Tuesday, 26 August 2025

Ethics, Obligations and Rights

 

(Image credit: Peggy Marco, Pixabay)

Today, I shall return to discussing the ideas, which have led me to create my own system of political philosophy. My subject, on this occasion, will be ethics: “the branch of knowledge that deals with moral principles.”

Looked at from the outside, ethics is a strange discipline. The subject matter is simple: What is right for us human beings to do, and what is wrong? And why? Yet, when you look at academic papers on ethics, or even at the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, things rapidly become muddy.

Ethical schools

Ethics today has many different tendencies. First, there are virtue ethicists, who see right and wrong in terms of the presence or absence (or somewhere in between) of elements from some laundry-list of virtues. Aristotle, one of the very first ethicists, was among them.

Second, there are deontologists or rule ethicists, for whom right acts are distinguished by adherence to a set of rules or obligations. Immanuel Kant was among the foremost of them. Historically, they have divided into religious and secular camps. But deontologists do not need to be religious, or to incorporate principles from any religion into their list of rules.

Among deontologists are the natural law ethicists. For these thinkers, the source of the duties or obligations is a “natural law,” which is the same for all those under it. Thomas Aquinas was the major natural law ethicist of the religious camp. And John Locke had his own version of natural law, which was independent of religion (even though he was a Christian).

Beyond these, there are consequentialists, who see right or wrong for an act as being determined by the consequences of that act. There are many skeins of consequentialist views, but no particular school seems to have produced a clear champion. Utilitarianism, an early form of consequentialism which, in the words of founder Jeremy Bentham, sought “the greatest happiness of the greatest number,” was very influential for a time.

There are also pragmatic ethicists, who reject any idea of universal ethical principles or natural law. And rights ethicists, who see ethics in terms of human rights and freedoms.

My own approach to ethics

My views have their roots in the ideas of John Locke. So, I come to ethics from a natural law perspective. That makes me, in the first instance, a deontologist or obligations ethicist. But I also seek to incorporate elements of rights ethics, and even virtue ethics, into my system.

The identity determines morality principle

Because I am agnostic in religion, my ethical philosophy does not require a deity or law-giver. Instead, I posit that the natural law for human beings is determined by human nature.

I derive this from a more general principle, which I call “identity determines morality.” I state this as: “Right and wrong behaviours for a species of sentient beings are determined by the nature of the species.” As evidence for this, I invite you to observe the behaviours of different animal species living side-by-side in the same environment, such as waterfowl around a lake. Their behaviours have a similar core, but each species has its own particular variations too.

Thus, for me, any species of sentient beings, including humans, has its own natural law, defining what is right and wrong for members of the species to do.

The ethical equality principle

An immediate follow-up to the identity determines morality principle is what I call the ethical equality principle. I state it as follows: “Among members of the same species, what is right for one to do, is right for another to do under similar circumstances, and vice versa.” This tallies with the Enlightenment idea of the rule of law. In which everyone, whether in government or not, must obey the same rules.

Last month, I wrote about the Westphalian state, which was designed by 16th-century Frenchman Jean Bodin, and under which we still suffer. How well does this state, with its sovereign and subjects, conform to the ethical equality principle? …Not well at all. It directly contradicts the idea of ethical equality! For it lets the sovereign do things, which the subjects may not. And the sovereign is not responsible for the consequences of what it does.

The natural law of humanity

A few weeks ago, I outlined my views on human nature. It is natural for us to take control of our surroundings, to use them for our benefit, and to leave our mark on them. And it is natural to us to use our faculties of reason, to seek to understand what we see around us and what we experience. Moreover, it is natural for us to form ourselves into social groups, and to organize them in such a way as to bring benefits to everyone in them. By doing this, we build civilizations, which provide the habitat in which we human beings can live our lives to the full. And in that habitat, we interact with each other using Franz Oppenheimer’s economic means, and seek to co-operate to take control of our surroundings.

The ethical obligations which enable this, I call the natural law of humanity. This law obliges us to behave in ways that make us fit to be lived with, and so fit to take part in civilizations. In my view, right behaviour for any human being is convivial, civilized behaviour.

Because the natural law of humanity consists of obligations, and those obligations are the same for everyone, it can, in principle, be codified. I call this list of obligations (once it has been written!) the Convivial Code. I shall say more about that code in my next essay.

My view has a flip side, too. Those that, persistently or in large matters, fail to behave up to the obligations of the natural law of humanity, are failing to behave as human beings. Should we not, therefore, consider that they may not be, in actuality, human beings? That the “ugly duckling,” that neither walks nor quacks like a duck, might not be a duck at all?

My views on other ethical approaches

Virtue ethics

Having been trained as a mathematician, I like to quantify things if I can. And I find virtues difficult to judge in a quantitative way. It is all very well to say that, for example, “courage” or “moderation” is virtuous. But just how courageous, or how moderate, a particular action is in a particular situation, seems to be a movable feast. I find it far easier to judge actions (and, where necessary, motives) according to rules, as the deontologist does.

That said, if I find that I can convert a particular virtue into an obligation or set of obligations, I can incorporate that virtue into my system, by merging those obligations in to my list.

Consequentialism

I find consequentialism, as the basis of an ethical system, unsatisfying. For, in many practical situations, we do not have enough information to judge the consequences of an action ahead of time. This makes it impossible to judge, before acting, whether the action is right or not.

