Saturday 29 June 2013

Is it time to prosecute Lord Monckton for fraud?

Yawn.
Lord Christopher Monckton is at it again.  He wants (I don't think he really wants but he keeps saying he wants) the IPCC prosecuted for fraud. 

He says it here and here and here and here and here.

Fraud is a serious accusation.  It is not one to be bandied about lightly.  According to wikipedia:
In criminal law, fraud is intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual; the related adjective is fraudulent, and verb is defraud. Fraud is a crime and a civil law violation, though the specific criminal law definition varies by legal jurisdiction. Defrauding people or entities of money or valuables is a common purpose of fraud.
 So if that is the case, the IPCC can rest easily in its bed tonight knowing that any case the good Lord tries to bring is unlikely to get anywhere near a court.  For a case to be brought, Monckton would have to demonstrate intentional deception (which I would wager to be virtually impossible for him to do), show that it was for personal gain or damage to an individual (the individual, I suspect, is Monckton) and do it n such a way that a jury could keep a straight face.  It an't gonna happen.

Though Monckton persists is his empty threat:
If the IPCC were answerable to the British courts, I should invite the police to prosecute and then, if they did not act, I should go before the magistrates myself. I have done it before. If the case is sound, a summons will be issued against the accused. I once hauled the British Secret Police (delicately called the “Crime Agency”) before the beaks, got a summons, and forced these thugs into a humiliating climbdown. But that is another story.
Headline reads "Ministers escort spy out"
I am sure if Lord Monckton wants to know anything much about secret police, he can ask his brother, Anthony, famously outed as an MI6 agent one it would seem with the same bungling ability as Johnny English and his elder brother. But we shouldn't link family members like this and say there is something rotten (although Lord Monckton's sister, Rosa, is married to Dominic Lawson, son of Nigel Lawson, climate science denier and a sitting member of the house of Lords).

Back to fake fraud.  Lord Monckton should be careful what he wishes for.  Some misdemeanours he himself has perpetrated might get the interest of Inspector Knacker of the Yard.

Have a look at this.  One relevant section of a whiny letter to the Vice-Chancellor of the Victoria University of Wellington:
I have not met Professor Renwick. I do not think he has attended any of my lectures or read any of my published papers on climate change. In saying I have “no training” he has lied. I have a Cambridge degree in Classical Architecture. The course included instruction in mathematics. I was last year’s Nerenberg Lecturer in Mathematics at the University of Western Ontario.
Well, I have emboldened two claims that may or may not be true.  Perhaps he did a degree on classical architecture, since this doesn't argue that he didn't. Does he have a degre in classics, as most sources indicate, or classical architecture, which is different?  Very different.  But Monckton's point that training in classical architecture makes him qualified in anything but classical architecture isn't really valid.  He might have done some maths.  But I would agree that he has no training in climate science based on what Monckton himself says.  I don't.  I studied biology but that is at least slightly more relevant to climate science than is architecture.  And if he didn't actually have a degree in classical architecture, then isn't his claim on the edge of fraud?

As for Nerenberd Lecturer in Mathematics, it seems it is true.  But perhaps not so exciting as it might at first seem as the invite came from a known climate science denier and Monckton wasn't the first such denier to speak at these events.  Looks like they don't have as much to do with maths on the whole either.  For Monckton it seems to have been a platform for self promotion.

We won't mention the more famous claims: science adviser to Margaret Thatcher (no evidence other than his own words), sitting member of the House Of Lords (denied by the Lords authorities themselves), sitting at the desk of a sovereign country at a climate conference (on video, m'lud)...

I am sure there is more.  Others with the time and the inclination have shown that Monckton is not that faithful a servant to the truth.   Perhaps the good Lord should be careful what he wishes for - his supposed conspiracy might come back to haunt him (and if he reads this and thinks it is a threat - get real).


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