Election Comment... has been somewhat lacking from this blog so far.
Well, on this blogger's part there was a little sharp intake of breath as the Conservatives went into the campaign putting pressure on Labour, albeit having to ride their gaffes as they did so. Would it work? I wondered. Were all the people I admired wrong in considering Howard a duffer in a lawyer's guise, possessing only the patina of well-heeled experience in high places, rather than the judgement needed to expose the Blairmonster?

Well, there is something like this Larkin poem about the Conservative's campaign, and even US Conservatives don't know who to root for (unless it's Blair). Even Steyn would vote for the big B's grinning mug (and it has to be said Howard is wrong to attack on the smug smile front as he looks every inch as smug in his own way)

To top that off, the polls show a general Conservative slum of percentages huddled bleakly at around the 30 mark (well, a little above, being charitable). This despite the fact that I'd say the 'base', so-called, is fairly well motivated.

Melanie Phillips has been lambasting Howard for months and months, especially over his Iraq war opportunism, and I think she's taken time out from Howard bashing (being, as she is -I believe- a Conservative at heart) to lambast Blair for his unwillingness to take on his critics over the war. She's right there too, though I think the whole phenomenon Howard has failed to understand, completely, and Blair has failed to take to heart, is that the party that will succeed in changing this country in a genuine way is the one which stands up and argues with the British people, as it were, man-to-man, as fellow adults, with adult complexity. Naivity, perhaps, you may say- but courage and naivity often appear the same when we're trapped in a cycle of cravenness.

Serial abuser Bolton

It must be the way he looks or something -perhaps he cuts his own hair- but everyone has it in for John Bolton, President Bush's nominee for UN ambassador.

As Mark Steyn points out, he's been accused of grave offences such as standing with hands on hips.

Maybe a bit camp, but does it warrant the Beeb's parroting of his proposed status as 'serial abuser'? I quote:

'When asked by correspondents whether accusations that he was a serial abuser stood up, she [Condi Rice] said: "It's certainly not the John Bolton that I know or that a lot of other people know."'

Indeed. The Beeb's list of accusations is about as devastating as the crushing 'hand on hips' episode. I only hope I never make anyone that angry.

Through a glass, darkly.

Forgive my attempt to beef up my headlines after some lame ones recently, but the thought occurred to me that if the BBC consider a Eurosocialist EUtopia to be their idea of heaven, in only makes sense for them to report it as though partiality in their coverage was natural.

Paul Reynolds has an article about the EU Constitution which majors on the contrast between the French and British approaches to business highlighted by the demise of Rover. I thought Steyn summed up the British attitude perfectly when he said 'I would hazard that most Britons psychologically closed down Longbridge a generation back.', and followed it up well when he said 'Permanence is the illusion of every age'.

Indeed. And we Brits, while accepting the latter point and preparing for the consequences using the former strategy, have tended to tolerate any kind of Canute (eg. Phoenix) who promised to stop the tide of history and maintain prestige ventures like MGRover.

It's therefore impossible to go along with Reynolds' idealised notion that somehow our attitude is that 'For the UK it is a matter of regret that the last major British manufacturer has gone, but it is not a matter that will change government policy. The market has spoken and the market must decide.'

The fact that we are not oriented the way the French are doesn't mean that the market is somehow rampant in the UK (don't forget Mr Reynolds that we are part of the EU). To say so seems disingenuous.

As the EUserf points out covering similar territory, 'Companies need to be protected alright, but not from the competition. Rather they need protection from the ravages of rapacious tax collectors and regulation wielding Eurocrats.'

In his article Reynolds goes on to make a list of the things the French are doing better than we are, including the openness of their debate on the European Constitution. Amongst the nuggets, 'Few people in London know that their supplier, EDF, is actually Electricite de France.'. Speaking as a regular payer of Wanadoo internet charges, I know exactly what I pay the French on a regular basis, and though I don't pay EDF for my electricity I knew that Londoners do.