Consequentialists also like to use thought experiments with questionable assumptions built into them. For example, the “trolley problem” [[1]] seems to assume that five lives are always of greater value than one. Even if one of those five was, for example, a young Adolf Hitler.

There is one concession, which I do make to the consequentialists. When proven damage has been unjustly caused to someone by voluntary action of another, and that damage could reasonably have been foreseen to result from that action, I see the perpetrator as under an obligation to compensate the victim(s). In this case, if the evidence of damage is clear enough, it should be possible to quantify it. And a rule or set of rules, such as the Romans used in cases of theft and fraud, should be able to map damage to compensation.

Utilitarianism

I find utilitarianism anathema, because it seeks to maximize the total good, not the good of each individual. It therefore may “justify” small numbers of innocent individuals suffering huge losses, while benefiting a much larger number of people. As an individualist, I follow John Locke’s definition of the public good: “the good of every particular member of that society, as far as by common rules it can be provided for.” So, I can’t accept such outcomes.

Pragmatic ethics

Pragmatic ethics is also anathema to me. This is because it rejects the possibility of ethical principles which are independent of culture, so denies the existence of a natural law of humanity. Yet, it does not supply any evidence to back up this denial.

Rights and obligations

I see human rights and freedoms as extremely important. Indeed, when I try to list detailed obligations to be included in the natural law of humanity, I place respecting the rights and freedoms of all those, who respect the equal rights and freedoms of others, at the very top of my list.

In my view of ethics, valid human rights or freedoms can always be mapped into obligations which, when obeyed by everyone, will deliver those rights or freedoms to all those who respect them for others. The reverse is true, too. If everyone around an individual keeps to the obligations which make up the natural law of humanity, then that individual will enjoy the rights and freedoms, which correspond to those obligations.

I call this process, of mapping between rights and obligations, “back-to-backing.”

Examples of back-to-backing

In simple cases, a right can be directly linked to a single obligation. For example, the right against slavery can be back-to-backed with the obligation “Do not hold anyone in bondage.”

Similarly, an obligation can be back-to-backed with a corresponding right. The Christian “Thou shalt not kill,” or “Do not murder,” for example, maps to the right to life.

But this mapping isn’t always one-to-one. For example, to deliver to those around them the right to security of person, individuals need to refrain from carrying out several different criminal acts. Which include violent aggression, rape and paedophilia.

Practical limitations and exceptions

One problem with viewing ethics in terms of lists of obligations is that it isn’t always practical to keep to the obligations with absolute strictness. For example, to include an absolute prohibition on physical violence would be impractical, because it would not allow those under attack to defend themselves. Each obligation must, therefore, also specify the conditions under which individuals may reasonably break it, and at what level.

I identify two sets of circumstances, which can generally justify acts that deviate from ethical obligations. These are self-defence against aggression, and defence of others against aggression.

To allow these as reasons to deviate in certain situations answers many of the tricks, that philosophers like to bring up as apparent counter-examples to ethical principles. For example, the natural law of humanity will require you to be truthful and honest in all your dealings with others. But if someone you suspect of wanting to harm your neighbour asks you where he has gone for the week-end, it can be OK to lie in your neighbour’s defence, and say that you don’t know. This would, however, not be OK if you have specifically undertaken to tell the truth in the matter, for example in a court of law.

False claims of pseudo-rights

Today, we hear from certain quarters claims to “rights,” that seem to have something wrong about them. A “right to a stable climate” and a “right not to be offended” are cases in point.

Recently, I discovered that both these “rights” can quite easily be shown to be false. Ask the question: What obligation or obligations would guarantee this “right” for everyone, if I, and everyone else, kept to them? If that question has no answer, so that the “right” cannot be back-to-backed with one or more obligations, then the “right” claimed must be false, because nothing anyone can do can deliver it.

For the touted “right to a stable climate,” it is a fact that the Earth’s climate, historically, has been variable. It has changed in major ways, completely independently of human activities; for example, in the Roman and Mediaeval warm periods, and the Little Ice Age. So, no obligation or obligations of any kind, entered into by any number of humans, could possibly stabilize the climate completely.

For the claim of a general “right not to be offended,” ask: How can anyone know what precisely will offend a particular individual, whom they have not met before? And as long as you keep to the obligations which make up the natural law of humanity, how can any human being reasonably be offended by anything you do?

Those, that press false claims of rights such as these, are in my view themselves violating the natural law of humanity.

Human rights

By a human right, I mean a right common to all convivial human beings. (I exclude from this definition what I call contractual rights, which arise out of contracts voluntarily made with others).

Who has human rights?

The 1948 United Nations Declaration of Human Rights (just about the only half-way good thing the UN ever did) says – rightly – the following. “Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms… without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.”

Thus, a human right accrues to every human being without exception, subject only to the individual behaving as a human being. That is, keeping to his or her obligations under the natural law of humanity.

This may be summarized in three statements. First, you should judge others, not on the basis of who they are, but by what they do. Judge them by their actions, and where necessary, what you can discern about their motivations. I call this “judgement by behaviour.”

Second, human rights are earned. You earn your human rights by behaving as a human being. That is, by obeying the natural law of humanity, including respecting others’ human rights.

