The battle for freedom and opportunity
is never finally won.

Via The Australian:

Lord Lawson, 79, has long been an outspoken critic of the direction of climate change politics, doubting the ability of world leaders to agree on co-ordinated action, instead favouring adaptation and development of new technologies to replace carbon-intensive power generation.

Comments in Australia about Baroness Thatcher’s position as one of the pioneers of action against climate change were “not an accurate portrayal”, he said.

“I was as close to Margaret Thatcher as anybody at the time. The fact is initially she felt this issue needed to be looked into, but she was agnostic as to whether it was a serious problem or not.

“She was instrumental in having the IPCC set up, but it has changed greatly from what she intended as a fact finding organisation to become a lobby group.”

Lord Lawson said Baroness Thatcher made her position clear in her memoirs and her later book Statecraft.

“She did have reason for highlighting the possibility of global warming because the biggest threat to the UK energy security at the time was the stranglehold the Marxist National Union of Mine Workers had on the coal industry.

“She felt Britain should not be so dependent on coal. She was in favour of building up nuclear energy to break the dependence on coal and the main opposition to nuclear came from the environment movement. Mrs Thatcher thought she could trap them with the carbon emissions argument.”

So here I am,  back online in our new High Wycombe home, just in time for this revolt against reason:

Following the ‘climategate scandal’, Mr Blair said the science may not be “as certain as its proponents allege”.

But he said the world should act as a precaution against floods, droughts and mass extinction caused by climate change, in fact it would be “grossly irresponsible” not to.

If I understand Blair correctly, he is following up his recent assertion of the form ‘we were right to go to war, irrespective of the facts’ with an assertion that ‘we should intervene heavily in the operation of society, irrespective of the facts’. This is sheer ideology: why not extend this philosophy to every social problem? I suspect he would answer, “Why not indeed?”

I am put in mind of my favourite philosopher, Karl Popper, who lived through mankind’s greatest period of social planning, with all the misery it entailed:

I see now more clearly than ever before that even our greatest troubles spring from something that is as admirable and sound as it is dangerous — from our impatience to better the lot of our fellows.

And:

We must plan for freedom, and not only for security, if for no other reason than only freedom can make security more secure.

Not forgetting:

It seems to me certain that more people are killed out of righteous stupidity than out of wickedness.

Popper began of course, like Hayek, as a socialist. He simply came to his senses when he saw what it entailed.

A week or so ago, my wife and I had lunch in High Wycombe’s noodle bar. I struck up a conversation with the young waiter – I forget how it began – and found myself answering his complaint that he didn’t know what politics was about with, “It’s about whether we should have a planned or a free society.” He answered, “I know what I want, but I don’t know who will give it to me.” I explained that a vote for me is a vote for a free society, which lifted his spirits.

What a pass we have come to if the young think there is no hope for a free society. What would our grandparents say, after all they went through?