2 Big Stories

It’s the last Queen’s Speech before the general election

Which can only mean, as The Times reports:

Gordon Brown will begin a six-month election campaign this week with one of the shortest but most deliberately political programmes of recent years. … In a podcast on the Downing Street website, Mr Brown said that Britons wanted world-class public services underpinned by “guarantees not gambles”. He was referring to legislation this week that will enshrine in law the right of NHS patients to get treatment within 18 weeks or to see a cancer specialist within two weeks — or be granted free private treatment; an education Bill that will give parents and pupils guarantees of one-to-one tuition; and a social care Bill that will provide for free personal care in their own homes for about 350,000 people with the “highest needs”.

Nici Clegg, of course, has a few views of his own on the subject of the Queen’s Speech.

Copenhagen: No deal, we’re out of time, Obama warns

The Guardian reports:

Barack Obama acknowledged todaythat time had run out to secure a legally binding climate deal at the Copenhagen summit in December and threw his support behind plans to delay a formal pact until next year at the earliest.

During a hastily convened meeting in Singapore, the US president supported a Danish plan to salvage something from next month’s meeting by aiming to make it a first-stage series of commitments rather than an all-encompassing protocol.

Postponing many contentious decisions on emissions targets, financing and technology transfer until the second-stage, leaders will instead try to reach a political agreement in Copenhagen that sends a strong message of intent.

A realistic acceptance of how to achieve the best possible; or a cop-out that will do nothing to deal with climate change.

2 must-read blog-posts

Despite the lies of the Times, majority believe climate change is man made (Ian Eiloart)

Yesterday, the The Times online published results of a poll that demonstrates that the overwhelming majority of the British public believe that climate change is man made (anthropogenic). Bizarrely, they chose to mis-represent (“spin”) the results with the headline Global warming is not our fault, say most voters in Times poll. First, I’ll fess up. My headline is also spin.

Writing your younger self a letter of advice … (Giles Wilkes)

Matthew Parris hit on a wonderful idea here: what would you write to your 16 year old self if you could do so now? … Me, I’ve always wondered what I should say, because I really stuffed up years 17-20.