But what's missing from Reynolds' little fit of brand-envying prose is the fact that despite these wonderful headline names France can still boast unemployment of ten percent. This contrasts sharply to Britain's economy, denuded though it is of brand manufacturers- though, having said that I expect that Mr Brown has fed in enough fat tissue to the economy to see the British unemployment wasteline grown considerably in the coming years (it's already starting).

For Reynolds, the reason for the French opposition to the EU Constitution lies in the perception 'that free market doctrines are embedded in the new treaty in a way that makes the kind of social and industrial policy that is such a feature of French life much more difficult to pursue.'

For me, meanwhile, the reason for the French intransigence is their confidence that they are the arbiters of the future of Europe, and their conviction that (given the servility of British Pols to the Euro-agenda) they could soak the Brits a bit more and gain more accommodations for the various 'features' of French life that they hold dear.

But anyway, EURef gives a list of real rather than existential incursions into British economic freedoms, starting with one that directly impacted Rover's sustainability. While Britain grins and bears the ministrations of a statist system modelled on France's economic strategy, France seeks to make sure the project doesn't depart from the script.

Funnily enough Reynolds didn't put it quite that way. We'll just have to wait until we get to heaven. Update: the Rottweiler Puppy weighs in.

Setting Annan straight. While the BBC employs its old Punch and Judy tactic regarding international disputes where it would rather not see moral clarity emerge, The Washington Times offers the critical US-UK responses to Annan's attempt to fling a little mud in the 'international community's' eyes.

Key points:

'British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Britain was "consistently in the lead in seeking to enforce sanctions against Iraq" ... "There were no occasions, which we can recall, on which the United Nations made representations to the United Kingdom" regarding smuggling activities'

'exemptions from U.N. sanctions that were granted to Turkey and Jordan had been implemented with the full knowledge of the U.N. Sanctions Committee and other U.N. bodies and officials.'

You know, that's really game over, isn't it? I know of no real contradictory arguments. We would be left contemplating Koffi's moral/political failures.

So what do the Beeb consider the proper continuation of the fight Annan picked to coincide with the indictment of some of the few US connectors to Oil for Food?

Oh yes, Mr Punch, it's 'UN must reform or die, says Rice'

Not that I really disagree with the sentiments of Ms Rice, but it is the Beeb's habit to seek a mudslinging session when a clear view would see their chosen ones (and if ever there was a chosen one it was Koffi) deselected by history.

Just a post to note the absurd BBC policy of soft-pedalling the Oil-for-Food scandal until they can make it a partisan 'them and us', US/UK vs the decent chaps just doing their transnational duty etc etc. Such dishonesty is sickening, and Koffi, like one of those slapstick comedians in old Western comedies, crawls out from the melee he's encouraged on his dirty hands and knees. I noted a couple of related articles in the post below (maybe even the one above is an updated form of one of them), where the Beeb were building a little bandwagon of blame to counteract what they habitually term the 'hostility' of the US to the UN.

To be honest it doesn't matter if the US were letting Saddam get away with smuggling, to some degree. Let's see: they ejected him from Kuwait a the cost of US lives; they policed his dangerous territory at the cost of a permanent presence there. What did the UN ever give? What right had it to make strategic decisions? yet they were doing just that, and for profit. Surely the crucial point is that Saddam's sources of money went far beyond the US's ability to control them, significantly due the UN's incompetence and criminality. Consequently the threat Saddam posed was being bumped up by UN actions and UN inaction. Reason enough to sack Koffi.

Simply superb: Steyn on the future, in the Speccie. What can I say? I agree with every word. I'll link the print version too, as it's an article that deserves to be read whole. He picks out so many of the telling instances that epitomise the looming realities that are making so much of the current baggage of thought that passes for politics in the UK just that: baggage.