Third, human rights, once earned, are sacrosanct. If you behave as a human being, and respect the human rights of others, no-one may justly violate your human rights.

Classification of valid human rights

Over the centuries, many lists of human rights have been constructed. From Magna Carta of 1215, via the 1689 English Bill of Rights and the 1791 US Bill of Rights, to the UN declaration, to the European Convention on Human Rights.

These lists contain four types of valid human rights. First, there are fundamental rights. These result from obligations, which apply to everyone, to refrain from doing something. The associated obligations have the form “Do not...” followed by something bad.

Second, there are rights of non-impedance. These result from more nuanced obligations, of the form: “Do not put any obstacle in the way of...” followed by something good. Rights of non-impedance always carry an implied rider: “...provided it does not violate your, or anyone else’s, rights.”

Third, there are procedural rights. These rights, such as the presumption of innocence until proven guilty, must guide the procedures used in confrontational situations. And in particular, the relations between government and the people it is supposed to serve.

The fourth class, and perhaps the most difficult to characterize, I call expectations. These result from obligations that positively require you to behave in a convivial and civilized way. For example, to be truthful and honest in all your dealings. An expectation is, in a sense, not quite as strong as a right, because everyone makes mistakes. But those, that without good reason fail to live up to reasonable expectations, are nevertheless breaking the natural law of humanity.

Misguided “rights”

There is a fifth group of supposed “rights,” which I label “misguided.” They are misguided, because they cannot be delivered without violating the rights of other individuals. For example, an indiscriminate right to “social security” requires some people to be forced to pay for things that bring benefit to others, not to them.

Most of these misguided “rights,” however, can quite easily be re-formulated into rights of non-impedance. Social security, for example, becomes the right not to be prevented from insuring against, or associating with others for protection against, economic hardship. And the supposed right to work turns into the right not to be impeded in trading with others in whatever way is mutually acceptable.

To sum up

My ethical philosophy can be summed up in the following eight statements:

1)     Identity determines morality. Right and wrong behaviours for a species of sentient beings are determined by the nature of the species.

2)     Ethical equality. Among members of the same species, what is right for one to do, is right for another to do under similar circumstances, and vice versa.

3)     The natural law of humanity. There exists a list of ethical obligations, which represent the behaviours natural to human beings. This can be codified.

4)     Back-to-backing. Human rights and obligations can be “back-to-backed,” so that one or more rights can be enjoyed if everyone satisfies one or more obligations.

5)     Practical limitations. Self-defence and defence of others can be valid reasons for breaking the natural law of humanity.

6)     Judgement by behaviour. You should judge others, not by who they are, but by what they do.

7)     Human rights are earned. You earn your human rights by behaving as a human being.

8)     Earned human rights are sacrosanct. If you behave as a human being, no-one may justly violate your human rights.


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Sunday, 17 August 2025

Response to “Call for Evidence” on new forms of digital ID

<Name and address redacted>

<E-mail address redacted>

17 August 2025


Image credit: https://bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/campaigns/no2digitalid/

This is my response to the “Call for Evidence” on the subject of “Harnessing the potential of new digital forms of identification.” The Call for Evidence is to be found at [[1]].

Background to my response

I am responding, in the first instance, as a member of the public who is very knowledgeable in the area of computer systems and databases, and who has a strong commitment to full respect for the human rights of all those who earn them.

I am also campaign manager for my local branch of Reform UK, and leader of the local group of the civil liberties organization Together: [[2]]. My history of activism for human rights and civil liberties goes back more than 30 years. Not only to my membership of NO2ID in the 2000s, but also to my association with the Libertarian Alliance as far back as 1989.

As I recall, a major argument made for Tony Blair’s ID card project in the 2000s was that to mandate that everyone’s data be held in a centralized database would provide “a single source of truth” for those accessing that data. This, of course, raises questions such as “how do we know the data is correct?” and “is it possible that data can become corrupted?” (whether maliciously, inadvertently, or through malfunction).

After decades as a software developer and project manager, I know – without doubt – that data in a database is often incorrect, and the possibility of corruption can never be discounted. No database can ever be “a single source of truth,” and the reason is very simple; the only source from which truth can possibly be extracted is the real world in which we live.

The argument also raises questions of ethics and human rights. Like: Just how much should government be allowed to know about each individual among the people they are supposed to be serving? I would say, “only the absolute minimum required to deliver service.”

To go on. Who should be allowed to access the data, and who not: and who decides? And precisely what level of mandatory data, in any given situation, breaks the threshold of reasonability, and becomes a violation of the human right to privacy, or dignity, or both?

NO2ID’s efforts in the 2000s resulted eventually in the shutdown of Labour’s ID card project through the Identity Documents Act 2010: [[3]]. I would remind you of the words of then deputy prime minister Nick Clegg: “The wasteful, bureaucratic and intrusive ID card scheme represents everything that has been wrong with government in recent years. By taking swift action to scrap it, we are making it clear that this government won’t sacrifice people’s liberty for the sake of ministers’ pet projects.”

In the interim, we have seen chilling examples of what can happen when “whatever the computer says is right” is adopted as a general principle. Several hundred sub-postmasters were falsely accused of defrauding the Post Office because of exactly this. Many lost their entire careers, some were falsely imprisoned, and some committed suicide.

