miles from London. Last month, he attended another summit in Barbados, which involved an 8,400-mile round trip.
Speaking at the event, he revealed he had bought an electric car, and was building a “zero carbon house” with insulation, solar panels and a heat pump.
But according to modelling by the Department for Transport, which estimates that each kilometre of air travel emits 158g of carbon dioxide per passenger, Mr Topping’s carbon footprint from flights alone is about 40% more than the average British person produces in total in a year.
Andrew Bowie, the Shadow Energy Secretary, said: “This is rank hypocrisy. Once again we see those preaching this Mr Miliband-driven Net Zero zealotry are all too happy to impose significant burdens on others, but won’t practise what they preach.
“It’s one rule for them and another for everyone else. Kemi Badenoch and I have been clear that Net Zero by 2050 would involve significant cost to the country and to the consumer and it is simply not sustainable. It is a shame this Labour Government is still not prepared to do the same.”
Worth reading in full.
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We all know that, if a Labour MS had been unable to vote due to a Zoom error and this got vaccine passports kicked out, Labour and Drakeford would be desperately shouting for another vote because it wasn’t fair.
Has the Welsh government actually provided proof the passports will keep people safe from COVID, given that double-jabbed people can still get and spread COVID and vaccine efficacy is falling? Or is this just a simple power ploy, designed to force people to give up medical information to enjoy any kind of fun? We know what the answer is.
Who gave these tinpot dictators so much powers anyway?
Friday 8th October 11am
Parade through Wokingham Town Centre with signs and strange masks like in Edinburgh above
– please bring your carnival/Guy Fawkes/Fancy Dress masks and white overalls if you have them – if not please come anyway
Meet in the Cockpit Path car park in the centre of the town RG40 2HD
Stand in the Park Make friends – keep sane – talk freedom and have a laugh
Wokingham Howard Palmer Gardens RG40 2HD
Sundays 10am
behind the Cockpit Path car park in the centre of the town
Bracknell South Hill Park
Sundays 10am & Wednesdays 2pm
Join our Wokingham & Bracknell Telegram group http://t.me/astandintheparkbracknell
Reading River Promenade Sundays 10am
Join our Telegram group https://t.me/standindparkreading
> Who gave these tinpot dictators so much powers anyway?
Devolution was a crazy Labour idea. The Queen grants them their power in our name. The Crown represents the power in Britain, but she is subject to Pariament. Parliament doles out the powers, the queen must do as she is told, the last king to defy Parliament lost his head under an axe, which is quite persuasive.
As you know, masks are not designed to keep people safe as they only ‘work’ if worn by the infected to stop them spreading their infection (perhaps). Healthy people wearing masks may increase the risk of infection for them as their mask may ‘catch’ pathogens due to the moisture in it from breathing. Wearing masks can also cause ‘mask mouth’ due to the increased CO2 in and around the mouth and there could be long term mental developmental issues on the young brain from re-breathing expelled air…and the long term psychological effect that for many will not be resolved. This is a disaster.
FWIW unusually for the Welsh Government they actually allowed their scientific advice from TAC to be released online.
https://gov.wales/sites/default/files/publications/2021-09/technical-advisory-group-advice-on-vaccine-passports.pdf
The document clearly states:
“Even with careful planning and application there may not be a net benefit to
the introduction of immunity certification.”
“Levels of infection in the community will have an important impact on the level
of risk and any effectiveness of certification, with effectiveness likely to be
lower when infection rates are high.”
“Given the limited evidence and uncertainty around outcomes, SAGE has
previously recommended use of pilot studies to understand the impact and
practicalities of certification,”
“While evidence on vaccine uptake is limited, two recently published studies
have suggested use of vaccine passports could backfire”
Remember this is their own scientific advisory cell who informs their policy.
So basically their own guidance mirrors that of the UK parliament and says it doesnt think they’ll do anything at all but they’re ignoring the science and doing it anyway.
It’s going to increase the operating cost of the affected venues and inconvenience the people desiring to go there. Hence, it’s a safe assumptions that that’s what it’s supposed to accomplish.