To give one example, I'm sure a lot of people noticed an appalling 'Christian' Aid advert recently. Well, Natalie Solent noticed it. Steyn says:

'in the Guardian last week, Christian Aid took out the following advertisement: ‘It’s not called slavery nowadays. It’s called free trade.’

Yeah, sure. I’d love to email to India the CAT-scan of whichever Christian Aid wallah thought that would work, even as overheated rhetoric. The popular British ‘charity’ is campaigning for what it calls ‘trade justice’: ‘Poor countries must be given the freedom to help their own farmers and industries.’ By ‘poor countries’ they mean the dictators and crooks and incompetents who run ‘poor countries’; by ‘given the freedom to help’ they mean encouraged in the delusions that have made ‘poor countries’ out of once prosperous territories.'

So, what we can say is that whatever is the right thing to do by the developing world- or whatever the latest apologetic term is- we're not doing it by placing our trust in the likes of Christian Aid, and we're not doing it by trusting State proxies, or the nice GDP percentage targets of aid that everyone murmurs assent to, from Left and Right alike in British politics.

Moreover, we're not learning about that failure from the BBC- quite the opposite. They tell us about capitalist criminality, the failure of UK and US politicians, the outdatedness of global corporations (a photo-article, unavailable to links, asked the question, 'is the Burger giant showing its age?'): you name it, anything but the real waste of western wealth and western advantages that the statist projects of western nations entail.

Podhoretz versus the Beeb:

Says the Beeb:

'Mr Sharon said Maale Adumim "would be part of Israel" and that there ought to be "contiguity between Maale Adumim and Jerusalem."'

'The international community considers all settlements in Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, as illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this.'

Says Podhoretz:

'With Israel's successful defeat of the Palestinian intifada, the death of Yasser Arafat and Sharon's stunning decision to cede Gaza to the Palestinian Authority, the terms of the discussion between the two parties have changed entirely.

The astonishing changes on the ground over the past 18 months are creating a new political dynamic between Israel and the Palestinians. The effort on the part of the press, the pundits and the Europeans to make the theoretical Maale Adumim issue a major scandal is an effort to deny the existence of this new political dynamic.'

Let's see now; which one seems to be carrying the news, and which seems about as relevant as an aged Metternich bleating on about the Congress of Vienna?

Political limbo dancing: how low can they go?

Pols behaving despicably. For every pseudo-example of the politics of the gutter, such as when Michael Howard raises the question of UK immigration, there are many more examples of the real thing which happen when no one is paying attention.

The basic definition of gutter politics I'd offer is that it's politics which puts lives at stake for the sake of personal satisfaction.

The sharp intake of breath taken by liberals when they heard whisperings that Bush was pursuing his aggressive War on Terror strategy 'because he could', ie. because of the US' power and unique position, was the sound of affronted hyprocrites.

The reality is the Left does everything it does because it can, and thirsts to do more whenever it can.

John Kerry, for instance, is talking about intimidation at the US polls, claiming his voters were cowed by Republican rottweilers- because he can- despite the fact that he knows well what use his words will be put to in the prejudiced and propagandised world media. American lives may be lost due to the perception he fosters of American corruption. Kerry talks of having 'no magic wand' to end this corruption (though he has a magic hat, as we know), but I am just struck with a saying such as 'once a traitor, always a traitor', to sum the Senator up (Chrenkoff also reports)

Oona King, in the UK, is facing a torrent of abuse and pressure from anti-war 'ethnic communities'- despite her own ethnicity, and, certainly in part, because she's Jewish. George Galloway is opposing her in her constituency, playing on all these factors to gain personal revenge for his near-brush with political extinction, and lucrative notoriety- because he can (because no one saw fit to put him behind bars already). In so doing he is stirring the anti-Semitism which endangers Jewish lives everywhere, and stoking the Jihadic drive which endangers us all. (Arthur Chrenkoff also reports)

The BBC are questioning the anti-Aids strategy of perhaps the only good example of a country that has combatted the disease effectively: Uganda. Where is the sense in that, when Mbeki's gross ignorance and stupidity in allowing the disease to take hold in Southern Africa is the continent's big political story, allied to his tolerance of the stinkingly flea-bitten and diseased Mugabe regime? Why are they doing this kind of journalism? Let Uganda tinker with its policy however it wants since at least it has a successful policy to tinker with. The Beeb are doing this kind of journalism, in fact, to satisfy anti-religious and anti-US prejudice- because they can, having been given the carte blanche of the licence fee for another ten years.

