Peer Pressure: House of Lords Tells Climate Denier Monckton to ?Cease and Desist? Claim He?s a Member
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on July 24th, 2011 4:36 am by HL
Peer Pressure: House of Lords Tells Climate Denier Monckton to ?Cease and Desist? Claim He?s a Member
Clerk of parliaments publishes letter on Lords’ site saying peer is not and has ‘never been a member of the House of Lords’ The UK Guardian reports, “Climate skeptic Lord Monckton told he’s not member of House of Lords“: The House of Lords has taken the unprecedented step of publishing a “cease and desist” letter […]
Clerk of parliaments publishes letter on Lords’ site saying peer is not and has ‘never been a member of the House of Lords’
The UK Guardian reports, “Climate skeptic Lord Monckton told he’s not member of House of Lords“:
The House of Lords has taken the unprecedented step of publishing a “cease and desist” letter on its website demanding that Lord Christopher Monckton, a prominent climate skeptic and the UK Independence party’s head of research, should stop claiming to be a member of the upper house.
The move follows a testy interview given by Monckton to an Australian radio station earlier this month in which he repeated his long-stated belief that he is a member of the House of Lords.
When asked by ABC Sydney’s Adam Spencer if he was a member, he said: “Yes, but without the right to sit or vote … [The Lords] have not yet repealed by act of parliament the letters patent creating the peerage and until they do I am a member of the house, as my passport records. It says I am the Right Honourable Viscount Monckton of Brenchley. So get used to it.”
The letter, sent by David Beamish, clerk of the parliaments, to Monckton last Friday and now published on the Lords’ website, states: “You are not and have never been a member of the House of Lords. Your assertion that you are a member, but without the right to sit or vote, is a contradiction in terms. No one denies that you are, by virtue of your letters patent, a peer. That is an entirely separate issue to membership of the House. This is borne out by the recent judgement in Baron Mereworth v Ministry of Justice (Crown Office).”
The letter from Beamish to Monckton continues: “I must therefore again ask that you desist from claiming to be a member of the House of Lords, either directly or by implication, and also that you desist from claiming to be a member ‘without the right to sit or vote’. I am publishing this letter on the parliamentary website so that anybody who wishes to check whether you are a member of the House of Lords can view this official confirmation that you are not.”
… Monckton is currently on a lecture tour of Australia discussing climate change. The tour has been dogged by venue cancellations after he referred to the Australian government’s former climate advisor Prof Ross Garnaut as a fascist during a recent lecture in Los Angeles. Footage of the lecture also showed Monckton displaying a swastika next to one of Garnaut’s quotes.
Monckton is one of the most notorious disinformers in the world. This is just one more lie he has been pushing.
Related Posts:
- Monckton Myths: A one-stop-shop for debunking The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley
- TVMOB hate speech shocker: Lord Monckton repeats and expands on his charge that those who embrace climate science are “Hitler youth” and fascists.
- Lord Monckton Promotes Hate Speech and Disinformation
New Study Suggests Food Deserts Require More Than Fresh Produce
By Matthew Cameron After I wrote yesterday about a 2004 study showing that supermarket availability leads to greater fruit consumption among low-income individuals, my ThinkProgress comrade Amanda Beadle pointed out that a similar report was just released earlier this month. Its findings paint a more complicated picture of the “food desert” problem than did those […]
By Matthew Cameron
After I wrote yesterday about a 2004 study showing that supermarket availability leads to greater fruit consumption among low-income individuals, my ThinkProgress comrade Amanda Beadle pointed out that a similar report was just released earlier this month. Its findings paint a more complicated picture of the “food desert” problem than did those of the Richards and Rose study I cited previously:
Fast food consumption was related to fast food availability among low-income respondents, particularly within 1.00 to 2.99 km of home among men (coefficient, 0.34; 95% confidence interval, 0.16-0.51). Greater supermarket availability was generally unrelated to diet quality and fruit and vegetable intake, and relationships between grocery store availability and diet outcomes were mixed.
This conclusion is important for a number of reasons. First, the study followed individuals throughout a 15-year period rather than taking a snapshot of their conditions at a specific point in their lives. This enabled researchers to compile a significant pool of data points and control for numerous confounding variables that could impact the progression of individual health over time.
Furthermore, the portion of the study dealing with supermarket availability used a more comprehensive measurement of diet quality than did the Richards and Rose study. The system is known as the Diet Quality Index, and it measures nutritional health based on individuals’ success in meeting the daily recommended intake of certain food groups such as fruits and vegetables.
That is crucial because it means that while the report’s findings don’t necessarily contradict the Richards and Rose study, they significantly detract from the argument that expanding access to supermarkets is key to improving low-income dietary habits. Individuals who live close to supermarkets might consume more fruits on net than they would otherwise, but this might not be enough to significantly improve their health if they still aren’t meeting the daily recommended intake of fruits. Additionally, fruits might not be the only thing people consume in greater quantities when they live near supermarkets — chips, soft drinks and dessert items also might find their way into individuals’ shopping carts.
Finally, the report looks at the related issue of fast food availability among low-income individuals. It concludes that living near certain fast food establishments does, in fact, increase fast food consumption among low-income men. This further suggests that locating supermarkets in low-income neighborhoods might not be enough to improve overall health outcomes if individuals still live in close proximity to unhealthy fast-food restaurants.
