Several heatwaves ago, in late June, I wrote a piece called
The Daily Hate Mail: examining the best climate denial they can do these days.
I also intended to populate “the Daily Mail – how it works” page, but didn’t. There is now, however, a bit of content there. (Also, a link to a long-read by Andy Beckett).
Anyway, I am back for more with some comments (not really at the level of analysis, because life is short) about Richard Littlejohn’s latest contribution to world wisdom – “How eco zealots are to blame for Burn Baby Burnham Britain…”
At the end, I propose a new verb.
The Littlejohn piece is fascinating not for what it says and invokes (more of that momentarily) but for what it DOESN’T. In a full page column Littlejohn manages to avoid using either the phrase “carbon dioxide” or even “climate,” while purporting to offer readers new insights into what is going wrong with the UK’s ecosystems. It’s quite an achievement, and gives us this new tile – “ignore the science.”
For the rest of it, it’s the usual mix of gish galloping (throwing out so many whatabouteries that no response can be given), (en)forced jocularity and bonhomie, appeals to “common sense”, dogwhistles to World War Two (“guilty men“) and so on. I do think the Mail could save a lot of money and just get an AI bot to churn out these columns in the Littlejohn “style.”
There’s endless references to “eco-zealots”, “dysfunctional bureaucracies staffed exclusively by urban, green zealots in Birkenstock sandals”, “mile upon mile of monstrous pylons”, “carpeting valuable farmland with Chinese-made solar panels which are utterly useless when the sun don’t shine”, “rewilding fanatics”, and, of course “loony left councils.”
Some “funny” hyperbole is given to grateful readers.”
“It can only be a matter of time, before this madcap policy extends to those remaining recreation grounds and sports fields which haven’t been sold off to developers for housing.
How long before they get round to cricket pitches? If Beefy Botham was bowling from the Pavilion End at Lord’s these days, he’d have to fight his way through thickets of weeds and long grass, taking extra care not to run into one of the goats hired to maintain the outfield.”
Oh, that one is a thigh-slapper. Huzzah!
So, finally, the promised proposed verb.
To littlejohn, v. To spew out vituperation, anecdotes and poorly sourced factoids while avoiding the central underlying causes of the problems you purport to address, and then invoking an “obvious” solution full of its own problems.
For other Daily Mail techniques (not a complete list yet!) see here.
UPDATE – this is nice from Another Angry Voice
Another Angry Voice
2d ·
“Rewilding link to record wildfires” blares the front page Daily Mail headline.
Even if your scepticism alarm isn’t triggered by the fact it’s the Daily Mail, anyone who knows anything about rewilding is sure to wonder how the Daily Mail has reached such a conclusion.
One of the main objectives of rewilding is restoration of land and waterways to retain more water.
Stuff like reintroduction of beavers to build dams and pools; restoring wetlands; and reintroducing woodland in upland areas to retain more water and prevent flash flooding.
It’s hard to see how a policy of re-wetting the British landscape and slowing water runoff, could lead to more wildfires … unless … the Daily Mail are being deliberately misleading.
The article cites three sources to back up their lurid headline that blames “rewilding” for the record number of wildfires this year (rather than record high temperatures and record low rainfall).
Country Land and Business Association – a landowner lobbying group
The Countryside Alliance – a farmer’s lobbying group
Ian Botham – “the lazy lord”
Not a single one of these cited sources actually makes the claim that “rewilding” is to blame for the wildfires.
What they all complain about is the ban on “controlled burning” of the hundreds of thousands of acres of British uplands that are used (wasted) as grouse hunting moors.
The CLBA spokesperson criticises government ministers for making it “harder for land managers to carry out … controlled burning”.
The Countryside Alliance complain that the government has “more than trebled the area over which the controlled burning of vegetation is effectively banned in our uplands”.
And Ian “lazy lord” Botham accuses DEFRA of “reckless incompetence” over the restrictions on burning off heather.
The policy of restricting moorland burns has nothing to do with “rewilding”. If we actually listen to what rewilders say (like the Daily Mail studiously refused to) they’d argue that grouse moors should be replaced with upland forests. Not pine forestry monocultures either. Proper British forests, populated by native species. The kind of upland rainforests that existed before our ancestors burned them off and created the barren moorlands that exist today.
Actual rewilders say that we should replace grouse moors with temperate rainforest to retain more water, and the government has restricted the amount of grouse moorland that can be burned off, and the Daily Mail is pretending that the two things are the same.
It’s a convenient fiction to pretend that “rewilders” who say the barren uplands need to be restored to temperate rainforest, are responsible for wildfires on the barren upland grouse moors this summer.
It’s obvious that organisations like the CLBA and the Countryside Alliance, who represent the interests of the British grouse hunting industry, are up in arms about government restrictions on their practice of burning off swathes of moorland every year, but they’d be even more opposed to the idea that grouse moors should be replaced with the kind of natural temperate rainforest that existed before humans destroyed them.
They want to keep the moors barren, so rich toffs can go up and shoot birds for fun, and if they can get the Daily mail to blame the wildfires on people who say the barren grouse moors should be restored to temperate rainforest, good for them, right?
Ian Botham is a game shooter and owns a grouse moor in North Yorkshire. A massive conflict of interests that the Daily Mail “forgot” to mention in their article.