Moreover, Mr Clegg’s words back in 2010 seem to have been forgotten. To give three recent examples: We have had “vaccine passports” mandated for people who merely wanted to go about their work and their daily lives. We have had an “on-line safety” bill, that is stifling free expression on-line. And we have police using facial recognition technology in the public space, without any legal oversight.

And yet, today, we have Tony Blair – once more – advocating even more draconian intrusions into our rights of privacy and dignity than he was 20 years ago. The same Tony Blair, that was caught lying for the sake of starting a war in Iraq. And Blair is doing this with the support of the “opposition” shadow home secretary, Chris Philp. The same Chris Philp, who wanted police to double their use of facial recognition technology: [[4]]. And whose statement that the on-line safety act “won’t endanger freedom of speech” [[5]] was shown to have been misinformation, just a few months after the act came into force: [[6]].

I shall now address the individual questions.

Question 1. How effectively is data relating to individuals currently being used and shared by the Home Office and its agencies?

It does not take much googling to come up with a long list of data breaches committed by the Home Office, or their agents or sub-contractors.

·       2009: A memory stick with data on prisoners was “lost” by the Home Office’s contractor, PA Consulting: [[7]]. As the BBC reported there, PA Consulting were “heavily involved in the department’s ID card scheme.”

·       2016: The High Court awarded damages to six asylum seekers for privacy and data protection law breaches after their personal data was inadvertently published on the Home Office website: [[8]].

·       2018: The Home Office lost a privacy and data protection appeal concerning former asylum seekers: [[9]].

·       2019: The Home Office revealed the e-mail addresses of hundreds of people seeking help with the EU settlement scheme: [[10]].

·       2020: The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) says the Home Office has been responsible for more than 20 data breaches a month in the administration of the EU settlement scheme, including losing passports and sending ID cards to wrong addresses: [[11]]. The Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration (ICIBI) said the scheme breached GDPR law 100 times – which campaigners said had “sinister implications” for the planned digitisation of the wider immigration system.

·       2021: The ICO reprimands the Home Office for data breaches concerned with follow-ups to the Windrush scandal: [[12]].

·       2022: A very serious data breach relating to the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy, which led to the High Court granting an unprecedented superinjunction: [[13]].

·       2024: The ICO finds that the Home Office’s pilot of GPS electronic monitoring of migrants breached UK data protection law: [[14]].

·       2025: The Guardian reports that a Home Office contractor collected data on UK citizens while checking migrants’ finances: [[15]].

·       2025: The Telegraph reports that the Home Office is allowing police to use their passport photo database and immigration database for facial recognition searches: [[16]].

Not only is this last being done without the consent of the people affected. But unfettered use of facial recognition technology in the public space is already very likely beyond the line which divides ethical right from wrong. The two together are clearly beyond that line.

While not strictly in the province of the Home Office, it is also notable that the government’s “One Login” project, seen as a vital component of proposed systems such as “gov.uk wallet,” has failed to meet the government’s own standards for digital identity systems: [[17]].

So, the answer to the question as posed can only be, “Atrociously.” However, there are wider questions, too. Should any organization be allowed to hold as much data on everyone, as the Home Office and government now do? Or do the risks inherent in having so much data held centrally, about so many people, for so many purposes, all but guarantee that there will be abuses such as the ones I listed above – and perhaps worse problems, as yet unreported?

Question 2. What potential benefits could the use of new forms of government-issued digital identification have for the Government’s ambitions to reduce crime and to manage migration?

This is, in my opinion, the wrong question to ask. Before even thinking about potential benefits of new forms of digital ID, should not the measurable benefits of existing forms of digital ID, and the checking that goes with them, be evaluated against the costs to the people who have borne them? Both financially, and in terms of loss of rights and freedoms?

The public good

Let us never forget that a government is only legitimate when it acts for the public good. That is, per John Locke, “the good of every particular member of that society, as far as by common rules it can be provided for.” This means that a government becomes illegitimate as soon as it acts without regard for the benefit of the governed. And it must not act just for the aggregate benefit of some collective called “the governed,” but for the benefit of every individual among the governed, real criminals excepted. It is hard to see how any new form of digital ID could be legitimate under this definition, most of all if it was mandatory.

Existing forms of digital ID checking fail to reach significant numbers of people. For example, those who, for reasons perhaps of age, disability or clumsiness, are unable to use a mobile phone effectively, and therefore choose not to have one.

I myself have never yet been able to pass any on-line ID check, for just this reason. So, for example, when I reached the state pension age, I was forced to apply for the pension by post. How, then, could projects like “one login” and “gov.uk wallet” possibly meet the needs of people like me? And what would be the effects on us if such things were mandatory?

Why is there a need for new forms of ID checking?

The majority of people in the UK already have passports. And most of those adults who don’t have passports, have driving licences. Why are these documents not already sufficient to identify any British citizen, or legally resident foreigner, in any situation within the UK?

I can see that a card issued to new asylum applicants might help them prove that their application is still ongoing, so it is not “illegal” for them to be in the UK. And it could help to make sure they are not allowed benefits they are not entitled to. But I cannot see any advantage at all for British people in any new form of ID checking.

