Now he's standing for parliament, let's remind ourselves of James Delingpole's finest moment

James Delingpole, the Telegraph's resident climate change denier-in-chief, is standing for parliament in the Corby by-election for an issue he describes as like "cancer", "one of the worst crimes ever perpetrated". There has never been, he says, "a political issue that makes me quite so cross".

Is it a major war? Or a major economic issue afflicting the lives of millions?

No, of course not.

It's wind farms.

Anyway, this act of vandalism by our Guardian-reading, environmental-activist Prime Minister has clearly vexed James so much he is willing to try to get elected as an MP.

Unfortunately for James, standing for parliament might encourage less charitable people to remind other people about videos like the following, from BBC's Horizon's Science Under Attack (subsequent to which, he claimed he had been "intellectually raped" - clearly a man with no problem substituting terms of horrific suffering for something far more banal that happens to him - in all honesty he could have said he had been "made to look like a prat" instead).

Boris as PM is Murdoch's best chance to restore his waning influence in the UK

Much has been written in recent days about the miraculous way in which the incumbent Mayor of London has absorbed credit for an Olympics that he had little or no hand in winning.

Polls show he is now slightly more popular than Jesus, and - in probably one of the most jaw-dropping findings of recent years - that he is seen as the most in touch with the lives of ordinary Britons than other leading politicians. 

Yep - a man posh enough to make George Osborne look like John Prescott is now apparently man of the people. [Having said that, I've no doubt that a random multi-millionaire celebrity - Rihanna, say - included in the same poll would be voted as most 'in touch with the lives of ordinary Britons'... it's the nature of 'anti-politics' these days].

Now, this could be classic silly-season stuff. The kind of limited bounce that fades fast when times get tougher - think Cleggmania. 

Nevertheless, Boris as PM is increasingly looking more plausible. And, for those that laugh out loud at the notion of Borisconi winning the keys to Downing St, remember that even a year before his first Mayoral victory in 2008, commentators were very sceptical about his chances of winning that election. 

So, who would stand to gain from a Boris premiership, other than Boris himself? Well, for a start, the same beneficiaries currently gaining from the policies of Cameron and Osborne - and the same losers too. For, as another commentator has pointed out on many occasions, Boris' policy differences with his supposed rival are minute. 

One man who thinks he will be a winner is someone whose papers are lining up behind Johnson, just as they did in 2008 and 2012. A man who, even during his the height of the phone hacking scandal could rely on the support of the Mayor when others were - rightly - critical. A man who wined and dined him  and his executives immediately prior to a Met Police investigation into phone hacking scandal and during the Olympics.   

For Rupert Murdoch, backing Boris has two main advantages. First, Johnson is more likely - if the polls remain so positive - to keep the Tory Party in power, with all the benefits that holds for News Corporation. Second, the Mayor's instincts - on banking, on media regulation and other key issues - are far closer to those of the Tory Right, and Murdoch himself.    

Thus, a man that many are convinced has lost power and influence (despite little changing in terms of the scale of his media empire beyond reputational damage), could have an ally in Number 10. And, given a few years to allow those with short memories to forget Milly Dowler et al, he could presumably launch another bid to take full control of BSkyB sometime after 2015.  

The Tory Party are starting to take the same attitude towards intelligent thought as the US Republicans: and it can only damage us all

Many recent commentators have noted the dramatic leap to the fringes of the political right of the modern US Republican Party - including some of their former staunchest allies.

On economic policy and on social policy, leading lights in the GOP are now so right-wing as to make George Bush Senior look like Dennis Skinner. This is coupled with their almost complete intransigence, due in a large part to infiltration of their party by Tea Party members - who display an almost religious commitment to their ideology - and the influence of major conservative media outlets like Fox News and ultra-wealthy backers such as the Koch brothers.

However, it is on one issue in which the Republicans look ever more out of tune with reality. That issue is their attitude to science, to academia and, in fact, to anything that resembles intellectualism.

