In the Sunday Times, Kathleen Stock warns that fear of offending is dragging us toward modern blasphemy laws, where protecting feelings trumps the freedom to think and speak clearly. Here’s an excerpt:
In the Commons last week a medieval-sounding concept made a comeback under modern cover. The Labour MP Tahir Ali began his question to the prime minister by noting that it was “Islamophobia awareness week” — so far, so very 21st century — but then suddenly plunged the House backwards in time. Specifically, he suggested the government consider introducing “measures to prohibit the desecration of all religious texts and the prophets of the Abrahamic religions”.
Rising to answer, the Prime Minister offered a spirited rejection of blasphemy laws in the U.K., emphasising the vital roles of freedom of conscience and expression in a liberal democracy. Only joking — of course he didn’t. In fact he appeared to concede much of Ali’s point. “Desecration is awful and I think it should be condemned across the House,” he solemnly intoned. “We are committed to tackling all forms of hatred and division, including Islamophobia in all of its forms.”
This exchange was interesting because it brought something buried in talk of Islamophobia out into the light. Most definitions of the term connect it to racism. The all-party parliamentary group on British Muslims, for instance, whose definition is endorsed by Labour, says that Islamophobia is “rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness”. And this, I think, is how most people use it — as a shorthand for rejecting a particular form of racist prejudice.
But Ali’s proposal to criminalise blasphemy was not about racism but simply a move in favour of religious protectionism, all the way down. And despite his ecumenical talk of “Abrahamic religions”, the use of the I-word made clear that his main concern was outlawing disrespect to the Quran and its contents, rather than the Christian or Hebrew Bibles. Meanwhile, Starmer’s meek response illustrated the way many in power will make concessions to illiberal Islamists, if only to avoid the perception of racist taint. …
Unless we start to disentangle racial prejudice against ethnic minorities, many of whom tend to be Muslim, from criticism of Islamic teaching, we risk sleepwalking into accepting new blasphemy laws because we are too embarrassed to look racist by protesting against them. As others have pointed out, there are already de facto blasphemy regulations operating in some areas, as shown by the case of the Batley teacher still believed to be in hiding for showing a caricature of Muhammad to his class in 2021. Such shameful episodes are similarly caused by our collective failure to insist aloud that you can cause religious offence to Muslims without being racist, and that the right to do so is fundamental to the British way of life.
Worth reading in full.
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Since I first subscribed to Daily Sceptic about 2 years ago I have regularly pointed to the fact that over one billion people in the world do not have access to electricity. People in the wealthy west really cannot comprehend this and certainly BBC journalists cannot.
Living like this is a diabolical disgrace since these people could easily be using coal to generate electricity and bring themselves out of this stone age existence just as the Chinese and Indians are doing by using fossil fuels. Poor people want to develop their economies, but wealthy environmentalists hate the thought of them using coal to have the same standard of living as us. Western Governments fob these people off with some money for wind turbines and solar panels as if they are doing them some great big favour. We regularly see articles and photo shoots in leftist media of some new wind farm or water facility and some “Happy Africans” smiling for the camera so delighted with this offering.
The Sustainable Development Agenda that is being imposed on us is this Malthusian idea that as the population of the world grows and there is only finite resources in the ground of coal oil and gas, that the use of these fuels should be curtailed. The idea is that here in the wealthy west we have used up more than our fair share of these fuels in getting the standard of living we have, and our own political class have set about implementing policies (NET ZERO) to slow our use of coal oil and gas and use wind and sun instead. This is being done because “The lifestyles of the affluent middle classes is too high”. China and India are not so easily pushed around though and continue to use coal, but poor Africans are the easy target and when we tell them they cannot use coal and gas, what we are really telling them is that they cannot have electricity and develop their economies.
This is a diabolical disgrace, and the likes of BBC should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves for pushing this eco socialism down the throats of poor people in support this evidence free climate dogma.
