Following Ed Davey's somewhat silly comments about the climate debate, I recently submitted an FOI request for more information. From: Ben Pile Sent: 22 June 2013 To: deccfoi Subject: Foi Request - Davey speech 18 June. Dear Sir, On 18 June, Ed Davey made a speech at...

I have a post up at the Nottingham University/Leverhulme 'Making Science Public' blog, run by Warren Pearce. What’s behind the battle of received wisdoms? Andrew Neil’s interview with Ed Davey on the Sunday Politics show last week caused an eruption of comment. For...

Ed Davey's comments have been causing a stir this week. First, there is this exchange between Andrew Neil and the Energy Secretary on the Sunday Politics show... It's good to see Davey finally getting a grilling about the basis for the government's policies. And it's...

David Rose has a short article on my report for Roger Helmer MEP on the size of the UK's green economy. But documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act reveal the true value of the green economy is actually between only £16.8 billion and £27.9 billion,...

An outbreak of thinking has occurred at the Guardian. In response to George Monbiot's book, Feral: Searching for enchantment on the frontiers of rewilding, Steven Poole observes that the 'pastoral literary genre has long been a solidly bourgeois form of escapism', and...

I watched the entire debate -- if it was a debate -- on the Government's Energy Market Reform Bill (EMR) in the House of Lords today. For a chamber that is populated by people who are appointed on the basis of merit, replacing the feudal system, it was a very...

Spiked have published my article on Lewandowsky's three anti-sceptic papers. Read more at http://www.spiked-online.com/site/article/13716/

This essay was written for Spiked-Online, and will be published on Spiked at some point. As the influence of environmental thinking has increased its hold over the political establishment, the failure to win the public support that might create the basis for decisive...

Opinions in the climate debate are typically given weight according to the qualification of the pundit to speak. One such victim of this idea that only the anointed may speak on matters climate-related for instance, asks "Ben Pile: Qualified Pundit or Bullshit...

The death of Margaret Thatcher has brought all sorts of history back under the microscope. But often, such retrospectives become revision, revealing much more about the viewer in the present than the facts of the past. Much of this is less than dignified. Thatcher's...