Bishop Hill The Lord's letterhead
Jun 10, 2010 Climate: Oxburgh Steve McIntyre has an amusing piece about the briefing letter written by Lord Oxburgh to Kerry Emanuel, one of the panellists on his inquiry into the science of CRU. Oxburgh seems to have given his address as "care of Lisa Williams at UEA" - Williams being someone in the vice-chancellor's office.
This does rather suggest a certain lack of independence by Lord O, but something else has caught the eye of the observant readers at Climate Audit - something that makes the story even stranger than it at first seems.
Reader "Mac" at CA makes the following comment:
It is against parliamentary rules to use parliamentary stationery for other than official business. Also the designs and symbols of parliament must not be used for purposes to which such authentication is inappropriate, or where there is a risk that their use might wrongly be regarded, or represented, as having the authority of parliament.
But now look at that logo again. Look at the really, really rubbish typography on the words "House of Lords". Look at how bad the coat of arms looks.
Now compare it to authentic House of Lords stationery. The difference isn't hard to spot is it?
It's interesting to speculate why Lord O or UEA would put together a dummy House of Lords letterhead. We know that peers are not allowed to use the letterhead on official Lords business, so its use as part of the UEA inquiry would be out of bounds, but why would they have gone to all the trouble of putting together a pretend letterhead and then make such a risibly poor job of it? Just to impress the colonials?
Bishop Hill
No. I'm wrong. See updated post here.
Reader Comments (32)
SECOND REPORT OF SESSION 2009-10 FROM THE HOUSE COMMITTEE
RULES GOVERNING THE USE OF FACILITIES
House of Lords logo
12. Save for the provision set out in the guidance on the use of House of Lords headed paper and envelopes, the House of Lords logo should be used by Members for purposes relating to the discharge of their Parliamentary duties only, and for no other purpose. Members should take care in ensuring that the House of Lords logo is not used in such a way that might bring discredit upon the House.
Anoneumouse
But wouldn't the argument be that this is not the HoL logo?
The logo as depicted is a negative image of the original logo (i.e bastardised). E.g. it is being used in such a way that might bring discredit upon the House.
BH: But wouldn't the argument be that this is not the HoL logo?
Even if it's a fake, rather than the real thing being misused, I doubt that that would cut much ice.
There must be a pretty standard set of legal rules about the use of fake logos - maybe a lawyer reading this will tell us what's what.
We suspect that such an egregiously phony letterhead is merely a social-climbing reflex on the part of egotistic parvenus, dwellers in proctocranials' primordial ooze-- we know their kind.
I'm pretty sure that the rules regarding coats of arms work on the basis that if something looks like a coat of arms, then it is deemed to be one; and coats of arms cannot be displayed, as logos or anything else, unless 'approved' by the Heralds Office (or whatever it's called). So if Lord Oxburgh isn't guilty of misuse of the HoL arms, then he would seem to be guilty of using a coat of arms that isn't approved - unless, by some remarkable coincidence, the outline of his own coat or arms is identical to that of the HoL's.
Such an amateur imitation of the logo calls to mind the joke from the old Soviet collective: "We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us." Is this what it has come to? "We pretend to do climate science and they pretend to investigate us." Sounds about right.
@ BH
The House of Lords Logo is actually the Royal Arms
Trade Marks Act 1994
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1994/ukpga_19940026_en_1
Unauthorised use of Royal arms, &c
(1) A person shall not without the authority of Her Majesty use in connection with any business the Royal arms (or arms so closely resembling the Royal arms as to be calculated to deceive) in such manner as to be calculated to lead to the belief that he is duly authorised to use the Royal arms.
Richard Drake,
"We pretend to do climate science and they pretend to investigate us."
That is priceless! Thank Gaia I wasn't drinking coffee at the time.
Cheers!
The Coat of Many Arms.
============
I can't claim any special expertise in British law, but in American trademark law, the test for whether something is an infringement is whether it creates a likelihood of confusion. There's also a rarely-used provision for genuine counterfeits (to coin a term). It addresses cases in which the similarity is, rather than an innocent dispute about who has better rights to a mark, one in which a party is deliberately attempting to trade upon the reputation of the rightful mark holder. My guess is that I could win a case for trademark counterfeiting against the rubish mark, here, under American law. But again, standards may be quite different in the UK, especially since many coats of arms are nearly impossible to distinguish at first glance, if you don't know what you're looking for (and, btw, "if you know what you're looking for" is decidedly against the standard under American TM law). Heck, I think the coat of arms for the Houses of Plantagenet and York are even closer.