I agree, I have always watched the way billionaires like Gates, Bloomberg etc parade as philanthropists, whilst making substantial coin and publicity from their various “charitable works, injections, fake meat, bugs etc. If they really cared why haven’t they done the simple things that would produce the greatest reduction in poverty and sickness, provide villages and rural areas in Africa and India with access to clean fresh water, and sanitation. But there is no financial return, the results would mean an increase in population not dependent upon the drugs and injections provided by the Philanthropists, and there is no Kudos in doing something so simple.
Hence I look at these billionaire, cos play benevolent men and women and see them for what they are, on the make.
Yes but isn’t for the western world to provide clean water and sanitation to poor countries. It is for them to provide it for themselves. But absurd climate policies which have mostly nothing to do with the climate which coerce poor Africans living on a dollar a day into not using their coal and gas which would enable them to develop and provide for themselves is preventing them doing so.
But they are allowed to dig for rare metals in appalling conditions so we can make our “eco-friendly” lithium batteries. Disgusting hypocrites.
Agree, but the figures for who has access to electricity is bit better than 7 billion with access. To quote unstats.org
“The global electricity access rate increased from 87 per cent in 2015 to 91 per cent in 2021, serving close to an additional 800 million people. However, 675 million people still lacked access to electricity in 2021, mostly located in Low Development Countries”.
Unfortunately, and as one would expect, they are equating access to electricity with renewables. In addition they falsely equate renewables with efficient energy and the least polluting.
https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/report/2023/Goal-07/#:~:text=The%20global%20electricity%20access%20rate,2021%2C%20mostly%20located%20in%20LDCs.
The data showing least air pollution where there is most fossil fuel usage. Also, where there are the most modern fossil fuel driven power the pollution is the lowest. The right hand graph shows deaths from indoor pollution although it is not much different from general air pollution. Interesting use of blue for deaths from pollution while a red brown for CO2 ‘producers’. In other graphs for OWID they show deaths from fossil fuels in a strong red even though the figures for this can only be contrived statistically.
Yes but the UN IPCC and the WEF and our lackey politicians have decided that CO2 is actually pollution. There is however no evidence that CO2 is causing or will cause dangerous changes to climate and it certainly does not harm human beings in the sense that smoke and other genuine pollutants do.
CO2 in Nuclear Submarines eg can be 5000 ppm compared to 400 ppm in our atmosphere and it causes the sailors no ill effects.
CO2 is therefore, as most sceptical people who do the slightest investigating into this issue have known for a very long time is a means to control people and resources as every human activity involves the release of some CO2. CO2 is the globalist bureaucrats dream gas. It gives them the excuse for policies they have long craved.
“It is no secret that a lot of climate-change research is subject to opinion, that climate models sometimes disagree even on the signs of the future changes (e.g. drier vs. wetter future climate). The problem is, only sensational exaggeration makes the kind of story that will get politicians’ — and readers’ — attention. So, yes, climate scientists might exaggerate, but in today’s world, this is the only way to assure any political action and thus more federal financing to reduce the scientific uncertainty”
Monika Kopacz Atmospheric scientist
“Access”.?? ————-Having a few hundred part time wind turbines though is not really the same as having on demand electricity, so the figure is probably closer to the 1 billion I quoted.
The UN would like to think that it is wind and solar that is extending access but it is still predominantly oil, coal and gas. Look at the late developing countries in the table below and their energy mix. India and Bangladesh have extended access to electricity to almost all within the last few decades and I’m sure it wasn’t using wind and solar. India has 180 coal fired power stations with more on the way.
“Despite the push by Western countries at COP 28 to phase out coal, China and India are still building coal-fired plants that will last 40 to 50 years for energy security reasons. Despite adding renewable capacity, they realize that wind and solar cannot operate 24/7 and must have back-up.”
instituteforenergyresearch.org
Bangladesh has 170 power plants and 152 of those are coal, oil and gas
BBC Falsify strikes again with its cutting edge Bullshit
The chattering classes in their nice Grid Fed comfy homes waffling shit to us all ! Fu-k Off ……. !
They can’t argue against his point, obviously, because he’s 100% right.
So they go ad hominem and attack him personally.
If you attack the state religion, the state and all it’s agents like the BBC, attack you back. Nothing new.
Look how they went after Alex Belfield. He was i think the top UK Youtuber to call out the BS in 2020 with facts and logic.
