While he was in post as Special Adviser on Climate Change at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, John Ashton kept a relatively low profile. For someone of such (how to put this politely?) eccentric views, this was probably a wise move, and helpful to his boss, William Hague.
However, Ashton has now moved on, and is positively flaunting his intellectual weirdness. Just take a look at the diatribe he launched at the head of Shell recently:
There is a touch of narcissism in the story of your face.
The paranoiac fears conspiracies that do not exist. You fear a non-existent conspiracy to bring about your sudden death.
There is a touch of paranoia in the story of your face.
The psychopath displays inflated self-appraisal, lack of empathy, and a tendency to squash those who block the way.
...
The high carbon, resource-profligate modernity you helped build is a new Babylon. Every bite from its fruit poisons the tree from which we pluck it.
King Belshazzar of Babylon plundered goblets of gold from the Temple of Solomon. We take our plunder from an ecological fabric we no longer recognize as our first Temple. But if it crumbles we die both in body and in spirit.
I could go on; there's much more in the same vein. It's actually rather scary.
How on earth did the Conservative party end up thinking that this man should be a top adviser to the government?