Not a sheep

Excellent quiz based on the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia's hacked emails

2009-11-23T16:09:00.002Z

Try the excellent quiz at The Shadow Lands and you will be amazed at what you discover.

Meanwhile here's another extract from the email database that I think is quite astonishing (my emphasis):

"Just sent loads of station data to xxxx. Make sure he documents everything better this time ! And don't leave stuff lying around on ftp sites - you never know who is trawling them. The two MMs have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I'll delete the file rather than send to anyone. Does your similar act in the US force you to respond to enquiries within 20 days? - our does ! The UK works on precedents, so the first request will test it. We also
have a data protection act, which I will hide behind. yyyy has sent me a worried email when he heard about it - thought people could ask him for his model code. He has retired officially from UEA so he can hide behind that. IPR should be relevant here, but I can see me getting into an argument with someone at UEA who'll say we must adhere to it !"

Openness and willingness to have data and conclusions checked not much in evidence there...

Best line found so far in the "hacked" emails

2009-11-23T15:59:00.003Z

"OH **** THIS. It's Sunday evening, I've worked all weekend, and just when I thought it was done I'm hitting yet another problem that's based on the hopeless state of our databases. There is no uniform data integrity, it's just a catalogue of issues that continues to grow as they're found."

Let's just savour that "the hopeless state of our databases. There is no uniform data integrity, it's just a catalogue of issues that continues to grow"Are you happy that the decisions to radically cut CO2 emissions and tax us into the ground for emitting CO2 is on the basis of "settled science" based on "hopeless...databases... no uniform data integrity... (and) a catalogue of issues..."?

I'm not.

It seems that not only do we have possible fraudulent activity at the CRU but also more worryingly the data itself looks like it is in many cases garbage. Data has been lost, analysed with buggy programs, gaps filled with synthetic data and so on and on and on.

You can read more here, at Bishop Hill and at Devils Kitchen, amongst others...

And the story has now disappeared from the BBC website

2009-11-23T14:14:00.002Z

Having dealt with the UEA Climate Research Centre hack as a story about hacking and not detailing any of the emails uncovered by the hack, the BBC have now dropped the story altogether from their Science and Environment home page. It would seem that the BBC are being very careful to drop this story as quickly as possible. There was a 6:25 piece on the Today programme this morning not that you would know it from The Today programme's front page. Do take a listen to the piece at 07:35 today (link here) and get the full feeling for how the BBC so want this story to disappear. The piece is described thus:

"A row has broken over illegally obtained emails from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (UEA). The emails, written by some of the most respected scientists in the field, were hacked and leaked, and have been seized upon by climate change sceptics who say they suggest that there is manipulation of data by climate change scientists. UEA Professor Robert Watson discusses the incident."

Oddly no mention of Lord Lawson who was the other interviewer, maybe the BBC would rather not give climate changer sceptics the oxygen of publicity.

The sixty-second weekly "No shit, Sherlock" award

2009-11-23T09:00:00.000Z

This week's award goes to The Sunday Times for this headline

"Afghan pullout is ‘election ploy’ by Gordon Brown"

A Labour government making a decision affecting the lives of our armed forces just as an 'election ploy'; "No shit, Sherlock"

The EU and taxation

2009-11-23T08:19:00.003Z

Rumours abound that the quiet, unassuming Herman Van Rompuy, the first permanent president of the European Council, is not the nonentity that the MSM seem to be suggesting he is. Rather he has form as a proponent of EU taxation and it seems that this source of central EU revenue will come via a combination of CO2 taxation an a form of Tobin tax. Thus a trade body reliant on its members for its income becomes a state with its own independent sources of income. The EU project has always been about 'ever closer union and the implementation of the EU Constitution, albeit in the guise of the Lisbon Treaty, takes this project several large steps closer to fruition.

The time for European nation state is running out, all hail the EUSSR.

Under-resourcing the armed forces and misleading MPs and the public

2009-11-22T20:30:00.000Z

Shocking news revealed by The Telegraph, allegedly (my emphasis):

"On the eve of the Chilcot inquiry into Britain’s involvement in the 2003 invasion and its aftermath, The Sunday Telegraph has obtained hundreds of pages of secret Government reports on “lessons learnt” which shed new light on “significant shortcomings” at all levels.