Where did Sir Christopher Hohn get all his money that he is now showering on the climate change net-zero pantomime? He was a Hedge fund manager, he made his money by playing with money. It does strike me that when we have got to a stage in society when you can make far more money by playing with money than you can by actually making and doing the things that money is supposed to facilitate that something is rotten in the state of our world and its finances.
It seems ironic or maybe that should be tragic that the climate change, net-zero business is being funded by people playing money tricks, the whole thing is like an edifice of scams, deceptions and sleights of hand. In the end I guess it will come tumbling down but meanwhile it is doing much damage.
Thank goodness for this Kenyan farmer and all other farmers around the World who seem to be at the front line of people who are becoming aware of the horrors that climate change and net-zero are unnecessarily inflicting on the world.
Here is wattsupwiththat on the same topic with additional graphs.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/06/19/bbc-worried-about-kenyan-farmers-climate-scepticism/
The Blob and, of course, the MSM, are absolutely petrified of people like him, Reform supporters and people like you, me, Toby et al.
It amounts to one thing and one thing only: The Truth Terrifies Them.
You have the ultimate power: you know the Truth. Vote Reform and wield it.
How does Kenya produce the materials to stand on its own and build a “Green” system? Indeed, how does “Net Zero” West maintain, replace, expand a “Net Zero” system once it reaches it?
The answer in both cases is, of course: It is not possible to do so.
The materials which go into the production and siting of every single “Green” item requires fossil fuels. The UK Government is paying British Steel billions to sack tens of thousands of experts from Port Talbot in order to close down all British steel production. In future all that British Steel will be able to do is recycle metal.
How do you build rigs, cargo ships, cargo containers, girders, machinery etc. with Coke cans? Indeed, how do you make the drills that anchor wind farms to the seabed? What do you lubricate wind farms with when they require millions of barrels per year and you stopped producing any?
The Blob talks about how we must level the world and living conditions, we must help Africa. How do you do that when you destroyed the pharmaceutical industry whose factories can no longer be built and whose products can no longer be produced since they contain oil by-products?
This young man in Kenya, one of the most poor places I have ever been, tells it as it is. He has more intelligence than any rich person ever had and infinitely more than any corrupt Scientist or non-Reform politician.
I’ll leave it with one more thought: we cannot recreate stained glass windows; the knowledge was lost. What do we do when we realise we need steel? There will be nobody at Port Talbot to ask, the internet won’t have electricity and the libraries will have long disappeared as will any Heretic books on making oil by-products.
Something I thought of yesterday: the EU has started a trade war over Chinese electric vehicles, a war they cannot win. What happens to Happy Clappy if the Chinese simply say “We aren’t selling you the items your EV industries need”? Energy Security indeed.
Unwanted EVs will destroy an already tottering Chinese economy. Mark my words.
In some ways, I wish they would, nor the items for our wind and solar scamdustries..
I’m going to assume Sir Christopher Hohn is part of the WEF Brigade?
I am sure that must be a given. These people really are Yuva Hari’s “useless eaters.”
Why the fuss?. I like millions of others have dumped my BBC licence. Let them witter on in their own little echo chamber. Nobody cares.
I work in agriculture and a year or two ago I attended a seminar in which a fertiliser expert presented a paper. He could barely disguise his anger at the expectation that farmers worldwide should cut their fertiliser inputs as nothing will bring Africans out of poverty more than being able to increase their yields. While in the West we definitely use too much nitrogen fertiliser, it is the worst type of arrogance to think that others should cut their inputs too. They starve, we sit in smug, ivory towers.
This is a great article.
Thank you for covering the climate issues. Robert Bryce publicized Machogu’s Substack months ago and hopefully he can make a difference. I lived in West Africa in the 60s and not much has changed in the living conditions of ordinary Africans in the intervening years. We now have the new colonialism perpetrated by the West in the form of green new deals and from the Chinese who make loans that can ever be repaid while extracting resources to make products to sell to Western consumers.
Great response by Jusper on GB News and a great expose of the “Big Green” propaganda money trying to impoverish us all.