These leeches live off public taxation. None would be able to get a job in the private sector… unless they are servicing a government contract.
How was it even ok’d to be vote on (WEF friendly) Zoom?
How about “No Vax, No Tax”, if they’re going to disciminate on the basis of private medical information we’re not going to pay their wages.
they have to eat. would you have them work for nothing?
If ever we needed another episode of the clown show, here it is.
They only ruin further any credibility they have left with such stunts.
“None of the opposition parties have said they feel the vote ought to be re-run.”
What a disgrace “Oppositions” are across the UK. Where is the alternative voice, or the attempt to hold governments to account? A key part of a properly functioning democracy is to have an Opposition that offers something different to the status quo. Considering this vote for vaccine passports would have been defeated by democracy BUT for some zoom error should give rise to the Opposition being apoplectic with rage. They should be crying out for a fresh vote with all the fury they can muster, yet instead, lie down and accept it? This strikes me as being complicit and is extremely alarming. Are all votes against VPs just for show?
I do wonder about that, for them not to be kicking off about this does imply it is possible that they all just voted against to try to look good whilst engineering a deliberate zoom error so it would pass anyway, just the way that many traitors in the commons have abstained on key votes rather than voted to remove over-reaching government powers.
The Welsh Conservatives definitely did NOT want vaccine passports.
That might bein which case they are even more dumb and spineless than I has estimated. Llywydd o’r Senedd Elin Jones has stated that she had advised Gareth Davies that a telephone vote was acceptable; he chose not to having been instructed at the Party Conference in Manchester not to vote and ensure the Vaccine Pass vote was carried. Andrew RT Davies is clearly complicit answering to Javid as his silence on this travesty is deafening. I have written to them both expressing my fury at their behaviour
Remember the only reason Plaid voted against is because they didn’t think it went far enough – they wanted it for everything.
So they wont be upset it passed – they’d rather something came in so they can make it tougher.
I remember Mark Drakeford calling for a second Brexit referendum. What a hypocritical old goat.
Course he is, he never supported Ukip’s call (or was it Reform IUK) for a second referendum on the Welsh Assembly as that only got 50.3% of the vote..
This guy is obviously a sock puppet as he can’t even decide on the wording of his own public statements: Vaccine passports are anything but a simple measure, as demonstrated by the inability of the Scottish government to get their scheme off the ground on time, next to nobody needs to be kept save from coronavirus and such an overarching government duty was certainly not in the Labour election manifesto.
Hopefully, the Welsh government makes a pig’s breakfast out of their rushed vaccine passport measure and that establishes the stupidity of it.
It wasn’t rushed. All the details were finalised and published weeks ago.
Won’t stop it being a pig’s breakfast, though.
The problem with that is that, like in the Democratic People’s Republic of Caledonia, the regime then pivots to claiming that the problem with tyrannical social credit score apps is simply the implementation and the convenience.
And even if domestic ID cards were a simple measure, and covid was dangerous enough to be worrisome, vax pasports still wouldn’t actually do anything to reduce covid spread.
Can Drakeford and his cronies be arrested for being in contempt of the scientific evidence?
Voting is not a process they use to establish democracy. Voting is an excuse ready to use when someone calls you out.
“Vaccine passports violate human rights.”
“But we voted on it…”
So an unvaccinated person who has previously had covid and natural immunity will be refused entry into a nightclub but a vaccinated person who can still carry the virus and still spread it – they will be allowed to enter a nightclub.
This is insanity.
The passport is a measure of obedience, not COVID immunity.
Obedience and soon enough, a new communist financial system where we own nothing.
No, it’s a clever plan to control people and take their money off them at the same time. Stay awake at the back!
“This is insanity.” Nope. It’s evil.
Making our participation in society conditional on an arbitrary health condition is insanity.
Natural immunity, vaccine immunity, no immunity, whatever.
It’s insane because it makes our slavery to the state complete and official.
I have nothing but contempt for every single person that doesn’t get that and viscerally despise those who get it but don’t care.
It just undoes any illusion of freedom you may have had.