French Chauvinism

While in perfect nuLabour Britain we're supposed not to have any illicit stirrings of nostalgia in the nether-regions of our hearts and minds for British power and influence (maybe it's best to keep quiet while we still have some- but rather than shaking Mugabe's hand I'd have been inclined to break his wrist, as a sign of peace, of course (though, when you think about it, what on earth was Robert Mugabe doing at the Pope's funeral, and what esteem do the Pope's lieutenants hold Charles in that he was seated just two seats away from the Thugocrat himself when there are stories like this circulating involving senior Zimbabwean Catholics???)), in France things are rather different.

The hilarious spectacle of French politicians muscling up to convince their ovine-like nervous proletariat that the big bad capitalist wolf wouldn't eat them if they said yes to the European Constitution was not only highly entertaining, it also provoked much more of le candour from our neighbours than is usual.

The invaluable Eursoc carries a plat principale of tasty soundbites that have been circulating during le campaign (I can't resist using some bad French-like language, any more than they can resist mispronouncing English). My favourites (but they're all goood!):

'* "This Constitution allows the French ambition to assert itself in the big Europe that General de Gaulle hoped and prayed for." - Education Minister François Fillon (Le Figaro, 7 April)'

'* "We have finally obtained this 'Europe à la française' that we have awaited for so long. This constitutional treaty is an enlarged France. It is a Europe written in French." - Justice Minister Dominique Perben (Times and AFP, 4 April)'

See- like I always always all my life said, a grand French strategy to dominate Europe. The only thing missing from the quotes is the name Napoleon.

Scroll down the last couple of Eurosoc posts for more frogdiculous antics.

See also this from the Times on BBC bias and Gavyn Davies their former CoG- via Mr F&M.

So full of crap he needs an enema.

Yes, yes I know. Crudeness. And from me, too. But Justin Webb really merits it, and I hope that having expressed my disgust so obviously I can take a few breaths and examine an article that could actually tell us much about what is wrong with today's BBC, and what is wrong about the BBC's Britain too.

I said a lot about the tragedy of the Schiavo case, but at least it made Webb feel better about America. As he concludes his article he says:

'It is common to mock at American attempts to export Jeffersonian democracy, but after these two weeks the mocking should stop.'

Now that Schiavo has died her legalistic death he can rhapsodise about the 'complex and vital soul of America' .

Really, this is straight out of LiberalLarryland.

The calm Webb feels after his humanist prejudice has been satisfied with its ultimate sacrificial vindictation allows him to be even more candid than usual. He admits a significant amount when he says:

'America is often portrayed as an ignorant, unsophisticated sort of place, full of bible bashers and ruled to a dangerous extent by trashy television, superstition and religious bigotry, a place lacking in respect for evidence based knowledge.

I know that is how it is portrayed because I have done my bit to paint that picture'.

It's funny. As a product of the Beeb's Britain I've been brought up to believe that no stereotype can ever really be true (that is, I've rejected the Beeb's favourite nostrums and bugbears, and what's left to stereotype?). Stereotypes exist in defiance to reality. This is evidently an invalid assumption as far as Justin Webb is concerned. He adds to the above quoted stereotype:

'that picture is in many respects a true one.'

