We know how he feels

Tony Blair is resisting demands from the environmental pressure groups and, err, the Conservative Party to impose annual targets on greenhouse gas emissions for the quite sensible reasons that this will be disastrous for British industry. The other party speaking sense on the issue is the UK Independence Party, which is now the closest thing the land of Margaret Thatcher has to a libertarian party.

Coincidentally, a Conservative MP described global warming in the following terms today:

“Climate Change is the defining issue of our age. Previous generations had to deal with the rise of Nazism or communism. This is the issue on which my generation of politicians will be judged. This is our Dunkirk.”

Aside from the ludicrous hyperbole, the choice of example is an incidence of the Inigo Montoya effect (“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means“). Dunkirk was actually an example of government knowing when it couldn’t cope. The evacuation of the Allied forces from Northern France was only achieved by private owners taking a fleet of 700 ‘little ships‘ including yachts and dinghies across the English Channel. Without that private, voluntary action the Allies would have been doomed. The miracle of Dunkirk was NOT achieved by politicians, but by the resolve of individuals.