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Delingpole: Climate Alarmist Lord Deben Accused in 600,000 Conflict of Interest Scandal

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Christmas has come unusually early this year for British climate sceptics thanks to a magnificent scoop by the Mail on Sunday‘s David Rose.

The headline reads:

Tory peer in £600,000 conflict of interest: Climate Change chief John Gummer faces calls to quit over payments from ‘green businesses’ to his family firm where daughter he famously fed a beef burger during the height of the BSE crisis is a director.

If anything, this is even better than it first sounds.

Of the many dodgy geezers in Britain’s Climate Industrial Complex, few are either so influential or conduct their watermelon politicking with such fanatical zeal as the egregious John Gummer.

Gummer — or Lord Deben as he is now known, having been ennobled in 2010 — is chairman of the British government’s Climate Change Committee. Probably no advisory body has been more active than the CCC in pushing forward the green policies which have done so much damage to the British environment and economy, put so much money into the pockets of rent-seeking troughers, and driven up the cost of living, hurting the poorest hardest.

All this from a man who makes a big deal of being both a Conservative and a Christian.

Here are the bare bones of the story:

Tory peer John Selwyn Gummer’s private company has been paid more than £600,000 from ‘green’ businesses that stand to make millions from his advice to Ministers.

The Conservative grandee heads the Government’s powerful Climate Change Committee that vigorously supports pumping billions of pounds in public subsidies into firms developing environmentally friendly technology.

Yet a Mail on Sunday investigation has discovered that his family-run consultancy has been paid huge sums by businesses that have cashed in on those lucrative taxpayer-funded handouts.

The Climate Change Committee was established after the Climate Change Act 2008, supposedly as an “independent”, non-departmental public body to advise the British government on “tackling and preparing for climate change.”

Gummer/Deben has been the head of this body since 2012.

Can anyone spot why there might be a conflict of interest if such a man starts accepting  backhanders  financial support from green businesses?

Let me briefly explain for the benefit of the more stupid #FBPE types and other eco-loons at the back.

The Climate Industrial Complex is a $1.5 trillion per year scam industry of no value to mankind — or indeed the planet — whatsoever.

Its business model is built almost entirely on government credulousness.

Barely a wind turbine would be erected, barely a shimmery solar panel allowed to disfigure the landscape, barely a palm oil plantation planted, barely a bushel of biomass burned, barely a dubious university climate science department funded, barely a first-class airfare to the next COP shindig subsidised, were it not for the government subsidies and regulation which make these fringe, non-commercial and unnecessary activities temporarily viable.

Why do governments waste taxpayers’ money on these virtue-signalling frivolities?

In part because their expert advisors, such as Gummer/Deben, tell them that in their dispassionate opinion it is necessary in order to save the planet.

Maybe if that opinion really were dispassionate and informed by science it wouldn’t be a problem.

But it would appear in this case that other factors may have played a part. Such as the £600,000 Lord Deben has allegedly received from green vested interests which, understandably, have much to gain from the kind of green government policies Gummer/Deben is forever pushing.

Lord Deben, for the record, is vehemently denying any conflict of interest and insists he has fully complied with disclosure rules.

Whether he’s going to be able to brazen this one out, though, as he has with previous scandals, looks unlikely…

Last night Gummer, who was a Tory MP for 40 years before becoming Lord Deben in 2010, was facing calls to resign over what appear to be “colossal” and “scandalous” conflicts of interest exposed by this newspaper.

MPs also demanded an urgent inquiry by Parliament’s standards watchdog. David Davies, the Conservative MP for Monmouth, said: “Based on the information you have given me, he appears to be unfit to hold public office.

“As CCC chairman, he has been playing a hugely influential role, giving evidence to Parliament, making speeches, and issuing reports that have an enormous impact on both policy and household bills.”

Labour MP Graham Stringer, a member of the Science and Technology Committee in the Commons, said he was “staggered and appalled” by the conflict of interest.

To get a taste of the man and his hypocrisy, here are a few of his tweets:

Vested interests? lol.

How splendid to see this incorruptible figure parading his virtue!

There he is — a Conservative peer, approvingly quoting Labour’s race-baiting MP David Lammy.

Deben/Gummer is a fanatical Remainer. As I note in this rather good, readable and important Twitter thread, there is a very strong correlation between the Remainer fanatics who advertise themselves with the #FBPE tag on Twitter and extreme climate alarmism. Presumably this is because no organisation in the world pushes the climate scare quite as overzealously as the European Union.

Deben/Gummer really didn’t need to proselytise quite so aggressively and publicly on social media. He could just have taken his £1000 a day fee for his Climate Change Committee “work”, discreetly pocketed all those, ahem, consultancy fees, and stayed under the radar.

But he just couldn’t resist, could he?

I’m reminded of those serial killers who get so buoyed up by their success that they start leaving clues to taunt the police.

They think they’re never going to get caught, don’t they M’lord Deben?

Anyway, read and enjoy David Rose’s scoop. It’s great to see the Mail on Sunday back fighting the climate wars.

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