If there’s one thing I hate it’s hypocrisy, and this week I am going to expose an abundance of it. And when it comes to the environment and climate change, hypocrisy goes into overdrive.
The vast majority of us think global warming is very serious and much more needs to be done to prevent a disaster for our children and grand children. But when we’re told measures need to be taken which will hit our pockets, it’s another story.
BBC’s Panorama has discovered that a UK power company is burning wood from some of the world’s most precious forests. Papers obtained by Panorama show that the company Drax, based in Yorkshire, took timber from rare forests in Canada it had claimed were “no go areas”.
Drax says its wood pellets are “sustainable and legally harvested”. Oh – that’s all right then? I don’t think!
Can you imagine the cost and the environmental damage cutting down all the trees, and damage caused by bringing all the pellets, or whatever, across the Atlantic and then transporting it to the power station?
But to make all this far worse – and here comes the hypocrisy, the government is to decide whether to give this company billions more in environmental subsidies, funded by UK energy bill payers! Drax has already received £6bn in UK green subsidies. Jobs for the boys no doubt!
I wonder how many of the company’s directors are Tories and how many are Tory party paid up members!
If the Tories really want to make big inroads into making the country environmentally friendly and carbon neutral then it would put that money into financing far more wind farms, not in the sea, where sea water quickly causes corrosion, but on the windiest land areas in Britain, hidden from view by planting quick-growing forests. A win, win in all directions.
And if the government really wants to help “ordinary” people, how about legislation requiring all house builders to install solar panels on all new builds and far more subsidies to get panels provided on existing homes.
Far better this than politicians expecting farmers to commit 10% of agricultural land for trees and 10% for wildlife habitat. Barmy or what – when Britain needs to grow as much as possible to cut down on imports.
LANDLORDS GROW RICH IN THEIR SLEEP
Anyone who watches the TV series highlighting appalling tenants and scum landlords know what a minefield the rental sector is in the UK.
But one practice which is appalling in the extreme is when a landlord decides to evict a tenant who has done absolutely nothing wrong and who then is placed in a dreadful situation of trying to find alternative accommodation in a sector which is desperately short of available homes.
Under extreme pressure the government has been forced to introduce legislation which aims to ban landlords from evicting tenants without a reason.
The Renters (Reform) Bill was first introduced last May. It would mean that landlords could only evict tenants in England under certain circumstances, including when they wish to sell the property or when they or a close family member want to move in.
But here comes the hypocrisy. A group of around 50 Tory back-bench MPs – many of whom are landlords – are trying to water down the Bill. They fear that the bill would cause landlords to sell up, reducing the number of rental properties available.
That just smacks of a huge red herring – landlords wanting to continue to have their cake and eat it. And now the danger is the government will come up with more delaying tactics, pushing the issue into the long grass until after the general election.
No-one wants to protect tenants who don’t pay their rent or abuse the properties they are living in, but no-one should lose the roof over their head just on the whim of a landlord.
ESCAPE CLAUSE
Want more hypocrisy? How about this? The government introduced emergency legislation allowing some prisoners to be released early because of an acute shortage of prison space and too few staff manning prisons.
But low and behold unbeknown to the public until papers were leaked to the press, the early release scheme has been extended apparently indefinitely which means that the public is now being put at increased risk of criminals who should be locked up for a specified time now walking the streets.
Judges are under increasing pressure to avoid sending criminals to prison and we also hear that the level of unpaid fines in the UK has reached an all time high. The punishment for not paying a fine is jail – but wait a minute, prison is a no no. So is there any point in fining anyone in the UK any more?
PRAYER IS A DOUBLE EDGED BLESSING
The rather foolish attack by right wing Tory Lee Anderson on London mayor Sadiq Kahn and the fall out from it has exposed the most astonishing volume of hypocrisy. Of course Mr Anderson’s remarks were racist – and if any member of another political party said it, Tories would have fallen over themselves to condemn it.
Mr Anderson, the former deputy party chair of the Conservative Party, refused to apologise for claiming “Islamists” had achieved “control” over London and that Mr Khan had “given our capital city away to his mates”.
You can achieve racism by omission and there have been years of closed eyes over a growing problem caused by immigrants moving into cities changing the very face of huge areas. You can have racism by officialdom closing their eyes over such cases of Asians preying on young teenage girls in Rochdale turning them into prostitutes for the gratification of other Muslims. Lack of action over a growing problem is hypocrisy in the extreme.
And now for the most appalling hypocrisy I’ve read about this week – revealed by the widow of Alexei Navalny who was reportedly murdered under Putin’s orders in a Russian jail.
She drew attention to the fact that priests in the Russian Orthodox Church have been blessing weapons being used in war.
Her blast was focused on Putin, who, she claimed, hid behind the Church claiming his strong Christian belief before ordering the most appalling atrocities against people in Ukraine and against anyone who opposed him.
Yes, many so called religious people have been guilty of the most serious hypocrisy – priests carrying out appalling sexual acts on children, covered up by those further up the food chain comes readily to mind. But tell me this – how can the Orthodox Church in Ukraine claim God is in the side of Ukrainian fighters and the Russian Orthodox Church claim God is on the side of Russian fighters. Surely God can’t be supporting both sides! Give me strength against hypocrites.