No. It reduces my freedom even more than before.
I was perfectly aware of how free I used to be and how free I am now.
In your childish binary mind, maybe it’s all the same, but if I lock you in a 2 by 2 cell and never let you out, you’ll quickly appreciate that it’s not all an illusion.
+1
Are you by any chance this Spartacus?
https://www.docdroid.net/z3E19up/covid-19-the-spartacus-letter-pdf
OK on reflection – ignore that question
The “mix-up” over the last Conservative vote was a deliberate act designed to make it look like the Welsh Tories opposed the measure, while allowing vax passports to go ahead in Wales – which is what the Westminster government wanted to happen, because it wants to introduce them in England soon.
Change my mind.
England will say that as Sturgeonland and Drakefordland are ‘protecting their citizens’, then England should also have a moral duty to protect theirs.
Come on, peeps, did we really think the ‘Vaccine Passport’ wasn’t coming? This is all a circus to keep you off the scent whilst the computer programmers in the back rooms are furiously getting a foolproof system set up.
If your political wisdom isn’t much more grounded in reality than your idea of software development, your political predictions can be safely discarded. :->
You can discard my predictions, but I do hope you’ll remember them when this time next year you’ll already have shown your Vaccine Pass at a number of venues, including National Trust properties.
You do realise you already have a ‘Vaxx Pass’?
As do I. I didn’t ask for one, they have just been dished out.
I’ve seen mine. It has 0/2 for the vaccines, as I haven’t had any yet.
My partner’s Vaxx Pass says 2/2 as she’s had two.
She can now use hers for travel to the UK without the need to quarantine for 10 days.
The Welsh Conservatives did NOT want vaccine passports.
Wales and Scotland off my possible 2022 holiday destinations.
I was in Scotland last month and the hysteria is alive and beating there. The number of complaints I made about over-zealous establishments was unbelievable. There’s a fine line now between something you’d call a ‘retreat’ and open imprisonment in Scotland
Scotchland is indeed still a full blown Branch Covidian doom cult.
And in 2020, our total fertility rate plummeted to an eye watering 1.29, breaking into the bottom 5 in the world.
I’d suggest that there’s a connection there, and it’s not accidental.
The whole thing is a bloody joke, just not a funny one. And how long will the covid pass stay valid for following second injection? 6 months? A year? Indefinitely? Does that idiot Drakeford even know? And what “science” is he following? Answers on a postcard please.
Drakeford is mentally incompetent.
He’s just barely competent enough to follow his orders, and he’ll be rewarded for it.
The EU ‘Covid/Vaccination Pass’ gives 12 months from the 2nd jab. My partner had her 2nd jab 2 months ago, so that means there are 10 remaining.
The 3rd jab is being rolled out here, so I imagine it will be 12 months from the 3rd jab, and again for the 4th jab, and so on.
Tomorrow will be the 14th day of jabbing kids in schools in the UK.
All governments have been given their instructions and they are bulldozing it through whether you like it or not.
The 12 months on the EU pass is just a technical expiration date. They can still shorten the actual validity however they like – all they need is a new decree and an automatic update to the pass checking apps (in fact, I’d be surprised if the official apps did not phone home regularly to obtain this very parameter).
Yes, I have no doubt that can be done, but I don’t see the need for that. I think the 12 months will be stuck at, for each ‘vaccination’ – it will just be kept moving forwards. The penalty of losing your Vaccine Status after 12 months is enough to encourage future uptake to keep it valid.
I understand the UK Vaxx Pass is valid for 30 days at a time.
I also see no difficulties in computer programming / software development – everybody is already on ‘the system’ (apart from some Pikeys and hermits in caves) and anything can be mass added or mass subtracted with a bit of tapping on the keyboard and pressing ENTER.
And maybe some of the unknown vpopulation that they’ve effectively acknowledged exists (and may or may not be in the millions).
yes it probably works like open-auth2 with 2 tokens (a shorter and longer term refresh token).