I think the toilet seat in the centre of the coat of arms could be mistaken for a shield, but the whole design is a unique symbol of the person.
Why doesn't someone ask Lord Oxburgh directly if that's the House of Lords letterhead? No matter the answer -- yes, no, no comment -- it will produce something worth following up on.
Is there no mischief that will be prosecuted over there?
Wow, this is a rather deluded assessment of what has most likely happened...
If you look back at the Climate Audit post, you can pretty easily see that the image was scaled using some web programming, rather than actually scaling the image through PhotoShop or some equivalent photo manipulation program. Thus, the quality is greatly reduced. You can compare to the full sized image through the obvious link on the image of just by scrolling down.
But that doesn't fit all too well into conspiracy theories, does it?
Thants
If it is the genuine HoL logo, as you suggest, then Lord O is guilty of using the logo for non-HoL purposes. Perhaps you should report him to the authorities?
@Unimpressed in the colonies: "Is there no mischief that will be prosecuted over there?"
No, at least not when it comes to politics.
We used to wonder how many honest men there were in parliament. The expenses revelations suggest there were, prior to our recent election, about 4 out of 649.
Sebastian Weetabix: 4 out of 649
Roughly the same number that voted against the Climate Change Act 2008 then...
You can fool too many of the people too much of the time
James Thurber
Rees, Oxburgh, Acton...: is there no end to this parade of plonkers?
"If you can fool some of the people some of the time, it's usually adequate!"
Anon.
maybe "Is any mischief prosecuted over there?"
my earlier bungled syntax suggests that I might not have needed to refer to the colonies.
Making fake letterheads and seals used to be the exclusively within the purview of Nigerian e-mail scammers.
Interesting to see to what level these British establishment figures can be compared.
Thants: "Wow, this is a rather deluded assessment of what has most likely happened..."
Wow that's spectacularly missing the point.
It's less the quality of the fake logo - which still looks third-rate on the link you mention anyway - than the fact that no-one was entitled to use it in that context at all.
While I now drink wine and the the blond in the black skirt (I can actually get half-way decent Guinness in California, but not as good as in Ireland) I use to be big on various whiskeys and I could swear that I have seen that seal on a bottle of whiskey for sure. Probably a blended scotch meant for export to the Asian market. Are you sure you didn't get a label from such a bottle?
Don Pablo, If the whisky company has an official appointment to supply a senior member of the royal house, such as the Queen, then the royal coat of arms may appear on the bottle. A photo of 'The Famous Grouse' whisky from Scotland is linked http://www.beveragewarehouse.com/images/products/1363.jpg .
Check out the latest CA post, which is quite devastating.
SM has emails from FOI that show that the papers were indeed selected by UEA, but Oxburgh wanted to pretend that they were selected 'on the advice of the RS' as it says in the "report". Rees was happy to go along with this charade.
** Pedantry Alert **
Don Pablo... Most rare to see an error in your writings - the Scots don't make "whiskey", they make "whisky". :-)
If Lord O claims ignorance, & suggests that this was done by UEA, then he is incompetent. If he knew about it, he is arrogant. No surprise there then.
To our unimpressed colonial, (we should never have let those Virginian Colonies go) the power is immense & all but total, it therefore corrupts. Besides, our Provincial Council in Westminster dances to a different tune played elsewhere as we apparently live in a "post-democratic" world. ! Vive la PDR of EU!
See the update to this post.
Don Pablo, If the whisky company has an official appointment to supply a senior member of the royal house, such as the Queen, then the royal coat of arms may appear on the bottle.
Then it would appear that the House of Lords needs a better source of booze. :)
the Scots don't make "whiskey", they make "whisky"
Sorry about that, but me spelling checker is in "Merican" mode. :)
The logo is AUTHENTIC as is the text "House of Lords" under the Coat of Arms, although I am not able to name the font type.
The reason it may look so shoddy in the image at the top on these pages is due to the image having been produced in black and white.
The original letter head, known as Cameo, will clearly show the arms in better detail.
The arms are embossed onto the cream paper in a red printed oval background.