April 22, 2010
One of the many tragic side effects of Nick Clegg’s brief rise to prominence is the havoc it has wreaked on Zac Goldsmith’s election prospects. The beaming, handsome, tree hugging gazillionaire now stands about as much as chance of winning his campaign seat Richmond Park as a baby snaildarter under a Chinese hydro-electric project. My spies in the borough report that his Lib Dem attack dog rival Susan Kramer is making all the running: (Hat tip: Guy Walters)
Richmond Park (LibDem). We have received a Susan Kramer leaflet almost every day for the last three months. Canvassers every weekend. Clegg spent all of Saturday at Kingston Hospital. Not much sign of Zac Goldsmith.
Some people, I know, will feel very sad about this. My famously heterosexual chum Rod Liddle, for example, has been known to talk about the golden Zac in the kind of terms Oscar Wilde might have reserved for Bosie. But speaking as a natural conservative, I couldn’t be more thrilled because in truth a man like Zac Goldsmith should never have been allowed anywhere near the Tory candidates’ list.
It’s not Goldsmith’s vast inherited wealth or the questions over his tax status that bother me. I’m all for people being rich. What I can never forgive in a rich person, though, is when he conspires with the state to pull up the drawbridge so that other people can’t get rich too. This, I’m quite sure, has never been Goldsmith’s intention. But it is an inevitable by-product of his green philosophy – which is essentially a form of Marxism in environmentalism’s garb.
Sure he talks a good game about microgeneration, feed-in-tariffs and Green jobs:
This transition is already happening. In the US, President Obama has promised to spend $150 billion over 10 years on green investment, creating 5m “green collar” jobs. South Korea, Japan and Spain are making similar moves, and in the private sector blue-chip companies have accepted that disregarding the environment is increasingly a financial risk. It’s not just about preparing for the worst, or doing “the right thing”. The transition itself will open windows of unprecedented opportunity. Who can doubt that, in the years to come, clean technology success stories will dominate The Sunday Times Rich list?
In most sectors, we can already see the alternatives, and they work: microgeneration of energy in Germany; combined heat and power plants in Copenhagen; zero-waste policies in Japan and New Zealand; regeneration of fish stocks in Central America; our own Eurostar. In the future, we will see “smart meters” that save money by letting customers know when electricity is cheaper in the day. These meters will be part of a “smart grid” to intelligently co-ordinate how we use new renewable power sources, to regulate supply and demand, and to help reduce greenhouse emissions. If we took the best of today in every sector and made it the norm tomorrow, we’d be halfway or further to our goal.
All of which sounds great till you look into it and find that for every Green job created by government intervention another 2.2 are lost in the real economy; that solar power has been a complete disaster for Germany; that the smart grid is never going to work.
It’s here, though that he gives the game away:
More than that, the government’s purely carbon-related approach does little to address our rapid shift from an era of abundance towards one of scarcity — a situation caused by a combination of huge population growth, insatiable human appetite for consumption, and an ever-shrinking resource base. Rational people know that, without a big shift, we are going to hit a wall. Yet that terrifying truth has almost no bearing on actual policy decisions. Why?
This – though politely phrased, sweetly expressed – is the philosophy of green Marxists everywhere. We must reduce consumption! Our resources are finite! Peak oil! The limits of growth! Government must act to create a new economic paradigm!
There will always be room in the Conservative movement for conservationists. As natural countrymen, sportsmen, animal lovers we’ve always been good at conserving our landscape, nurturing our environment. What we could do without is well-meaning rich kids plotting to wipe out the economy because of a problem that only exists in their pretty, spoilt, guilt-tripping heads. Their place is with the other unelectables: in the Green Party.
Related posts:
- Pope Catholic; Obama energy official profits from AGW
- Green jobs? Wot green jobs? (pt 242)
- Joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth
- The problem with God is He thinks He’s Bob Geldof
9 Responses to “Cameron’s favourite greenie Zac Goldsmith is toast”
an alarmist of the highest order. He has simply filed a suit for slander looking for,in my opinion , a fast buck from the national post.The article in question he is suing over, including by the way he says he is also suing to posters ,looks so contrived espicailly the posters replies . Google him find the article in the National post dated in Jan/2010. He is a petty climate scientist of the worse order .This is nothing more than a publicity stunt from a small man trying to gain recognition feeling frustrated over the ever growing awareness that AGW,MMGW or whatever else they wish to call this fantasy is nothing more than a frenzied religion pushed by the dogma of the enviromental movement .It has nothing to do with climate change and everything to do with cap and trade and carbon credits.
in my opinion as this fruitloop threatens to even sue posters.
By George Monbiot,The previous editorial team split with its founder Teddy Goldsmith after he addressed a meeting of the hard right Groupement de Recherche et d’Etudes pour la Civilisation Europeene. Goldsmith, whose politics are a curious mixture of radical and reactionary, has advocated the enforced separation of Tutsis and Hutus in Rwanda and Protestants and Catholics in Ulster, on the grounds that they constitute “distinct ethnic groups” and are thus culturally incapable of co-habitation.http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2002/04/30/black-shirts-in-green-trousersJonathan Freedland used very similar colour coded imagery to describe Zac, describing him as
“a Green & Blacks organic chocolate bar in human form ”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/09/smoothies-party-rich-tories-brand?showallcomments=true#end-of-comments
Edward Goldsmith was editor of the Ecologist and published Lovelock’s ecofascit Gaia material.
Zac’s father, the infamous Jimmy Goldsmith was accused of plotting to overthrow the Wilson government wit his eco nazi friend John Aspinall.
According to former MI5 officer Peter Wright, a group of his colleagues, including Margaret Thatcher’s mentor Airey Neave, began discussing a political coup. According to Wright, they believed that the Labour government had been infiltrated by the KGB and should be overthrown. He also claimed they were backed by a right-wing financier. Goldsmith always denied he put the money behind the group or discussed MI5 matters with former intelligence officers.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/jan/09/politics.past
John Aspinall
Some of us are now drawn to believe that a demo-catastrophe will be an eco-bonanza. In other words, a population readjustment on a planetary scale from 4000 million to something in the nature of 200 million would be the only possible solution for the survival of our species.and of the eco-system or systems that nurtured us.
http://tinyurl.com/ydgb2ed
More ecofascist links here
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/sealed/gw/greennazis.htm
History of carbon trading and big money support for global warming
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/sealed/gw/business.htm
Great blog, by the way. Unfair of you to use humour against little George Monbiot. He has no defence.