They include full transcripts of extraordinarily frank classified interviews in which British Army commanders vent their frustration and anger with ministers and Whitehall officials.

The reports disclose that:

Tony Blair, the former prime minister, misled MPs and the public throughout 2002 when he claimed that Britain’s objective was “disarmament, not regime change” and that there had been no planning for military action. In fact, British military planning for a full invasion and regime change began in February 2002.

The need to conceal this from Parliament and all but “very small numbers” of officials “constrained” the planning process. The result was a “rushed”operation “lacking in coherence and resources” which caused “significant risk” to troops and “critical failure” in the post-war period.

Operations were so under-resourced that some troops went into action with only five bullets each. Others had to deploy to war on civilian airlines, taking their equipment as hand luggage. Some troops had weapons confiscated by airport security.

Commanders reported that the Army’s main radio system “tended to drop out at around noon each day because of the heat”. One described the supply chain as “absolutely appalling”, saying: “I know for a fact that there was one container full of skis in the desert.” "

Read the rest of the article, it will make you wonder that whilst Gordon Brown might be vile, incompetent and seriously inept is he even in the same league as Tony Blair?

Is Turkish EU membership now dead in the water?

2009-11-22T19:15:00.000Z

An interesting question posed by Michael Heaver on a UKIP supporting blog. Apparently the unelected EU President, Herman van Rompuy, has had this to say in the past about the prospects for Turkey's membership of the EU:

"Turkey is not a part of Europe and will never be part of Europe. An expansion of the EU to include Turkey cannot be considered as just another expansion as in the past".

"The universal values which are in force in Europe, and which are fundamental values of Christianity, will lose vigour with the entry of a large Islamic country such as Turkey."

Of course nobody should believe that just because Herman van Rompuy said this in the past that he meant it and/or will stick to this line in the future. There are people in the EU and elsewhere that will brook no opposition to their plans and the concerns of 'the people' are of no concern to them.

It's 'Mandy' time

2009-11-22T18:10:00.002Z

Just two Peter Mandelson stories this weekend, but they do, I think, say so much about the man and his motivations.

The first is from The Mail and concerns the

"Anger at Peter Mandelson's £13m plan for ‘minimalist palace’ after he calls for pay restraint"

It seems that:

"With its moody lighting, low-slung sofas and plasma TVs, there is only one Cabinet Minister who would feel truly at home here – this is the £13million new Whitehall ‘palace’ being built for Peter Mandelson.

The Business Secretary’s London HQ – the nerve centre of the ‘empire of Mandelsonia’ – is being given a slick, minimalist refurbishment to reflect
his growing power in Government.

But last night Tory chairman Eric Pickles accused Lord Mandelson of hypocrisy for demanding pay and spending restraint while lavishing funds on his own department. "

How odd to see the word 'hypocrisy' and the name 'Peter Mandelson' in the same article, how very odd. As with most ex and indeed current Marxists, nothing but the best for the members of the politburo.

But it is this part of the article that annoyed me the most as it sums up the wastrel habits of this vile Labour government:

"A Business Department spokesman said: ‘Currently, staff in the department are split between this and a second site – as we are surrendering that site, it is a cost-neutral project.’ "

There you go there is an amount of money to spend and so long as we don't exceed it that's fine. Might a better option have been to consolidate the two offices but not spend £8-£10 million on the office re-fit? Was a cheaper option even considered? I doubt it, after all it's not Peter Mandelson or Gordon Brown's money their future income is safe and the massive tax increases will hardly dent Peter Mandelson's enormous EU pension.

The second article is from The Times and concerns the believable claims that

"Gordon Brown is facing demands to make Lord Mandelson foreign secretary in a row that risks tearing apart his government.

The business secretary is secretly pressing Brown to hold a cabinet reshuffle so he can achieve his life-long ambition of running the Foreign Office. Mandelson made the request after he was snubbed for the post of European Union foreign minister at last week’s Brussels summit.

Mandelson’s reshuffle call puts the prime minister in a perilous position as he struggles to retain the support of the most powerful figures in the cabinet.

If he bows to Mandelson’s wishes, he risks alienating David Miliband, the foreign secretary, and his ally Ed Balls, the schools secretary, who is still eager for promotion. If he refuses Mandelson’s demand, he risks losing his loyalty with potentially devastating consequences for the election."