Webb finds his comfort in the thought that many Americans agreed with him that Schindler should die (I was going to say Schiavo but I think that her husband effected a common-law divorce long before her death). He may say that it's the following of due process that he finds has revived his faith in America- but what's telling is that it's the following of so-called due process against what he believes is religious bigotry that he finds comforting:

'Americans do believe in God and they do believe in life, but they also believe in law, and rules, and the need for democracy to restrain, not satisfy, the wishes of politicians.'

It's quite interesting that Webb's faith in America depends on its subordination of so-called religious values to secular protocols.

These so-called religious values clearly include the right to life, which I wouldn't have thought was any more religious than many a secular nostrum. To believe in this right to life though is to be prejudiced, and to depart from acceptability. All that is acceptable is summated by the grey mass of humanist consensus (in other words, a world where humanists win votes):

'Plenty of honest disagreement among reasonable people, religious and non religious, Republican and Democrat.'- and death on demand.

What's weird for a self-styled ratonal man is when Webb disparages the power of observation, and the medium which he relies on for his life's work and his credibility:

' the television news showed pictures of Terri Schiavo looking responsive, even affectionate, and above all looking vulnerable.'

Yeah- almost as if she had something approaching those qualities.

It's not Webb's rationalism that impresses me about this article- as the Voice of Reason tells us all is well now Terri's dead- it's the coercive irrationality of it.

So what have we got so far: condescension, humanism and socialism, all mixed together to give us Webb's view of the world. He offers us subtle inducements to follow his position (by praising the heart of the US, for instance), but all the long he has a little spiteful wishlist to impose on the unlovely subjects of his journalism (that's you and me, as much as it is the hicks who are, in Webb's vision, beyond feeling like Schiavo herself, almost).

I've gone on long enough- maybe I even went off topic, but as the intro made clear, I was dismayed and angry. Anyway, you can find a parallel take here at the Rottweiler Puppy. Thanks to DumbJon for introducing me to this excellent site.

Death in the Americas

It just seems to me that the Beeb, as well as their liberal transational partners and proteges, are in a horrible twist over the death penalty.

When the Beeb reports a rise in the number of death sentences it somehow winds up in the 'Americas' section, which is wrong not just because the US is a minor contributor to their statistics, but also because at the present time falling numbers of death sentences are being given there, and of course an immensely lengthy judicial system is devoted to cases, frequently alotting more time than was alotted to Terri Schiavo.

What you can say is that the US' death penalty is the big attention-grabber, thanks to the policy of media such as the Beeb, so it makes 'media sense' to put it there- though the Beeb always carefully retains the State's financial and moral support while applying it.

This comes after the BBC asserted- via a journalist's manipulation of an interview with Iraqis concerning instability in their country- that the death penalty was inconsistent with democracy, a common prejudice it seems. In the latest article they pointedly mention that the US is 'one of the very few democracies on the list' (of killer-nations).

But the twist comes when China (responsible for the vast majority of death sentences) says that it

'would improve its justice system so the death penalty would be given "carefully and fairly", the official Xinhua news agency reported.'

and, following that, we find that

'Sarah Green, a spokeswoman for Amnesty in London, welcomed the announcement, but said the group wanted action, not words. '

Whereas, when it comes to the US, we find that

'"There is so much evidence that the death penalty is being applied unfairly, the very possibility of executing anybody who is innocent is reason not to have it," she said.'

So it's good news that China is insisting on a 'fair' death penalty (which, you have to say, seems to need a pinch of salt adding to it), while in the US there's soooo much unfairness in the death penalty waaaaah waaaaah.

To cap it all the report ends by quoting Ted Heath, who has been conpicuous in his admmiration for totalitarians, Chinese in particular. I recognise the unfairness comes via an interlocuter, or 'proxy', as I prefer to see these mouthpieces, but the BBC knows all about selectivity yet fails to apply it when it suits them.

Such inconsistency is consistent with only one thing: a bandwagon, whereby fairness is nothing and the end is everything. The BBC is firmly on it, generally whip in hand.

Sorry to harp on Paul but...

Reynolds versus Coleman...

also known as...

