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Thursday 3 December 2009 - in more detail

Verity Murphy | 17:43 UK time, Thursday, 3 December 2009

RBS' board has threatened to resign if the government blocks its plan to pay a reported total of £1.5bn in bonuses to investment banking staff.

Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman Vince Cable has said the government should "call the bluff" of the RBS directors and accept their resignations.

Should it? Tonight, our Economics Editor Paul Mason will be reporting on the predicament now facing the government, and its likely course of action.

Jon Sopel has this afternoon been talking to Pakistan Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani about security concerns, the hunt for Osama bin Laden and Prime Minister Gordon Brown's claim that three quarters of terrorist plots originate in the Pakistan-Afghan border regions - we will have that interview tonight.

And Science Editor Susan Watts will revisit the Climatic Research Unit stolen e-mails row.

It was announced today that an independent review will investigate claims that the e-mails showed scientists were manipulating climate change data.

Tonight Susan will be revealing new information about what went on inside the prestigious institute.

And we have the last film in our series on make do and mend.

As reporter Mary Jane Baxter's trip to test whether the current vogue for make do and mend is more than a fad draws to a close we will be joined in the studio by a high street trend spotter and social commentator to talk frugal fashion.

Join Jon Sopel for all that at 10.30pm on Â鶹Éç Two.

Comments

  • Comment number 1.

  • Comment number 2.

    s-climategate-deniers/

  • Comment number 3.

    Great stuff - please tackle the content of HARRY_READ_ME.txt.

    The emails are pretty awful, but the real scandal is in the comments written by the software programmer who was responsible for making sense of the CRU's supposedly world-leading and 'settled' concensus.

    A layman with virtually no knowledge of science can read exactly what the programmer [Ian 'Harry' Harris of UEA CRU dept] meant - its full of references to making up data to suit their published position, fabricating missing results ditto, databases that were a complete mess.

    Here is an expert summary if you haven't already read through it.

    Just look at the screen shots if nothing else



  • Comment number 4.

    Forgot to point out that rhe MWP referred to is the Medieaval Warming Period where vineyards flourished nr Hadrian's Wall to grazing cattle in Greenland.

    Prf Jones et al would have you believe that this is 'an anomaly' despite it lasting 400yrs and documented widely by historians.

    It doesn't take many braincells to notice that it is not that warm now since Greenland is mostly covered in ice. To make 'global warming' a 'fact' they simply left it out. I don't think that there were many SUVs or coal fired power stations then either, do you?


    Seriously, look at the emails and code comments - its there in b/w

    To coin a phrase - do you believe your lying eyes?

  • Comment number 5.

    I have just sent the following to the Treasury for the Chancellor to answer, perhaps this could also be put to whoever is put up to speak on this subject on tonight's programme

    In light of Lord Myner's strong criticism of the huge bonuses to be paid to bank employees in the banks subsidised by the taxpayer, what thought if any has been given to imposing an immediate one off windfall tax of 100% in the pound on any bonuses to be paid out in subsidised banks over a reasonable amount - i.e above £10,000 so that lower paid staff do not suffer disproportionately. That way, all contracts can be honoured but the tax payer will be reimbursed for his/her support of these institutions rather than the people who created the problems in the first
    place.

    Windfall and supertax provisions have been used in the past by all governments. This would be a hugely popular sanction with the electorate I am sure.

  • Comment number 6.

    REMEMBER THE AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL STRIKE IN USA - THEY GOT FIRED.

    Something similar was pulled on me by half a dozen staff - they got fired.

    Somehow, with Myners floating about in the frame (the man who forgot to ask 'how much' over Fred's haul) I am in little doubt there will be a cave-in.

    Does anyone else get the feeling Myners is 'another one'?
















  • Comment number 7.

    I note that my link to the WattsUpWithThis.com has been moderated - that's very strange.

    Let's try again since this website had 3m hits in the last two weeks of November.

    Here's an example of IPCC reviewers expressing reservations about data presentation that were ignored

  • Comment number 8.

    from what i can see elsewhere online the bbc is embedded with maurice strongs man made climate change team.


    what to find our more about M strong and the crestone?



    and want to do a course in Personal Leadership



    or the The Leadership Spiral



  • Comment number 9.

    Why are you referring references to a specific website with 3m hits in the last two weeks to moderation?

  • Comment number 10.

    Let them all resign it will cost us a lot less. Although I guess they will have figured they wont get so much if they jump before they are pushed.

  • Comment number 11.

    Here's a question for the RBS board...when is a cash bonus not a cash bonus ? When its a cash advance against a non cash bonus. That way almost everybody is almost happy.

  • Comment number 12.

    What is happening in banking is very simple.

    Each company will say how they have to compete with another company, they will all look innocent and pretend this was none of their fault, and which ever government is in power, in the next couple of years, the bankers will be sitting in their private clubs, giggling into their Gin and Tonics and saying, "Did the government seriously ever think they could control us? This is OUR world, it does not belong to the peasants or their little rulers."

    And if that sounds far fetched, well, it is how the vast majority of the population think when they hear anything about bankers.

  • Comment number 13.

    I've just watched the Newsnight report on the 'climategate' affair where the software guy interviewed cast doubt on the CRU programming, but stated he preferred the NASA programming ("Professional").