But why should the covid pass give 12 months from second vaccination? Boosters are already being rolled out after a mere 6 months, reflecting the admittedly poor effectiveness of the “vaccine” against infectiousness. And Ferguson is recommending an even shorter time period before booster. But in any case, the booster programme hasn’t even been mentioned in relation to the covid pass as far as I’m aware, and in 6 months’ time many people’s “12 months” will be up, so what then? This “offer” of a booster will surely become “get the booster or your covid pass lapses”. Time for the brainwashed masses to start waking up, me thinks.
So the jabs don’t stop infection or transmission but the vax passes will! Oh how I’d love to demand the rationale for that blatant bullshittery.
I’ve had someone telling me that both ‘vaccinations’ provide up to 81% protection.
Then you should direct that someone to this site and watch the scales fall from their eyes.
So how exactly does it keep people safe you moron?
It keeps the evil scum running the show safe from their balloon bursting.
Obviously democracy is dead.
Not for one second do I believe in the “Zoom Error”. All a stunt to avoid a Tory voting against the very measures that we will be moving to in around 4-6 weeks. Scummy disinformation.
Precisely. All just a circus for the cameras.
Big news from Australia – court declares mandatory vaccinations unlawful ….
Of course they do.
And in all other common law based jurisdictions, like the UK, too.
As do masks and vaccine passports.
The question is: (when) will someone take them to court here, find an uncorrupted judge and will the superior courts uphold his verdict or are they too corrupted anyway?
I don’t think that’s correct, sadly. This was one of the cases summarised in a blog I linked here the other day, which confirmed that Jennifer Kimber lost her case in a 2-1 majority decision on 27th Sept and was likely to appeal to the Federal court.
Covid legal proceedings in Australia
You can’t blame Labour (they don’t listen anyway, even if you do blame them) it was the fault of Gareth Davies, for being a fool.
I don’t know who Gareth Davies is, and I don’t care.
“You can’t blame Labour” Yes I can. I don’t care if they are listening or not, they are evil.
A vaccine passport protects you from coronavirus, but 2 jabs and a booster or natural immunity doesn’t. Got it!
This is not about health, people. Agenda 30 marches on.
Anybody still in Team Toby?
I suspect even Toby isn’t in Team Toby any more, in private at least.
Mark Drakeford
July: no plans for a vaccine passport, for ethical and equality reasons
October: it’s just a simple measure, what’s your problem?
This is standard Covidian: Whenever they want something, they describe it as simple, precautionary measure, be it something as hellishly intrusive as enforced face masking. That’s why I wrote that this guy obviously doesn’t decide what goes into his own press releases.
The magic phrase “keep people safe” (or a variant of it) is also very likely to make an appearance in these sort of “justification” announcements – it’s clearly a very politician-friendly type of phrase as it superficially sounds like they actually give a shit, while at the same time being largely meaningless.
I was just simplifying the wording a little.
I think you’re also misinterpreting this: It’s not designed to make politicians appear anyhow, it’s a little bit of mind programming for the public: Theses phrases get repeated all the time because the general public is supposed to remember/ memorize them unconsciously. The next time a thus trained mind encounters the stimulus vaccination passport, the brain is supposed to produce simple measure which will help to keep people safe from coronavirus
because of the learned association and that’s what people not much given to self reflection will then believe to be their own thoughts about it.
Of course, Welsh Labour actively engaging in Corona propaganda can’t surprise anyone: For the cosmopolitan elite against the people! could be regarded as the current Labour motto.
“keep people safe” well unruly cattle get culled.
How ‘temporary’ do we think these vaccine passports are going to be?
As temporary as income tax.
Time we stopped paying that, if we are to e excluded from life in our own country we aren’t citizens any mroe, we are serfs, and we have no obligation of any kind to prop the state up.
The state does not need your tax. They can print money themselves. The only purpose of tax is suck back money in and to punish people. If you want to damage the state, you should withhold you labor. But of course, for that you will be punished as well. The state has you by the balls, as it always has had. And the simple reason is that it is the state holding a gun to your head, not vice versa.
Surely JR ‘able’?
If the Conservatives really wanted to oppose it, they’d use any tools at their disposal.
