Deben's new witchhunt

Apr 22, 2015
Bishop Hill in Conservatives, Deben

Readers may be aware that Bjorn Lomborg has been lucky enough to win a significant tranche of funding for his think tank from the Australian government, a story that was widely reported at the end of last week.

The result, I suppose, was inevitable and it seems that a new witchhunt has been launched by the illiberal left. At the forefront is our very own Lord Deben:

.@Thom_Mitchell @marxdeane Surely no responsible academic institution would connive at this blatant bias against science?

— John Deben (@lorddeben) April 22, 2015

This displays many of the hallmarks of the great Lord Deb. It is well known that Lomborg accepts all of mainstream climate science as gospel - his work is focused on climate policy and more specifically considers how spending on climate issues should rank compared to spending on other matters. Deben is therefore fairly nakedly fabricating a false allegation that the Dane thinks otherwise. The other way that this tweet epitomises Deben's malign influence on the climate debate is the immediate attempt to destroy Lomborg's livelihood. Deben has no arguments to put forward, no case to make. He simply wants dissent silenced.

You can't imagine ever voting for a party that had Deben in it, can you?

Article originally appeared on (http://www.bishop-hill.net/).