Peter Mandelson scheming for advancement in public office, who would have thought it? Is the UK really ready for an unelected Prime Minister with a twice disgraced and now unelected Foreign Secretary; and don't forget the never elected Baroness Ashton as the EU high representative. Democracy Labour style - makes you sick doesn't it?

Three nude supermodels to brighten up the day

2009-11-22T15:30:00.000Z

It's cold, it's very wet and I haven't seen the sun all day, so this is just to cheer us all up. Supermodels Eva Herzigova, 36, Helena Christensen, 40, and Claudia Schiffer, 39; that's better...

Two alternative explanations of how the Large Hadron Collider works

2009-11-22T13:30:00.000Z

To celebrate the re-starting of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) here's two videos to explain how it works; first a new one and then an oldie but goodie...

Coincidence or EU stitch-up?

2009-11-22T11:50:00.000Z

So until October 2008 Baroness Ashton was Labour’s leader in the House of Lords and played a key part in getting the Lisbon Treaty through the upper house and avoiding the calls for a referendum. Now Baroness Ashton is the surprise selection of the EU's 27 member states as high representative for foreign affairs and security.

Coincidence?

Harriet Haman makes light of her upcoming court case

2009-11-22T11:30:00.000Z

The Mail reports that:

"Harriet Harman tried to laugh off her impending prosecution for allegedly using a mobile while driving, with a quip about Thierry Henry’s notorious handball.

Labour’s deputy leader is facing charges of driving without due care and attention and driving while using a hand-held mobile. She strongly denies the charges.

But on BBC Radio 4’s Any Questions on Friday night, she made a thinly veiled reference to her brush with the law when asked about the blatant handball by French captain Henry that put Ireland out of the World Cup.

Prompting laughter from the studio audience, Ms Harman said: ‘I think there was nothing hands-free about Thierry Henry’s football.’ Any Questions presenter Jonathan Dimbleby kept the joke going by saying: ‘I am now very concerned you have spoken in “sub judice” – I don’t know quite how to handle this.’

Earlier in the programme, Ms Harman was distinctly unamused when a member of the audience mischievously asked whether Ministers should be ‘routinely’ given hands-free car-phone kits.

She complained it was ‘unfair’ to ask her the question and insisted she could not talk about it."

So does Harriet Harman think that breaking the law is something to laugh at? I suppose when you are a Labour minister and therefore usually above the law then maybe it is.

Liz Jones on what maternity leave means for middle class women

2009-11-22T11:10:00.000Z

"For middle-class women, having kids is a lifestyle choice, an excuse to put their Ugg-clad feet up while barking at the nanny for 12 months before returning to a warm office where they can coo to the baby via a webcam and have a nice sit-down."

You can read more in The Mail and should.

Birds of a feather flock together?

2009-11-22T11:04:00.002Z

The Mail claims that:

"The wife of Commons Speaker John Bercow was sacked from a leading City firm after it claimed she had lied about having a degree from Oxford University.

Sally Bercow was dismissed by public relations business Consolidated Communications after it contacted the Oxford authorities and discovered they had not granted her a degree.

The company accused her of having lied on her CV. It also claimed that Mrs Bercow - who at the time was known by her maiden name, Sally Illman - had used 'multiple CVs' with different 'facts' about her past on each one."

Of course Mrs Speaker has an explanation...:

"Mrs Bercow, 39, last night denied lying. She admitted she had referred to an 'upper second' in theology at Oxford on her CV. But she claimed this was her first-year exam result and was not intended to conceal the fact that she had left Keble College after two years after falling behind with her studies and rowing with her tutors."

When People saw the photos of Mr & Mrs Bercow last week; one tall and attractive, one a less than attractive pipsqueak, I heard "what on earth does she see in him; now we know that they are kindred spirits...

Climate Change Coverup News (Sunday morning update)

2009-11-22T10:22:00.003Z

Still tumbleweed on the BBC who are clearly hoping that this story disappears and they can go back to pushing the pro-Man Made Climate Change agenda and associated "green taxes" and world political control agenda, as they have been doing for so long now.

In the rest of the media this story has not gained much traction, I suppose because so much of the MSM has invested so much in pushing the same flawed agenda. The Mail reports the story in a fairly straight manner under the headline

"Hackers 'expose global warming con': Sceptics claim that leaked emails reveal research centre massaged temperature data"

I can see nothing in The Times about this story in fact they keep up the pro-Man Made Climate Change agenda with a piece entitled "Climate change to lash Britain with tropical storms". Allegedly

"BRITAIN should brace itself for more tropical-style deluges of the kind that wreaked havoc on Cockermouth, according to climate experts.