Watch them quietly shrug their shoulders and move on. Their bosses in Westminster want vaccinw passports after all.
Deleted.
Find an honest judge.
The only reason this nonsense persists is because 95% of the population have absolutely no critical thinking skills whatsoever. If they did they would see that they are rapidly loosing their liberty and prosperity for no good reason and tell the likes of Drakeford to do one. Instead, the population are mostly brain dead drones who lap up whatever nonsense the media and politicians spout and happily seem to go along with whatever ridiculous demands they make of them including locking themselves up for 18 months, sacrificing their livelihoods and children’s educations and letting themselves be injected with an experimental, potentially dangerous substance whose longterm affects are unknown. This is just on Covid, don’t get me started on climate change. The effects of the population’s stupidity are starting to become apparent with the energy crisis, fuel crisis, multiple shortages, businesses going bust and government spending and national debt unsustainable and out of control and yet still the moronic population will not wake up. God help us all!
You’re spot on. And most of the bloody brain-donors seem to be on FB, regularly spouting the utter bilge they’ve enthusiastically digested from their tellies and tabloids! It’s honestly like trying to engage with cult members, you’ve got no chance of any rationality or common sense being absorbed. No amount of data-backed debate makes a blind bit of difference.
Society accepted its slavery to the state in March 2020. Ever since then we’ve just done what our masters have told us. Wear a mask, do a test, stay at home, take a jab, take another jab, download this app. Whatever they tell us to do, we will do.
There are a few boisterous slaves around, but no actual rebellion. Just some disapproving murmuring.
Tories too busy partying in Manchester to vote. Deliberate?
Wales is in quite good shape with respect to cases: We don’t really need these stinkin’ vaccine passports right now , but digital identities are absolutely inevitable, most people don’t know this, but digital identities have been a requirement in the global super computer communities for decades, they are about to hit prime time, and there is absolutely no way to avoid it, I know some of you guys would like to go back to how things were, but that is not an option now , digital ids have come too far now, they are an inevitability for everything from benefits, visas, internet access, vaccination, voting, even the mersey tunnel, you name it, it’ll have your digital id on it. Don’t blame me, it’s just the way it is in the 4th industrial revolution, anyway, Wales is in good shape:
“Wales is in quite good shape with respect to cases“
The fact that you think it matters a jot discredits you, even before your obvious trolling.
“I know some of you guys would like to go back to how things were, but that is not an option now ” Maybe it isn’t, but neither you nor the evil scum running this show will stop us from trying to get us back to how things were, as long as we live. Even if it doesn’t happen in our lifetime, there will be people who carry on the fight. Don’t blame me, that’s just the way it is with free-thinking humans.
whatever one thought of them, and their views, most people( including me) surely thought that the Greenham women were fighting a lost cause. But in fact the missiles were gone in well under a decade, and the base returned to common land , as they had campaigned for.
They are inspirational, especially those of them , and there were many, who really walked the walk for their beliefs.and they were really creative in the methods of non violent direct action. We can learn from them.
I’m not sure what the point of your post is.
Digital smidgital.
None of the things you mention couldn’t be done with a paper based system. And indeed has been done with a paper based system in past and current dictatorships.
The big difference between then and now is that a large chunk of our lives is spent online now, and this does open up avenues of control for the government.
And if we dig deeper, the biggest issue is that Western civilisation is in serious decline in pretty much any way you care to mention. I give it ten years before it no longer exists except in a few pockets here and there.
But we’ll be back.
“digital identities are absolutely inevitable”
A Remain vote was inevitable, and so was Hillary Clinton becoming President.
“absolutely inevitable,”
outing yourself as one of those types where the future is fixed, it’s just history that needs to change.
The future is not fixed, and your future is more than uncertain
‘Cases’? Absolutely meaningless.
A friend is one of these ‘cases’. Yesterday he was cutting his lawn for the last time, and today he is playing golf.
