Douglas Carswell's Blog

Does the left think we are stupid?

George Monbiot has a curious article on the Guardian website.  I strongly recommend you take a few minutes to read it.

Why? Not because of what the article says about think tank funding or the climate change debate, but because of what it tells us about the left.  

Underlying Mr Monbiot’s words seems to be an assumption that the people cannot be trusted to work things out for themselves. And that when the masses do not subscribe to what Monbiot et al deem to be the correct view, it must be because we have been duped by shady think tankers and big money.

Perhaps, George, doubts about the climate change agenda stem from the realisation that it is precisely that – an agenda. And not one always supported by the science.

A generation or so ago, fashionable opinion tended to be formed by an elite “in crowd” of opinion formers. Second hand dealers in other people's ideas, one might say. 

But one of the glorious things about the digital revolution is the way it has started to overthrow the smug, self-regarding commentariat.

Instead of being told what to think about climate change – or the Euro, or any other elitist creeds - folk can read about different points of view on the blogosphere. For example, folk can learn about the East Anglia University email controversy, a news item many in the media establishment were slow to cover. Or they can come across books like Ian Plimer’s Heaven and Earth, as I did. (No plutocrat paid me to read it).

Rather than leave it to the George Monbiot’s (or even the Douglas Carswell’s), thanks to the internet, people are free to make up their own minds about many more things.

We face, declares Monbiot, “a battle for democracy”. Perhaps, George, the reason why fewer folk now subscribe to your climate change agenda is because the digital revolution means opinion forming is becoming more democratic.

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