They warn that, although no single event can be attributed to climate change, the warming of the atmosphere caused by greenhouse gases means such disasters will become more frequent."

The Guardian have nothing on their front page but on their Science and Environment page I found this article that restricts the headline to "Climate sceptics claim leaked emails are evidence of collusion among scientists" - "collusion" is that the worst of the claims? The Guardian are slightly torn here between supporting the agenda that they have pushed for so long and exposing a fraud. Reading the whole article is interesting as the conflict is clear as they worry about the veracity of the emails whilst pointing out the evasiveness of some of the scientists.

How about The Independent? Nothing on the front page so I looked at their Climate Change front page, and unsurprisingly for a media outlet that has its own Climate Change section... Not a word, not a mention. It would seem that nothing must be allowed to pierce the absolute certainty of Man Made Climate Change in the minds of Independent readers.

I may look at the other papers later but it looks like good marks for The Telegraph and Mail, a "could do better" to The Guardian and "nil points" to The Times, The Independent and The BBC.

Climate Change Coverup News (Further Update)

2009-11-21T18:14:00.004Z

Whilst the BBC's report on the UEA Climate Research Centre hack refers just to the hacking and makes no reference to the deceit uncovered, they do fin the space to report yet another shock-horror story about the claimed effects of higher CO2 levels. This time the scare story is that:

"Ocean acidification could cause fish to become "fatally attracted" to their predators, according to scientists.

A team studying the effects of acidification - caused by dissolved CO2 - on ocean reefs found that it leaves fish unable to "smell danger". "

Meanwhile The Telegraph do at least report the real story thus:

"Climate scientists accused of 'manipulating global warming data' - Some of the world’s top climate scientists have been accused of manipulating data on global warming after hundreds of private emails were stolen by hackers and published online."

This report includes one of the clips that I referred to yesterday:

"One of the emails under scrutiny, dated November 1999, reads: "I've just completed Mike's Nature [the science journal] trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie, from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline.""

and the unsurprising news that

"Scientists who are alleged to be the authors of the emails in question have declined to comment on the matter. "

This story must not be allowed to wither away as the BBC hope, so keep pushing the story folks...

Climate Change Coverup News (update)

2009-11-20T15:52:00.002Z

The actual emails referred to here are no longer on the FTP site. Climate Audit and Watts Up With That are having problems with the amount of traffic coming to their sites re this expose which, if true, is dynamite.

The Watts Up With That page that you should take a read of is this one with plentry of example emails, here's one example to whet your appetite (my emphasis):

"I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from
1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline. Mike’s series got the annual land and marine values while the other two got April-Sept for NH land N of 20N. The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999
for NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61-90. The Global estimate for 1999 with data through Oct is +0.35C cf. 0.57 for 1998."

You might also like to follow the debate at The Examiner who fisrt broke the story.

Climate Change coverup news

2009-11-20T14:57:00.003Z

Biased BBC report some very interesting news from The Examiner:

"The University of East Anglia's Hadley Climatic Research Centre appears to have suffered a security breach earlier today, when an unknown hacker apparently downloaded 1079 e-mails and 72 documents of various types and published them to an anonymous FTP server. These files appear to contain highly sensitive information that, if genuine, could prove extremely embarrassing to the authors of the e-mails involved. Those authors include some of the most celebrated names among proponents of the theory of anthropogenic global warming (AGW)."

Interesting in itself, but it gets even more interesting as Biased BBC report (my emphasis):

"Hadley has confirmed that it has been hacked and it has cancelled all existing passwords. If you see or hear any mention of this on the BBC please point it out in the comments so we can monitor how this story is spun, both by Hadley and the BBC.

Update 13.45. Andrew Bolt has been picking through the emails and documents and, if they are all genuine, the information in them is simply astonishing.

