James Delingpole
(→Telegraph) |
|||
| Line 12: | Line 12: | ||
Unlike the [[Stopped clock|proverbial broken clock]], Delingpole appears to be wrong on anything he turns his attention to. At first sight, this would appear to be of great value in predicting the correctness of any given subject; however, browsing through the archive of his blogs shows that his wrongness is frequently so bizarre as to be unintelligible. | Unlike the [[Stopped clock|proverbial broken clock]], Delingpole appears to be wrong on anything he turns his attention to. At first sight, this would appear to be of great value in predicting the correctness of any given subject; however, browsing through the archive of his blogs shows that his wrongness is frequently so bizarre as to be unintelligible. | ||
| + | elegraph''== | ||
| + | He has a popular blog on the ''[[Daily Telegraph]]'' and labels himself as a "journalist and broadcaster who is right about everything" (possibly a misprint when it should be "right of everything"). He adopts an extremist liberta | ||
==''Spectator''== | ==''Spectator''== | ||
Revision as of 19:38, 7 February 2013
| Is it news? |
| Random articles |
| Resources |
| The Latest News |
James Delingpole is a right-wing British novelist and blogger. He identifies himself as "libertarian", which in his case seems to translate as free market and anti-science. He likes to describe himself as "writer", eschewing the more accurate term "blogger". Presumably because too many people associate the term with "ignorant tosser with big opinions and no knowledge", which is an uncannily accurate description in Delingpole's case.
Delingpole has appeared on Alex Jones' programme,[1] suggesting a willingness to accept paranoid and conspiratorial views of government. Subsequent delusional blogs - which he presumably views as "satire" - only reinforce this suspicion.[2]
Contents |
Telegraph
He has a popular blog on the Daily Telegraph and labels himself as a "journalist and broadcaster who is right about everything" (possibly a misprint when it should be "right of everything"). He adopts an extremist libertarian approach and tends to focus on climate change (e.g. describing scientists as lying and cheating because he wasn't capable of applying statistics properly[3]), various other anti-environmental subjects (DDT, for example), anything against the European Union and anything in favour of an untrammelled free market. He occasionally adds more personal posts such as his opinion on the closure of public libraries. Although in favour of public libraries in principle, they are clearly against the principles of the free market, so they can be closed.
Since most sensible people do not agree with his views, he frequently refers to non-sensible people to back him up. Thus, scientists are regarded as unreliable, while denier blogs such as Watts Up With That are praised as the future of advancement.
His writing style is racy, readable and incendiary. Combined with his list of accepted libertarian dogma and conspiracy theories, it seems he has looked at the lessons given by Glenn Beck, et al, and learned. Assuming he is serious, he is either madly deluded or has seen the money to be had from the stupid mines and wants some of it for himself.
Unlike the proverbial broken clock, Delingpole appears to be wrong on anything he turns his attention to. At first sight, this would appear to be of great value in predicting the correctness of any given subject; however, browsing through the archive of his blogs shows that his wrongness is frequently so bizarre as to be unintelligible. elegraph== He has a popular blog on the Daily Telegraph and labels himself as a "journalist and broadcaster who is right about everything" (possibly a misprint when it should be "right of everything"). He adopts an extremist liberta
Spectator
Delingpole has a fortnightly column in the Spectator magazine entitled You Know It Makes Sense, where he writes about current events, global warming, and himself. He also has a television review column in the same magazine, which he uses to write about himself and, if there is one on, documentaries about the Second World War. At one time he wrote another column for the Spectator entitled War Life, where he would interview an old ex-soldier and then write 800 words about himself; however, only a handful of editions were published before this column was dropped.
In February 2011, Delingpole wrote in the Spectator about his own positive experience with homeopathy, noting the contradiction between the remedies' efficacy in his own case and the admitted seeming illogicality of the 'science' behind it.
An inveterate self-googler, Delingpole will probably find this page eventually and, if there is sufficient abuse here at that point, complain and/or write a column about it.
BBC Horizon
Horizon is the flagship science programme of the BBC. In 2011, they aired a programme, "Science Under Attack". Understandably, they invited Delingpole as a representative of the anti-science faction. Delingpole, who doesn't know that he doesn't know anything about science - and presumably saw this as his ticket to becoming general spokesbeing on all things "sceptical" - readily accepted.