Elected politician versus Koffi's state-funded cheerleader:

Says Reynolds-

'UN Secretary General Kofi Annan will be hoping that the latest report into the Iraqi oil-for-food programme will help put his ship back on an even keel, though there are still squalls ahead.


Annan said he expected the highest standards of integrity from Kojo


The report effectively cleared him of corruption, though he must be wishing that the lawyers' language it used was more definitive.'

Says Norm Coleman-

''The Volcker report did not "exonerate" Annan, as many have claimed; to the contrary, it pointed the finger directly at him. Indeed, one member of Volcker's committee, Mark Pieth, made that point loud and clear: "We did not exonerate Kofi Annan."

With that in mind, I reiterate my call for Annan's resignation.''

Some reading... and things... a little different.

Anyone who has read this website at all over the last year or so will know my views on the war with Iraq. For me it was always an unlosable argument that Saddam could be removed from power forcibly and his regime extirpated without the slightest danger of compromising the morality (such as it is) of the countries taking part in his removal from power. Plus, of course, we live in a world where weapons of mass destruction are a prevalent reality, and Saddam had a penchant for them. End of argument, boring readers to tears etc.

I only add that preamble (reluctantly, I have to say) to make clear that by recommending this poem (did you know Clive James was a poet? You do now.) I'm not endorsing its viewpoints- though it slips down a heck of a lot more easily than the NIMN antics that have passed for the antiwar movement. As usual with James he prides himself on being that bit broader-minded than the next man; I'm sure he'd like to think he was a man with 'bottom', and he'd make a lot of fun of it too.

In a similarly contrarian vein, here's Hitchens on Pope John Paul; a mixed bag as usual.

Meanwhile, this photo of an Islamic terrorist in Jenin from LGF tickled me, mainly because my Grandma (now 94) has always talked about her nightmares of early (orphaned) childhood where, based on the stories she was hearing of the First World War, she always imagined there was a German under her bed at night.

I'll be back to Beeb-bashing no doubt shortly, though there's no doubting they're aware of our existence.

How angry should I be?

A bit, certainly. Probably very.

In this article I originally thought the BBC were doing their usual talking up of obscure racial and tribal matters which makes them feel so good about themselves that a) They're the only global broadcaster global enough to pick up these things and b) They're the only ones who care enough to do so.

But wait! There are Jews involved, so it can't be so straightforward. No, we have not simply got the recognition of an interesting racial link between Israelis and people living in India, we've got a sinister Jewish plot to reinforce the Israeli population and deny the Palestinians their rightful demographic ascendancy. That's why they mention many times in some detail, that the recognition of this link to orthodox Jewry means that these 6000 people (6000! More people than several years of valiant suicide bombing managed to exterminate.) can all up sticks and settle in Israel.

But the extent of the BBC's pro-Palestinian paranoia against Israel can be seen in the choice of commentator they make to inform us of the sinister plot, a man they refer to as just an 'Israeli Social Scientist'. What that they don't mention is that Lev Grinberg is a supporter of Palestinian terrorists and a vicious critic of his own people, whom he likens to Nazis and psychotics.

Here is an example of his writings:

'The murder of Sheik Ahmad Yassin by the government of Israel is part of a major move carried out by the government of Israel, which can be described as symbolic genocide.'

Here's a critique of the same.

A great deal of bloggy goodness from the excellent EUReferendum blog. Go ye and read, is my advice.

Starting afresh. Thought I'd start a new post (but don't forget Steyn in the post from 'yesterday'- truly a tour de force). The reason? To give a proper frame to this excellent article (why is it we're coming up with this kind of clarity after the loss of Terri Schiavo when we couldn't put things so clearly before?) from William Anderson in the Weekly Standard. A taster:

''Students of law, medicine, and ethics will examine this tragedy for decades to come'...