The modern Republican Party is, quite simply, hostile to scientists - wilfully ignoring scientific studies, refusing to engage in sensible debate and, when it suits them, plainly ignoring empirical evidence. In stem cell research and (most obviously) climate change they display antipathy to almost anyone who holds views at odds with their ideological positions.

At the same time, the long-running suspicion held on many on the right towards academia, universities and teachers in state schools has now been solidified. The modern Republicans thus define themselves against intellectuals and the so-called 'metropolitan elite'. This was demonstrated most recently in Clint Eastwood's notorious speech to the Republican National Commitee, in which he complained that an attorney shouldn't be a US President as:

 "you know they're always taught to argue everything, and always weight everything -- weigh both sides".

... thus sounding uncannily like the spoof President Schwarzenegger from the Simpsons, who had the memorable line: "I was elected to lead, not read".



The Republican Party, even ten years ago, wasn't quite like this. It is the takeover of the GOP by zealots from the Tea Party and their allies, whose political views are more akin to religious ones, that has spurred on this shift. It has also been provoked by certain issues - such as climate change or the banking crisis - where scientific or economic facts pose awkward problems for their ideology.

Where this has happened - where evidence contradicts elements of the conservative political narrative - many of their leading figures have taken the ostrich defence. As David Frum has pointed out, "Conservatives have built a whole alternative knowledge system, with its own facts, its own history, its own laws of economics". Other authors have drawn similar conclusions - that where evidence, underpinned by research, or events that occur require a re-evaluation of aspects of neo-liberal ideology - many on the right simply deny the existence of those facts.

Across the Atlantic

Thankfully, here in the UK, things aren't (yet) so bad. However, there are a range of indications that things are drifting that way - although suspicion towards intellectual thought arguably has a long history among British conservatives. First, there are the attacks (led by arch-ideologue Michael Gove and his colleague Nick Gibb) on the historical role of universities in teacher training - driven in part by suspicion of the supposed liberal and progressive values in higher education establishments and their influence over new teachers.

Second, there are ever-more commentators on the right holding the kind of evidence-free views that pervade so much of US conservatism. Take the likes of Benedict Brogan, who demonstrates that the undercurrent of anti-science and anti-intellectualism is now taking root in the Tory Party, by describing a contradiction between accepting the scientific consensus around climate change and being 'true blue'.

Meanwhile, James Delingpole's excruciating interview with the BBC shows how the bury-your-head-in-the-sand approach to science can make you look quite frankly like a bit of a plonker when you are forced to engage in a sensible debate.

Both of these pieces illustrate how so much of modern right-wing political philosophy is based on wilfully ignoring reality - facts, evidence, argument - in favour of an almost infantile attitude towards debate, engagement and politics. And the financial crisis and all it demonstrated about inadequacies in free-market theories in practice have only exacerbated this attitude.

It is, as Charlie Brooker wittily referred to once, "the Unlightenment". Except, in reality, when these views are held by politicians in major parties on both sides of the Atlantic with a good change of gaining power, it isn't so funny.

Osborne fails to understand history, and the country suffers for it

Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, has written another told-you-so to the fans of austerity that backed Osborne's cuts in 2010.

Today's news is the latest in the long line of bleak economic indicators, punctured only by unusually rosy-looking jobs figures (if you ignore the huge number of part-time workers forced into such a position against their wishes).

For Osborne - and Britain - the end of this year could be a disaster: leaving us with spending cuts that have only led to more debt, with a neo-liberal government who would then turn to even deeper cuts. A vicious cycle the Greeks have found themselves in and something that some commentators - including Krugman - have warned about all along.

How the Corby by-election could further weaken the PM

Conservative Home have released details of a (larger than normal) poll of people Corby that indicates the Tories are on course to lose Louise Mensch's seat by around 15% of the vote.

This contest is interesting as, to date, the various by-elections since 2010 have all been in Labour-held seats. That the Tories may lose a seat in this manner will have two impacts. 

Firstly, it will be another knock to Cameron - to add to the seemingly endlessly negative media narrative that surrounds him.