On the programme itself, when he was pitched against a real Nobel Prize winner, Professor Sir Paul Nurse, he came off second best.[4] He said that "it is not my job to sit down and read peer-reviewed papers." Fair enough - it's not my job anymore either. However, he admits that he doesn't "have the scientific expertise" to deal with the contents of the peer reviewed literature. Instead, he sees himself as an "interpreter of interpretations" when spreading ignorant bullshit about subjects that he doesn't understand and can't be bothered to find out about. He has since decided that peer review is nonsense anyway.[5]
Amusingly, he then whined on his blog at great length about being "stitched up".
Conspiracy on global warming
It is standard fare for climate change deniers to blame consensus on a conspiracy. To his credit, Delingpole has at least looked around enough to see who is behind this conspiracy. In his own words:[6]
"Heads are going to roll for this, they’ll have to. But however many heads do roll it won’t be enough. Always remember this: the Warmist faith so fervently held and promulgated by the Met Office is exactly the same faith so passionately, unswervingly followed by David Cameron, Chris Huhne, Greg Barker, the Coalition's energy spokesman in the Lords Lord Marland, and all but five members of the last parliament. And also by the BBC, the Prince of Wales, almost every national newspaper, the European Union, the Royal Society, the New York Times, CNBC, the Obama administration, the Australian and New Zealand governments, your children's schools, our major universities, our minor universities, the University of East Anglia, your local council...[his ellipsis]"
Pretty impressive list. However, after a bit of head-scratching,[7] he found some more:
Asda, Marks & Spencer, the Co-Op, Knight Frank, Boots, Aviva, and Sky.
Seemingly everybody in the world except Delingpole. This sort of ranting insanity and solipsism is actually typical of his output.
Watermelons
Not one for giving up on flogging tired tropes until they're beaten to a pulp, Delingpole decided to write a book called Watermelons.[9] Much of his subsequent blogging activity at the Telegraph involved thinly disguised adverts for his new opus.[10]
Political Career
On 12th September 2012, Delingpole announced[11] that he would be running for the 2012 Corby by-election to become member of paliament for the constituency. He whet voters' appetites by stating that he didn't want the job before announcing his candidacy.[12] Although mooted for fellow loons UKIP, he decided to stand as an independent candidate on the single-issue of wind farms (he's against them). With a grand total of zero wind turbines in the constituency, it is hard to see why he thought this might excite voters.
As usual with Delingpole, the whole stunt was just a bizarre fantasy with no action. On 31st October, he announced his withdrawal from the election.[13] The date is significant, since this was the deadline for nominations for the election, and - most importantly - the payment of a £500 election deposit. With a recent opinion poll giving him a whopping 0.1%,[14] he may have realised that he would be wasting his money. In addition, concrete evidence that people are not interested in him or his obsessions may have been a painful dose of reality for him to experience.
See also
External links
- Delingpole's blog
- Ode to James Delingpole
MoonbatMonbiot vs. Delingpole- Delingpole pwned by Sir Paul Nurse, but can the media convey science?
- James Delingpole blogs about Simon Singh
- Delingpole category at Hot Topic
Footnotes
- ↑ James Delingpole on Alex Jones Tv (part 1 of 5), video on the official Alex Jones YouTube channel
- ↑ Delingpole's Telegraph blog
- ↑ Lying, cheating climate scientists caught lying, cheating again
- ↑ Video snippet from the Horizon programme
- ↑ RealClimateGate Hits the Final Nail in the Coffin of Peer Review He included Scientific American in his list of "peer-reviewed journals". This is the lulz highlight in the article. The rest of the article is generally also wrong, but in a tediously stupid fashion.
- ↑ http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100069327/climate-change-there-just-arent-enough-bullets/
- ↑ Why I won't be shopping at M&S any more…
- ↑ Climategate: The Corruption of Wikipedia
- ↑ Watermelons: The Green Movement's True Colors
- ↑ See, for example, this or this or this or this etc.
- ↑ BBC News
- ↑ Corby - Should I Stand?
- ↑ Daily Telegraph In a blog post, he appears to suggest that not running for election is a victory. Strange indeed.
- ↑ Lord Ashcroft Polls