July 20, 2023
CLIMATE WARS: TREE-HUGGERS AND IDEOLOGUES!
James Watt, Ronald Reagan’s first Secretary of the Interior, died on May 27th. He was a hard man, and out-and-out, totally unapologetic ideologue. He hated US environmentalists…
July 5, 2023
IT’S NOT EASY BEING DRAX!
On April 21st, the first day of Extinction Rebellion’s ‘The Big One’, I just happened to be listening in to an ‘open mic’ session when a young man came to the microphone and…
June 9, 2023
Caroline Lucas – A Personal Tribute
Caroline Lucas’s decision yesterday to step down at the next election came as a bit of a shock for the Green Party. After 13 years as an MP, 15 years as an MEP, 4 years as a…
April 5, 2022
Prospects for Energy Security Marred by Nuclear Fantasies
This is absolutely the right time for a new Energy Strategy. Unfortunately, we’ve got absolutely the wrong politicians in charge of it. The combination of Boris Johnson and Rishi…
August 13, 2020
Recognising the power of young activists
My principal reason for writing Hope in Hell was the new-found sense of purpose that the Schools Strike movement and the XR protests had given me in the first half of 2019.
February 19, 2020
Citizens Assemble – Government Stumbles!
Frankly, it’s been humiliating watching our Prime Minister make such a pig’s ear of hosting this year’s Conference of the Parties in Glasgow in November. This is by far and away…
December 9, 2019
Friends of the Earth’s Disgraceful Manifesto Analysis
As a former Director of Friends of the Earth, I can say with certain knowledge that FoE is an organisation that makes its fair share of mistakes – as much under my watch as under…
May 2, 2019
A Great Big Shout-Out to Extinction Rebellion!
What a fortnight! To have the utterly remarkable Greta Thunberg here in the UK for a couple of days was so inspiring. Her ‘truth to power’ take-down of UK parliamentarians,…
January 21, 2018
‘A Green Future’: Another 25 Years of Bland Platitudes?
So what are we to make of the lionising of Michael Gove by a host of people who really should know better? His speech to the Oxford Farming Conference, and his scripting of…
November 9, 2017
Immigration, Brexit and the Future of Progressive Politics in the UK
I still find it hard to believe that more people in this country feel we’d be better off outside the EU than remaining in the EU. For me, there are three main reasons for this…