'Much mischief is set loose when the uncertain judgments of medical diagnosis are conflated with the rigid categories of the law. Unlike coma or brain death, persistent vegetative state is a diagnosis that depends on subjective judgment. It requires a finding of unresponsiveness in an awake and alert person. Even skilled diagnosticians may disagree on this assessment. It does not necessarily preclude the possibility of improvement. It has no definitive laboratory tests.'

So Terri Schiavo has died, and I'm sad about that, but why did the BBC describe her in their headline as 'brain damaged'? (I mean, not as a person who is brain damaged, but a brain damaged person, which though it might seem a pedantic distinction, is in fact what disabled people have long complained about in the presentation of their identities: disabled first, person second). Is this their tacit admission that they always sided with the group that put her in a special category of disabled ie., the vegetative one? Next time they report ex-Home Sec. David Blunkett I'll expect them to put 'blind (ex-Home Sec.) David Blunkett', not.

Post Updated: Melanie Phillips underlines the point.

Forgive another update: there's so much to say about the Schiavo case. There are those who will say this is opportunistically reading political concerns into a personal matter, but I honestly regard the Schiavo case as emblematic of a point in cultural history where we can go in several directions, but it's clear which direction has the greatest momentum.

Steyn touches many of the points of interest, dramatically. So, fascinatingly, does the more prosaic G.W. Bush: Terri and the War on Terror? (Via R.C.P.) W. undercuts the columnists. Who else would dare put it that way?

Experiencing sexual problems? Thought not. Still, if you were, like these people, you'd want to go to the experts.

Does this sound like they think the UN might be happy to point a finger or two for a change this season? Echoes of Oil for Food and the allegations of CPA corruption in Iraq (a report always available at the BBC site, and always updated regularly), which John Simpson alluded to recently.

Whooeee the BBC's 'study' (er, not the BBC's study, if you get my drift): tranzis at their finest. If you've come within half a blogospherical mile of the BBC's website you can't have missed how they are hot on the case trying to save the world, plastering their front page with articles like this.

As usual the most sensible thing to do is follow the links (commendably placed there for the purpose, as is customary), but not before looking closely at a front-loading adjective such as 'comprehensive'. It you collect your thoughts about this one you realise that here comprehensive doesn't mean 'deep', or 'thorough', 'logical' or even 'scientific'. In this context it probably just means that a lot of people contributed to the study in some way. A dictionary defines 'comprehensive' here.

It's a good starting point, because when you follow the link of the link of the link you find (partially, you give up searching for clarity when the third link leads you somewhere your ill-equipped computer will not follow) made clear that this project involved 'natural and social scientists from developed and developing countries'. By my brutal arithmetic that means that you can divide the overall numbers involved by about four to calculate the number of contributors who theoretically were in a position to say something scientifically meaningful, as opposed to saying what they thought would be received well by the powers that were. Another way of looking at that; when I say scientifically meaningful I mean other than just intelligent hearsay or naked eye observation that you and I can engage in too.

Comprehensive here definitely means quantity rather than quality. When you factor in the extremely bureaucratic nature of the study, and its politicisation (it was engendered by the UN, included UN chief-advisor whatnots, and explicitly had one eye on immediate agenda setting for the great W.C. - world community), it is clearly a monster bred for one purpose only: to leap off the BBC's, and other organs', front pages.

To underline the desire of this study to intimidate the sceptics who oppose their bandwagon, the Beeb enlists a vociferous titled talking head as rottweiler-General:

'"There will undoubtedly be gainsayers, as there are with the IPCC; but I put them in the same box as the flat-Earthers and the people who believe smoking doesn't cause cancer," said Professor Sir John Lawton, former chief executive of the UK's Natural Environment Research Council.'

(all textual shenanigans mine alone)

So, there we have it, a quangocrat on the world's greatest quangocasters' website telling us all to be good and obey the quangos or we'll be called very naughty boys and lumped in with the boys that nobody wants to play with.

It's all a long way from 'here is the news', isn't it?