The pitfalls in going ahead with more digital ID

Moreover, based on the Home Office’s record as outlined above, and the all but certain injustices that will result whenever data in a computer is regarded as “truth” over evidence from the real world, perhaps a better question would have been: should digital forms of ID be downgraded in importance, or even abolished altogether?

And does not the “mission creep,” that seems far too prevalent in government today, lead inexorably to ever-increasing pressures against our human rights and freedoms? As Messrs Blair and Philp are showing, by their support for more digital ID schemes? In my more cynical moods, I would say that Blair and Philp are the kind of individuals that government ought to be defending us against, rather than it taking on board their illiberal agendas.

The government is not being honest with us

I cannot leave this question without commenting on two rather odd phrases towards the end of the question. One, the government claims to have “ambitions to reduce crime.” That does not sit well with a recent incident locally, in which a village shop was raided at night, at a time when – according to the officers themselves – there were only two police officers on duty for a whole borough of 130,000 people. Nor does it sit well with the fact that, when you do see police in the area, they are usually not doing anything to combat crime, but either driving around at high speed with sirens blaring, or sitting by roadsides waiting to catch out people driving some tiny smidgeon above a totally arbitrary speed limit, which wasn’t there even a few years ago.

And two, government claims to want to “manage migration.” Yet successive governments of all parties have allowed nett incoming migration to climb to absurd levels, resulting in a UK-wide population increase of more than 16% in 25 years. It is impossible to believe this has not been deliberate. And the current Labour government seems to have ceased to do anything to stop, or even or to staunch, the flow of immigrants that, according to their own laws, are “illegal.” Again, this “management” (or lack of it) has to be deliberate. So, any claims that a national digital ID system will “fix illegal immigration” are deceitful, if not also risible.

Question 3. What different categories of information about individuals could most usefully be included in government-issued digital identification?

I already answered this question above: “only the absolute minimum required to deliver a service.” That means that individuals should only ever need to identify themselves to government when using a particular government service, and should never have to supply any more information that is needed to deliver that service.

The idea that there should be a single, all-encompassing government digital ID system goes completely against this principle. If it is mandatory, that makes it even worse. “Convenience” for government should never take precedence over the human rights and freedoms it is supposed to be defending. Moreover, given the constant tendency of government towards “mission creep,” the more comprehensive the data collected for any purpose, including identity checking, the greater the danger of that data being used for purposes which harm innocent people. That George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four” was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual, may be a cliché; but that does not make it any less true.

Question 4. What potential risks does the adoption of new forms of digital identification have for individuals, including risks to privacy and security of personal data?

I have identified, above, a number of these risks:

·       Digital ID systems treat data in a computer as if it was “a single source of truth.” But this data may be, and often is, inaccurate.

·       Data may be held, beyond that strictly required for the purpose for which it is to be used.

·       Wastefulness, bureaucracy, and intrusiveness by government in people’s lives, as already seen in earlier government ID schemes in the UK.

·       Violations of the human rights to privacy and dignity.

·       Breaches by government of the standards to which it is supposed to keep.

·       Government acting without the consent of the people it is supposed to be serving.

·       Government ID requirements making it difficult or even impossible for some people or groups to go about their daily lives.

·       Mission creep being used to bring about Orwellian total surveillance and control.

Questions 5, 6 and 7

These questions seem all to be predicated on the assumption that those setting the digital ID agenda intend such a project to go ahead, regardless of what the people of the UK may think, and ignoring any objections that may be raised.

It is easy to find recent government “consultations,” that have proved to be nothing but a “box-ticking exercise” for an already pre-determined agenda. The 2020 consultation on “de-carbonizing transport” was a case in point, and the recent consultation on local government in Surrey looks set to be another. Such behaviour is extremely dishonest, and certainly violates the Nolan Principles of Public Life, if not also the ethical norms of British culture.

To sum up

I am strongly opposed to any plan for any form of compulsory digital ID. It would violate the human rights to dignity and privacy. And it goes against the values of British culture – the culture which sparked the Enlightenment, and nurtured the Industrial Revolution.

I will list six specific issues I identified:

·       The idea, that data in computer systems can be “a single source of truth,” which can override evidence from the real world, is fundamentally flawed. The whole idea of digital ID checking, therefore, is also fundamentally flawed.

·       The Home Office, and government in general as at present constituted, are untrustworthy, and should not be allowed the kind of power that any new digital ID system would bring.

·       If use of a mobile phone is to be a necessary part of a digital ID system, some individuals, particularly disabled and older people, will be unable to prove who they are.

·       There are serious risks to human rights and freedoms in any digital ID system. These include inaccuracy, overreach, wastefulness, intrusiveness, violations of privacy and dignity rights, and failing to act in the interests of, and with the consent of, the people.

·       Digital ID systems could far too easily lead towards an Orwellian system of total surveillance and control.

·       The call for evidence is asking the wrong questions. Instead of what new digital ID systems should be developed, it should be asking whether attempts at digital ID systems in the UK have gone too far, and should be scaled back or even scrapped.

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Thursday, 14 August 2025

UK Met Office FAIL. Again!

On Wednesday, 13th August, about 15:00, a thunderstorm passed over where I live. Many of us in the Godalming and Ash area will have heard it, and some of us may have seen flashes of lightning. As it happened, I was looking at the Met Office website at the time. There was no “yellow warning,” no indication that anything out of the ordinary was expected. Indeed, the short-term “forecast” showed no rain in the area at all.