There's a document by Hadley's Professor Phil Jones which shows that he was so concerned by Freedom Of Information requests for raw data that he was contemplating ways to remove key information and reconstruct the data to make it fit the preferred conclusions.
There's an email from American climate scientist Tom Wigley advising Professor Jones how to manipulate some data to emphasise warming trends.
There's an email from Jones telling his colleagues to delete incriminatory emails.
There's another from Jones in which he tells a colleague that he's used the same "trick" as Michael Mann (Mr Hockey Stick) "to hide the decline", and in yet another he calls the reported death of a climate sceptic "cheering news".
There's an email from Mann himself promising senior Hadley staff that they can use the RealClimate website to post articles and he will ensure the censorship of any comments from sceptics challenging what they've written.
There's an email from senior IPCC scientist Kevin Trenberth in which he asks, "Where the heck is global warming?…The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t."
There's an email in which Hadley staff promise to blackball scientists from the IPCC report whose work doesn't conform to their alarmist predictions: "keep them out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is !""

Is this the smoking gun on climate change?

The BBC report the news in a way that ignores any of the emerging information. The BBC prefer to report that:

"The e-mail system of one the world's leading climate research units has been breached by hackers.

E-mails reportedly from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU), including personal exchanges, appeared on the internet on Thursday.

A university spokesman confirmed the email system had been hacked and that information was taken and published without permission. "

Apparently

"Researchers at CRU, considered to be one of the world's leading research bodies on natural and human-induced climate change, played a key role in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report, which is considered to be the most authoritative report of its kind."

Maybe the BBC's environment analyst, Roger Harrabin, who has no science degree but did study English at St Catharine's College, Cambridge would like to pass comment on the facts being revealed...

Keep an aye on Biased BBC for updates.

Gold update

2009-11-20T14:53:00.001Z

the BBC report that:

"The Royal Mint has more than quadrupled its production of gold coins in recent months, as the record price of the metal has caused demand to soar.

Its output of gold coins during July, August and September rose to 32,736 ounces, compared with 7,500 ounces for the same period last year.

On Wednesday, gold hit an all-time high of $1,152.75 an ounce, and has climbed more than 30% so far this year.

The Mint has also increased production of silver coins, up 56% in the quarter. "

Hyper inflation here we come.

All Hamas are saying is "give us a soldier"

2009-11-20T11:30:00.000Z

Berman Post report that:

"A charity run by the interior minister of Hamas has offered $1.4 Million for a captured Israeli soldier. Given how much they keep talking about wanting peace, I assume that they only want to talk to the soldier and then will let him go. You know, the way they are talking to Gilad Shalit."

Well that's where Israel's trading prisoners for a video of one captured soldier, Gilad Shalit, has got them. Now Hamas know that to get even more money and prisoners they need to capture more Israeli soldiers.

I expect the West's human rights organisations will be complaining about this tactic any moment...

Al Gore update

2009-11-20T09:15:00.004Z

I read that:

"This is big. Al Gore is now saying carbon dioxide isn’t actually to blame for most of the warming we saw until 2001:

Gore explored new studies - published only last week - that show methane and black carbon or soot had a far greater impact on global warming than previously thought. Carbon dioxide – while the focus of the politics of climate change – produces around 40% of the actual warming. Gore acknowledged to Newsweek that the findings could complicate efforts to build a political consensus around the need to limit carbon emissions.

Which suggests not only that was Gore wrong to claim the science was “settled”, but that the hugely expensive schemes to “stop” warming by slashing carbon dixoide emissions will be less than half as effective as claimed. "

Should anyone be surprised that Al Gore got the "science" of Climate Change so wrong, after all I read that :

"For all of Gore's later fascination with science and technology, he often struggled academically in those subjects. The political champion of the natural world received that sophomore D in Natural Sciences 6 (Man's Place in Nature) and then got a C-plus in Natural Sciences 118 his senior year."

I suppose that still makes him better qualified in science than the BBC's environment analyst Roger Harrabin who studied English at St Catharine's College, Cambridge.

Here's the science expert Al Gore in an interview with Conan O'Brien recently:

"Al: It definitely is, and it's a relatively new one. People think about geothermal energy -- when they think about it at all -- in terms of the hot water bubbling up in some places, but two kilometers or so down in most places there are these incredibly hot rocks, 'cause the interior of the earth is extremely hot, several million degrees, and the crust of the earth is hot"

Several million degrees, wow that's hot, like really hot; especially when you realise that the temperature at the surface of the sun is around 6,000 degrees celsius and the sun's core around 12,000 degrees celsius. According to what I have read the temperature of the Earth around two kilometres down is around 60 degrees celsius. The temperature at the earth's core is quoted as variously 5,000 degrees celsius or less or 9,000 degrees.