Given Drakeford’s track record as a parent, I don’t think he’s in any position to tell the nation how to behave.
https://metro.co.uk/2018/09/21/labour-ministers-son-jailed-for-raping-woman-to-indulge-his-sexual-fantasies-7967140/
Seems likely the Tory tosser was in the bar & couldn’t be arsed to vote.
Iirc he was on the phone to the Speaker telling her about the faulty connection and she refused to count his vote by any other means. Someone posted a recording of the exchange on twitter yesterday.
All the details of the Nazipapiere were on the BBC Wales website as a fait accompli weeks before the pseudovote.There was no way Dungford was going to accept a ‘no’ vote.
BTW, bracelets to indicate vaccination status now also handed out to staff and students in universities of Hannover, Germany.
are they yellow and worn on the arm?
P.S. how did they obtain others private medical info?
https://theexpose.uk/2021/10/06/uk-judge-orders-government-to-provide-evidence-in-court-that-justifies-covid-19-vaccination-of-children/
Very clear that businesses are going to have to have their own vote, and have it by refusing to comply. Business is the engine that drives this country, they need to realise that and use their power. If businesses won’t pla along with these diktats there is nothing that governments can do, no feasible amount of government force can stop thousands of businesses if they all break diktats together. It is time for businesses to stop just talking and start fighting back, make government impotent.
yes. The problem we have is the govt is targeting big stakeholders such as the Premier League, Royal Opera House, Royal Albert Hall etc .Get them on board and doing the dirty work, and the job is half done.
I’ll be watching non covid passport football, and listening to restriction free music where I can.
cancelled my Sky sub and BBC licence fee too a couple of weeks ago. The BBC is beyond help.
Businesses just want to make money. They don’t care who their money is coming from. Most of their customers don’t care about the restrictions either. If it was any different, these policies would not have been introduced in the first place. The tyrants at work have all the relevant market research at their fingertips.
That’s precisely the point: Businesses are going to make more money if there’s less useless government red tape around customer handling. England is not Germany and the German model of forcing heavy-handed economic sanctions (the proper term for that) onto businesses not voluntarily denying access to unvaccinated people hasn’t been copied here.
The current crop of German politicians is pretty much just a bunch of US stooges who’ll stoop to any low their masters expect of them.
Wales has fallen
Wales died months ago.
You don’t think the Tory hierarchy had a word in the M.Ps ear. Difficult to introduce vaccine passports in England if Welsh Conservatives voted them down in Wales. He was actually offered to vote by phone…nah probably just another conspiracy theory like so many these days. I mean good old Boris when did he lie to anyone???
He was refused when he asked to vote by ‘phone.
So Drakeford confirms a result which would shame a real Democracy. So now, anytime there’s a close vote the Government is desperate to win, all they have to do is nobble Zoom for members of the Welsh Senned.
And if we ever get online voting for General Elections in the UK, you can bet the Establishment will do the same.
I feel sorry for people living in Wales and Scotland. They may as well go live in a communist country. England will be next.
This is looking similar to the recent US election. The self righteous feel entitled to push through their ideology.
That photo is a very good example of a present day throwback to the early origins of mankind.
One hopes that real people are sane enough to strike it out, and enforce their Human Rights 1998 rights. Any organisation that tries it on could lose trade, quite easily. Invasion into personal health records by third parties, such as traders, should not be acceptable at all.
My favourite all-purpose political quotation for the times (adapted, ironically, from Aneurin Bevan’s slaying of Eden over the Suez debacle) :
“If X believes what he is saying, then he is too stupid to be Y. But if he/she doesn’t believe what he is saying – then he is too dishonest to be Y.”
Well now I’m Uber Pissed Off as my unvaccinated eldest son is at Swansea Uni.
He is anti this vax but will no doubt be feeling the pressure as his peers all go clubbing but he can’t. I trust him to stick to his guns, however, as he’s a stand up kind of guy and he’s availed himself of the facts regarding these vaccines. He’s just started his course so the next 3 years maybe a bit quiet entertainment wise. Let’s hope illegal raves get the boost they so richly deserve.
If the Welsh electorate doesn’t at least complain loudly to Senedd members, then they can hardly complain later.
Computer say no. Um, awkay.