The Met Office has habitually given “yellow” thunderstorm warnings at the slightest excuse. Back in 2023, I monitored their performance over the summer. Unfortunately, I did not document my findings formally. But my recollection is that, of 20 warnings they issued for our area over several months, only two actually produced thunderstorms that hit Godalming. And there were two more occasions, where they didn’t give any warning, but thunderstorms hit us anyway. I put that as a success rate of 9% (2 out of 22). Not fit for any purpose.

Anyway, here’s my screen dump of where I came in, a snapshot of the Met Office’s observational record at 15:00 (taken at 15:11):

Which shows that at that time, a thunderstorm was indeed passing just to the east of Godalming. Being the cynic I am, I immediately thought: what does the Met Office’s next forecast say?

Oops. Nothing like what was actually happening. Met Office FAIL! Now, I took this snap at 15:13, though I don’t have hard evidence of that because Microsoft have, conveniently, removed the timestamp.

At 15:20, I went back to the “forecast” for 15:15. Guess what I saw?

Oh-ho. Seven minutes earlier, at 15:13, the forecast for 15:15 had shown no rain anywhere near me. Now, after the fact, it was showing that they had forecast this area of rain all along! That was, to say the least, not very good science.

And what, eventually, was the observation at 15:15 (which I captured at 15:27)?

All this was dishonesty by the Met Office, if not also incompetence. And if we can’t trust them to predict the weather even a few minutes out, how can we possibly trust them to predict “climate change” in the future?

I rest my case, for now. But it’s a damning one.


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Sunday, 10 August 2025

A brief history of the green agenda, Part Three: 2019 to now

This is the last in a set of three essays on the history of the deep green agenda, which has been pushed on us by the United Nations and other alarmists for more than 50 years. And in particular, of the “climate change” part of that agenda.

This essay will cover the period from 2019 to the present. Some of it is a précis of parts of an earlier, more detailed essay: [[i]].

In the second essay in this set, I left till later the history of anti-car policies in the UK. I shall, therefore, exclude that particular aspect of the green agenda from the present screed, and will return to it later.

Extinction Rebellion

April 30th, 2019 was a bad day for every human being in the UK. That day marked the start of a huge wave of government activity, all directed towards killing the freedoms and prosperity of ordinary people, in the name of some claimed (but, in reality, non-existent) climate crisis.

On that day, minister Michael Gove met with Extinction Rebellion (XR). The chumminess of this meeting was very concerning. And they got to see Labour politicians, and the mayor of London, on the same visit.

XR has subsequently carried out protests, causing much damage to property and serious inconvenience to many thousands of people, particularly in London. It has also been accused of being a terrorist organization.

“Climate emergency”

On the day following that meeting, the UK parliament declared a “climate emergency.” Without any evidence that any such emergency existed, and without even taking a vote.

In any case, as I showed in a recent essay here [[ii]], there is in reality no “climate crisis.” The “emergency” of May 1st, 2019 only existed in the minds of those seeking to use climate alarm as an excuse to hurt innocent people. Objectively, it was a scam.

Nett zero

In June 2019, the Tory government put forward, and the parliament passed, a bill to set “a target for at least a 100% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions (compared to 1990 levels) in the UK by 2050.” (At least 100%? Maybe more? Crazy).

This target, called “nett zero,” replaced an earlier target of an 80% cut from 1990 levels. This was at least the fourth time since 1992 that the UK government had moved the emissions goalposts. Always in the direction of greater reductions, of course.

The Committee on Climate Change (CCC), chaired by John Selwyn Gummer, also known as Lord Deben, issued a report that supposedly “justified” this. But it said little more than that they reckoned the cost of “nett zero” measures might be 1-2% of UK GDP in 2050. That is hardly an objective or exhaustive analysis! The CCC is supposed to be an independent and impartial advisory body. But in my view, it’s about as impartial as Extinction Rebellion.

UK Climate Assembly

Parliament also initiated a scheme of “citizens’ climate assemblies,” one of the demands put forward by Extinction Rebellion. It’s very concerning that in a so-called “democracy,” those who are supposed to serve the people kow-towed to disruptive extremists, but never even bothered to ask us the people what we thought.

Absolute Zero

In November 2019, a joint report called “Absolute Zero” was published by five UK universities, using the collective moniker “UK FIRES.” It proposed to force on to us “incremental changes to our habits and technologies,” including cutting energy use by at least 40%, giving up eating beef and lamb, and ceasing to use cement.

The proposals came over like the edicts of a crazed, ultra-conservative dictator. And they made Soviet five-year plans look like a cake-walk.

The general election of 2019

In a sense, the UK general election of December 2019 didn’t change anything, because it kept the Tories in power. One issue completely dominated that election: Brexit. But the Tory manifesto proposed “the most ambitious environmental programme of any country on earth.” Many people, who wanted Brexit but didn’t care a damn about the green agenda, were fooled into voting for that agenda by the Tories’ promise to “get Brexit done.”

The Tories had offered people a carrot with a huge turd on it. And far too many people took the bait.

The “Great Reset”

In June 2020, we first heard about a so called “Great Reset.” This was, supposedly, a proposal to spur economic recovery after the COVID virus by acting “jointly and swiftly to revamp all aspects of our societies and economies.” It is (was?) a project of the World Economic Forum, a Swiss-based consortium of global big-business and political élites.