Al Gore - scientist, humanitarian, rich man - and getting richer all the time as his eco-companies rake in your taxes...

More on climate change lies later today, there's a lot around!

Compare and contrast - Hand of God and Hand of Frog

2009-11-20T08:59:00.002Z

Diega Maradonna's "Hand of God" goal and Thierry Henry's "Hand of Frog" goal

Even Barack Obama understands that there is a need for deficit reduction and maybe even tax cuts, any chance of Gordon Brown twigging this?

2009-11-19T21:00:00.000Z

The Guardian report that:

"Barack Obama has warned that the US economy could head into a “double-dip recession” unless urgent steps were taken to rein back America’s mounting levels of public debt.

With the US unemployment rate now running at 10.2 per cent, the President said his administration faced a delicate balance of trying to boost the economy and spur job creation while bringing the rising deficit and debt under control.

“I think it is important though to recognise that if we keep on adding to the debt, even in the midst of this recovery, that at some point, people could lose confidence in the US economy in a way that could actually lead to a double-dip recession.”

“One of the trickiest things we’re doing right now, is to on the one hand make sure the recovery is supported and not withdraw a lot of money either with tax increases or big spending ... at the same time, making sure that we’re setting up a pathway long term for deficit reduction,” he said. “It’s about as hard of a play as there is.

...

Mr Obama said that his administration is weighing tax breaks that could encourage businesses to begin hiring again.

“There may be some tax provisions that can encourage businesses to hire sooner rather than sitting on the sidelines. So we’re taking a look at those,” he said.
"

Meanwhile Société Générale, the French Bank, warned in a report entitled Worst-case debt scenario that current debt national levels, run up as a direct result of state stimulus packages, risked creating another crisis.

The underlying debt burden is greater than it was after the Second World War, when nominal levels looked similar. Ageing populations will make it harder to erode debt through growth. "High public debt looks entirely unsustainable in the long run. We have almost reached a point of no return for government debt," it said.

Depressed, you bloody well should be; the west's economies are shot to pieces and those of us in work, over the age of 40 and under the age of 70, will be paying off the debt for the rest of our working lives.

Democracy EU style (part 2)

2009-11-19T20:20:00.004Z

The unelected Labour peer Baroness Ashton has been selected as the EU's high representative of foreign affairs and security by the leaders of the EU's 27 member states at a meeting in Brussels.

Does anyone else feel that the way that a woman who has never been elected to a political position will now be one of the most powerful people in the EU is somewhat symbolic of the lack of democracy in the EU.

Let's look at Baroness Ashton's CV:
1977 to 1979 worked at the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament before being elected as its national treasurer and then a vice-chair. So the vice chair of CND whose organisation undermined western security is now nominally responsible for the EU's "Security", maybe Marxism has won...
1983 worked for the Social Work Training Council.
1983 to 1989 Director of Business in the Community working with business to tackle inequality
1998-2001 chaired the Health Authority in Hertfordshire and became a Vice President of the National Council for One Parent Families
June 2001 made a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Department for Education and Skills
2002 appointed minister for Sure Start in the same department
September 2004 made a Parliamentary Under-Secretary in the Department for Constitutional Affairs
2006 sworn into the Privy Council
May 2007 became Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the new Ministry of Justice
June 2007 Gordon Brown, appointed her to the Cabinet as Leader of the House of Lords and Lord President of the Council
3 October 2008 nominated as the UK's European Commissioner in the European Commission
November 2009, she became the first EU foreign minister

So the "noble lady" has managed to make it from working at CND to being High Representative of Foreign Affairs and Security without being democratically elected to any public office.

Isn't modern Labour and EU democracy simply marvellous, absolutely no need for elections at all. The people have no say, just the requirement to pay taxes and obey the multitude of laws introduced by their lords and masters.

Energy saving lightbulbs update

2009-11-19T20:10:00.000Z

It seems that not only are these new bulbs hideously expensive, contain poison, flicker annoyingly and cast an oddly hued light, they also "lose on average 22% of their brightness over their lifetime".

Thank you EU for imposing these bulbs on us in the name of preventing Climate Change. The public suffer because of your misplaced obsession with a nonsense theory.