I was surprised to receive an email from the BBC after my interview on Monday of last week. It asked me to prove that German carbon dioxide emissions were twice as large as the UK’s,  a claim I made in  my interview. I was surprised because I would expect the BBC to know the main sources of carbon dioxide emissions worldwide as practically every BBC news show and comment show has to have a climate change item on it these days. I sent him back  couple of sources that a simple google search  yielded. I had of course checked my recollections of the numbers before doing the interview so I knew they were correct. He expressed no interest in my allegations about China which accounts for around 27 times as much CO2 output as the UK.

He returned to the issue having consulted someone else to point out that if you looked at consumption patterns rather than at where fuel was burned and  things made the Uk would have a worse figure and Germany as  a leading exporter of carbon dioxide drenched products would have a bit better figure by transferring some of their CO2 to the importing country. Germany would of course still be the larger emitter.  I explained that I was talking about COP 26 and the global Treaty framework. The whole basis of the international conferences is to get countries to pledge to cut the CO2 that is generated on their territory, as that is more subject to their control. Surely  the expression Germany’s CO2 output means just that, the CO2 they produce.

He agreed that the figures used were correct but felt he needed to write an additional essay about how perhaps we should use consumption based figures instead of the agreed international output based figures. I objected to this being done in  the name of a fact check on what I had said when it was obvious I had cited accurate normal figures. Nonetheless the BBC fact check then posted a long essay which did begin by quoting another source to show my figures were accurate before going  into a long apology for Germany and a representation of figures to cast Germany in a  better light. Why? Why does Germany have to be protected when her business model includes digging out plenty of brown coal and burning it, and producing millions of fossil fuel burning vehicles. In contrast the UK has all but phased out coal from the mix. Why no mention of Germany’s rows over extending open cast coal mining, her refusal to eliminate coal  this decade, and no mention of China, the world’s largest carbon dioxide producer?

I wrote about this brewing crisis recently and have tweeted about the dangers of the unduly hasty US withdrawal . I will return to this topic with a longer piece on Wednesday morning ahead of the Parliamentary debate. I am putting out this bookmark so those of you who want to write about it have a tag to do so.

Readers of this blog may be interested to see my recent interview on GB News:

I have sent the following letter and await a reply:

Dear Archbishop

I was pleased to hear reported your view that there needs to be more recognition of England and Englishness to complement the recognition of Scottish and Welsh cultures and interests within the UK Union.

I was not however persuaded that you do understand the nature of the English view when you went on to propose the international and EU elite solution to the English problem, more devolution to regions. England has rejected EU/Whitehall proposals to create artificial regions with elected governments. Many of us resented the way the EU refused to put England on their maps but broke us up into unpopular Euro regions. We were relieved they  allowed Scotland and Wales to escape whole and unscathed. We are  now concerned about the EU’s aggressive approach to Northern Ireland.

I would be happy to debate these matters with you to extend understanding of England and Englishness within the UK and to expose lopsided and unfair devolution. There could be an online  debate  or we could book a room at Westminster with an audience if rules allow.

Yours sincerely

John Redwood

The digital revolution sweeps on. Much  of it is miracle technology that makes lives easier and better. It is transforming shopping, entertainment, media and much else.

Parts of the public sector though are making technology into a  misery machine to spy on us , infuriate us and thwart us. Let us take the NHS CV 19 app and proof of vaccination which we now have to show in order to attend certain events. We all have a perfectly good card with our name on it and the schedule of vaccines administered with dates on them. Why can’t I just show that? When I came to print out the computer record as requested I found I could not read and check the computer record because it was encrypted in a scan code.I have no idea what it says and so do not know if it is accurate. I had to go through a duo access procedure which did not work at all on the first two occasions I tried. Eventually I was able to  print out a scan code but the paper also then said it was only valid for two days although the explanatory note said it would be for a month. As I was preparing  diary items a week in advance it meant I had to go through the palaver the night before the event again!I dread to think how much we taxpayers had to pay for such a poor and pointless service.

The other day I had to park in a different Council area to my own in west London. The Council had blocked many of the streets permanently and several temporarily so it was difficult accessing the on street parking  and I like most of the traffic had to spend a long time crawling  and stopping in congestion on the main roads. When I eventually found a surprising three slots empty for two hours next to a ticket machine I was overjoyed, only  to find the machine said it was not functioning. Like others I was too afraid of tow away and of high fines for not paying  so I carried on circulating.
Eventually I found a single slot. It said I had to pay by phone. I rang the number . I was told I had to download an app. I did so. That told me I had to register. I did so answering a range of questions about me and the phone. Then it asked me details about the parking. I supplied those. Then it told me I had not supplied details of the car so I had to go back to registration to do that. It eventually let me specify the parking I wanted to do. The guide to the parking was ambiguous about hours and prices.  I guessed a time I wanted, only then to discover after 10 mins the parking would   be free all evening. I ended up paying  £1 for the ten minutes and had peace of mind that I had complied.All this  had to done on a tiny phone screen which was difficult to read in sunlight. It was so much easier when you simply put coins into a ticket machine.

Wouldn’t  it be a good idea if these public services thought more about the convenience  of the users. Will you write in with your examples of bad service from the public sector?