Al Gore is on the WEF board. And one of those unveiling the “Great Reset” was (the then) Prince Charles. Who travels in helicopters and private jets to give speeches about cutting CO2 emissions. What a hypocrite.

The UK Climate Assembly report

The XR-inspired UK Climate Assembly produced a report in September 2020. The assembly “asked citizens to listen to advice from climate experts,” before setting them to make “a list of recommendations for how the country should reach net-zero emissions by 2050.” All the “experts” involved were alarmists, including the then chief executive of the CCC.

Having been told only about one side of the case, and being asked for “solutions” to a non-problem, it is not surprising that the assembly’s output was garbage. It recommended, among other things, a levy on frequent fliers. A ban on the sale of petrol, diesel and hybrid cars by 2030-35. And a switch to a more biodiversity-focused farming system. What a travesty of “democracy” and “consulting the people!”

The Ten Point Plan

In November 2020, the UK government published their Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution. The phrase “green industrial revolution” was lifted by the Tories straight out of Labour’s 2019 manifesto!

I set out my views on these matters here: [[iii]]. In summary, the proposals were, in no particular order: Not properly costed. Not properly thought through. The benefits are unsure. Pie in the sky. Very expensive. Seriously reducing, or even destroying, freedom and mobility for many ordinary people. Disruptive and potentially dangerous. Likely to raise the costs of travel and of trade. Requiring huge investments of money that people don’t have, in order to bring about a lower standard of living than we have now. Already been tried and failed in one country or another. Requiring huge tax rises. And all but certain to tank.

The Sixth Assessment Report

As the date for the IPCC’s sixth assessment report (AR6) approached, the IPCC published a series of Special Reports, each of which seemed to be trying to raise the general level of alarm a little bit higher.

And when the physical science part of AR6, along with the Summary for Policymakers, appeared in August 2021, the “hockey stick” was back! They also, in effect, “airbrushed out” of the record the Roman and Mediaeval Warm Periods and the Little Ice Age. The deceit was so obvious, we skeptics didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Yet the UN secretary-general described the situation as a “climate crisis” and as “code red for humanity.”

The Glasgow CoP meeting

Then there was the UN “Conference of the Parties” meeting in Glasgow in November 2021. Its stated purpose was: “to accelerate action towards the goals of the Paris Agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.” And its theme was: “uniting the world to tackle climate change.” Its most notable event was Boris Johnson’s hypocrisy in flying back from Glasgow by private jet for no better reason than a dinner engagement.

The green leviathan, at last, encountered a degree of resistance from a few countries, that had worked out that it wasn’t in their interests to stay on that bandwagon much longer. That was encouraging; but not nearly enough yet.

Ukraine

In February 2022, the Russians started a war in Ukraine. This aggravated the energy problems we were already suffering, and started a spiral of rising cost of living and inflation for us all. It also enabled the alarmist camp to blame steeply rising energy costs on gas prices, rather than on the true culprit, intermittent and unpredictable “renewable” energy sources that de-stabilize the electricity grid.

Just Stop Oil

In April 2022, Extinction Rebellion and another extremist group, Just Stop Oil, organized “mass protests” against human use of fossil fuels. They claimed they would mobilize three and a half per cent of the UK population (more than 2 million people!) Yet their protests were confined to central London and a few oil depots. And only a few hundred were arrested.

Sri Lanka

In Sri Lanka, by early March 2022 a government-mandated transition to organic agriculture had caused the production of rice (Sri Lankans’ staple food) and tea (their main export) to plummet by more than 20% in just a few months. Failure of the harvest led to the mass protests, that during July unseated from power Sri Lankan president Rajapaksa and several of his family. As of late July, 22 per cent of Sri Lankans were in need of food aid.

What this showed is that politicians’ green meddling costs, not only prosperity, but also peace and lives. It is not “climate change” or “biodiversity loss” that are dangerous, but policies made in the name of “fighting” them.

The Netherlands

In the Netherlands, the world’s second largest food exporter, farmers had been protesting since 2019 against EU regulations to halve emissions of gaseous nitrogen compounds, particularly ammonia, by 2030. These regulations were part of the so-called “Green Deal.” The protests spread to other countries, notably Germany, Italy, Spain and Poland.

And yet, it is not at all clear that emissions of nitrogen compounds from farming have ever caused any significant negative effects. It is claimed that there is a loss of “biodiversity” in certain areas that are part of an EU project called “Natura 2000.” Yet, can anyone name even one species that has become extinct in the last 30 years, with that extinction proven beyond reasonable doubt to have been caused by modern farming practices?

This was deliberate destruction of the most productive agricultural industry in the world. Furthermore, there are likely to be knock-on effects on food security all over Europe. It is not surprising that the political “climate” in the Netherlands since then has changed significantly in favour of the farmers.

The Sharm-el-Sheikh CoP meeting

The CoP 27 climate meeting took place in November 2022 in an Egyptian luxury resort. There were, as usual, many attendees arriving by private jet. As so often, on top of their thinly veiled arrogance and pervasive dishonesty, you could see the extreme hypocrisy of many climate alarmists. They want to force draconian and damaging restrictions on how ordinary people live, while themselves enjoying their jet-setting, limo-riding lifestyles, many of them at taxpayer expense!