The second effect may be an interesting one, something that Mike Smithson over at Politicalbetting has recently discussed. A defeat for the Tories would mean that the electoral mathematics could allow a 'rainbow alliance' of the left and centre (including the Lib Dems) - but excluding the SDP - to have as many seats at the current coalition. This would strengthen the hand of the Lib Dems and further weaken the Prime Minister's bargaining position. 

The real winner from the Olympics isn't Boris - it's the BBC

The media classes can often get into a state of group-think.

So, in 2011, Ed Miliband is talked of as a failure with no chance of victory by just about every major outlet. Then, all of a sudden, there is a change of heart that sweeps everyone along with it, and the next minute Cameron is facing endlessly negative coverage.

At the moment the herd mentality is that Boris Johnson, our refined and shy Tory Mayor, has benefited hugely from the games. Indeed, he may have had some benefit - although the evidence, such as the latest polling on the matter, doesn't necessarily bear this out.

In fact, the latest ICM polls on a Boris-led Tory Party indicate he'd barely shift their position in voting intention. Put simply, Miliband would still be on course to win in 2015, even with Johnson as Conservative Party leader.

The real winner is the BBC.

It has won record viewing figures, and the public's reaction to the coverage has been hugely warm. Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the response to the BBC's Olympian efforts has been mortal enemies of the beeb, such as the Daily Mail and Telegraph, have written about it in highly positive ways - almost unheard of. Some recent examples from right-of-centre papers include:

Hats off to the BBC for their Olympic coverage (Daily Mail)

Brilliant Beeb can use Olympics to create 'minor sports' legacy (Daily Mail)

London 2012 Olympics: united in BBC's isles of wonder (Telegraph)

Aunty Beeb does Olympics proud (The Scotsman)

Olympics that prove UK can still deliver (Daily Mail editorial)

The BBC’s Olympics coverage has been a triumph (Metro)

Red button Olympics: The event that got us all switching on in our millions (Standard) 

That the Mail can, in its own leader column, describe the BBC's coverage as "brilliant and insightful" would have been almost unthinkable merely weeks before. The corporation has strengthened its reputation greatly through the Olympic Games and, for the time being at least, its enemies are in retreat.

Clegg's revenge on boundary changes will cost Cameron dear

The decision by Nick Clegg today - in response to David Cameron's failure to convince his backbenchers to support Lords Reform - to kill off the boundary changes that would have reduced the numbers of MPs in the Commons is a huge blow to the Tory Party.

Analysis indicated that reducing the number of MPs from 650 to 600 - as the boundary changes would have done - would have hit Labour and the Lib Dems harder than the Conservatives. In fact, the Tories would have been closer to a majority in 2010 (although notably would still have achieved to have gained one), had the election been fought over the proposed new boundaries.

The reason why this is so bad for the Conservative Party is because they will need every seat they can get. The failure of the reform will exacerbate the other four main reasons why the Conservative Party is unlikely to get a majority in 2015 - reasons the media frequently downplays or ignores:

• First, its worth reminding ourselves that David Cameron and the Tory Party failed to win an election in 2010 after 13 years consecutive year of an increasingly unpopular Labour Party in power - the latter led by a very unpopular leader in Gordon Brown.
• Second, Cameron's failure to win a majority in 2010 bodes even worse for 2015, considering no sitting Prime Minister has increased their share of the vote since Harold Wilson's re-election in 1974.  
• Third, leadership ratings - an increasingly reliable pointer to election outcomes in modern politics - now show Ed Miliband and David Cameron neck-and-neck, after more than a year of Cameron being ahead on the measure. 
• Fourth, the economy is in pretty dire state, especially considering the (now very optimistic-looking) forecasts the OBR were making in 2010 - with manufacturing survey after manufacturing survey after manufacturing survey also showing the 'rebalancing' of the economy is going nowhere. The Tories' original hopes that the history-defying attempts to create economic recovery through austerity and then bring in election-winning tax cuts just before the 2015 election are now a fading dream. It was a gamble, founded on ignorance of history, that has failed - as Nobel-prize winning US economist Paul Krugman never tires of pointing out.