They agreed to a crazy idea, first mooted in 2012, called a “damage and loss fund.” This is supposed to be paid into by Western taxpayers, supposedly to compensate “vulnerable countries hit hard by climate disasters” for the (unproven) bad effects on the climate, that are claimed to have been caused by industrialization.

But this scheme is no more than a continuation and enlargement of “foreign aid” scams already in place, that force poor people in rich countries (that’s us) to pay vast sums for the benefit of rich people in poor countries (like the Rajapaksa dynasty in Sri Lanka). Any Western politician that has even been willing to contemplate such a scheme is a traitor to those they are supposed to “represent.”

The UK Tory government

Meanwhile, the Tory government continued to act as if they were above the rule of law. Many of the lockdown laws they made were ethically very dubious, and seriously violated the human rights of the people they were supposed to be serving. And they broke their own laws, as shown by the Partygate scandal.

Almost every week, there were proposals for new restrictions on our behaviour. And they, and Labour after them, have continued to pursue schemes like “digital identity” and “central bank digital currencies,” which will enable them to closely monitor even our smallest transactions, and so to tax us yet more and more harshly.

Labour and “Change”

In July 2024, the UK public kicked the Tories out at the general election. Labour, with their manifesto called “Change,” got one of the biggest parliamentary majorities since the 1930s, despite getting only 20% of eligible votes. Giving them, and Mad Ed Miliband their nett zero tsar, carte blanche to do just what they want. Which, predictably, is even worse than what the Tories were doing to us.

Prime minister Keir Starmer, at CoP 29 in Azerbaijan, made “an ambitious commitment to cut UK emissions by 81 per cent by 2035, compared with 1990 levels.”

There was a private member’s “climate and nature bill,” publicly supported by over 190 MPs, including all 72 Liberal Democrats. It includes proposals as radical as ending the use of fossil fuels as soon as possible, government taking over farming, destroying economic freedom, and establishing a presumption against nuclear power. I wrote about the bill here: [[iv]]. Its second reading was held in January 2025, but has now been adjourned until May 2026.

Despite all this, there is a feeling of “climate change” in the air. A turning point, a tipping point, call it what you will. There is, at last, a feeling that all the pressures that our enemies have built up can be turned around, and made to rebound to their disadvantage. Many people have felt it, as shown by Reform UK’s surge in membership and popularity in recent months – even despite its internal differences.

I myself sense this change, too. The mainstream media, and those of the general public who still let themselves be influenced by them, may continue to believe in the green and climate agenda – for a while. But those of us, who concentrate on the evidence, aren’t fooled. And the general public as a whole seem to be becoming less and less taken in as time goes by.

2025: coming up Trumps?

On the other side of the pond, however, things are much rosier since Donald Trump began his second term in the White House in January 2025. You can disagree with some of Trump’s policies – like the tariffs. But his record over the last few months on climate and energy has been excellent.

He has challenged the 2009 EPA “endangerment” finding on greenhouse gas emissions, that labelled carbon dioxide as a “pollutant.” It has now been axed. He has (for the second time) ditched the 2015 Paris agreement. He is seeking to relax fuel economy standards for vehicles. He is reversing a ban on incandescent light bulbs, and restoring common sense to regulations on sinks, showers, toilets, washing machines and dishwashers.

He has unleashed DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) on waste, fraud, abuse and overreach throughout the federal government. He is planning job cuts of up to 65% at the EPA. He is re-introducing coal to the US energy mix. He is re-instating leasing and expansion for Alaska’s oil and gas.

He is seeking to end the requirement for industrial plants to report greenhouse gas emissions. He is rolling back many of the energy and climate policies the Biden administration imposed, including subsidies. He has delayed or cancelled many “green energy” projects. He is seeking to re-open a uranium mine. And he has reversed a plan to remove four major hydro-electric dams. Not a bad start in just a little over six months! Americans will be far better off, economically and in their freedoms, because Trump has done these things.

But probably the most far-reaching thing he has done is issue an order to “restore gold-standard science”. It demands that government-funded science, particularly in contested domains like climate change and public health, return to first principles. It must meet the highest standards of evidence, transparency and falsifiability.

He also commissioned a report from five prominent climate realist scientists, that critically reviews the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions on the US climate. The assessment is data driven, and considers natural climate variability as well as human causes. In essence, they did what the IPCC should have been doing all along. The report was published in early August. It looks as if it meets the new “gold standard.” I hope it will prove extremely influential, and will also open up public debate on the issues.

To conclude

I have little doubt that Donald Trump’s revolution in US energy and climate policy will succeed. It already has too much public support, and too much momentum, to be stopped. And its benefits will be noticed, in a big way, by people in other countries. Then, it will be just a matter of time before the deep green agenda is a nightmare of the past.

Those that have pushed the green agenda, and the climate scam in particular, have lied to us and deceived us for decades. We are all poorer and less free because of the deliberate, planned scams they have carried out against us. By their actions, they have committed treason against our human civilization. So, they deserve to be kicked out of our civilization, and denied all its benefits. And they owe us reparations, too.

When the deep green agenda is dead at last, it will be time for blowback. And a “damage and loss fund.” From them, to us.


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