    In case there's any doubt about NASA's position on global warming/climate change, due to rising CO2 levels, it is unequivocal. e.g.

  • Comment number 14.

    Pay the bonuses that would have been paid if the bank had not been bailed out by the taxpayer !

  • Comment number 15.

    barriesingleton

    I'm sure it's not all to do with polygloby mono-something you talked about earlier. There's a whole world outside that's nothing to do with polygloby. It's you and your mates who've become so obsessed that you can't see anything better or different.

    If the ice has been melting at the poles then there must be something in it /not to be confused, of course, with Poles surrounded by their neighbours. It's a mad comparison, a pure 'scientific' invention. Whther the earth's poles have been melting due to time variants rather than due to man's industrial or whatever activities is a point of serious concern and analysis but to make everything revolving about a female getting older is bonkers beyond all belief.

  • Comment number 16.

    Susan Boyle

    I’ve just had my favourite ice cream
    While listening to Susan having a dream
    Of making somebody proud with her achievement
    She’s done that now to others’ merriment

    She is a hit all over the place
    Her name is Boyle but now she must face
    The pressures of fame and all that it brings
    Hope she’ll be fine and will know how to resist

    The vultures waiting hid in black holes
    Scheming away, planning their goals
    Hoping for dosh, making it roll.

  • Comment number 17.

    #16 addendum

    My impression, if not an informed conviction in fact, is that the vultures are already at it trying to promote through Susan Boyle's making it in the big world their delusions while waiting for the dosh to start rolling over in their direction.

  • Comment number 18.

    It would appear that the alleged inquiry into the CRU is likely to be a whitewash exercise, the main factor perhaps being that CRU figure closely correspond with NASA figures. It would appear that Bob Watson is in denial about the fact that the arctic ice sheet massively grew last year due to global cooling. However perhaps the NASA warming statistics are also suspect, only the other week they were claiming that there is loads of water on the Moon after an experiment. Astronomers tried to view it but could not see the alleged plume after the vehicle crashed, Patrick Moore said he would " eat his hat " if they found water on the moon.

    Given the possibility that NASA once got away with probably the biggest scientific scam in history, namely putting men on the moon and the key bit of returning them safely, whatever the pedigree of the computer programme they are using their hypothesis is suspect.

    I'm really interested in true science of any kind, always have been since I was a kid but chose the physics route and then engineering to specialize in, I like archeology also and like to come to my own conclusions based on the evidence, particularly in relation to climate changes. For example the ancient Egyptians used sledges which suggests that what is now desert was possibly once lush grassland, sledges work better than small wheels on grassed soft ground. I improvised one to tow behind a small tractor for building the annual bonfire on the village playing fields from a machine part pallet, would carry up to a ton of standard pallets in two stacks and hardly marked the surface over tens of trips.

    Talking about sledges it reminds me of my Gt Uncle Frank who made full use of sledges pulled by ponies even in the 1960s, who lived on the family farm on the often boggy heights of Waddington Fell, we used to visit him when I was a small kid.

    In the Bronze age people lived on top of Dartmoor, too cold and wet for anybody to live there now but perhaps 3000 years ago the climate was a lot warmer and calmer than it is now. Similarly the Orkney's, the experts claim there was no wood, too windy for trees to grow there now but who knows there may have been forests there originally, even if man soon cut them down.

    I believe that Channel 4 are doing a new series of the relationship between archeology and the evidence of climate change over the ages presented by Tony Robinson starting Monday at 9pm, should be really interesting.

  • Comment number 19.

    I've just watched parts of last night's programme on the iPlayer and having previously made questioning remarks about Jon Sopel's presentation style would like to say that last night he seemed to have got it just about right.

    He was more animated than I had seen him previously but did not try to go overboard in trying to 'behave' the way that does not suit his own personality.

    We are all different and all we can do is try to bring the best in us but pretending to be someone that one is not only makes us look like fools turning life into a farce.

  • Comment number 20.

    With regard to the scandal 'created' by 'scientists', I'd like to say that although an enquiry is clearly required, their documents as they currently stand should be completely disregarded at the forthcoming Copenhagen gathering.

    I suspect that what one can see on the East Anglia computers is a hacking work by outside forces that I keep calliing 'unwarranted forces', interfering in anything they can lay their hands on. I can't imagine any real scientist would write things like 'oops' or 'I'm not really good at this' or whatever other stupid comment in their research paper.

    Unfortunately, my conclusion is that the hackers have been given almost unlimited access to too many UK institutions, including the Â鶹Éç, etc.,
    suggesting that they may be unwittingly employed by either the MI5 or MI6 or are acting on behalf of some other, foreign, 'security' agency like the former KGB playing monkeys even with the FBI and CIA.

    It would be useful, therefore, for the Leaders meeting in Copenhagen to discuss this big problematic issue.

  • Comment number 21.

    I enjoyed watching the final item of the programme and listening to the studio discussion afterwards as well as the piece about the V&A patchwork group.

    I wouldn't agree with Peter Yorke, however, that it is only in this country that people engage, or in fact are forced to engage due to financial restraints, in Make Do and Mend activities.

    Whatever the reason for growing one's own vegetables, making or mending clothes or knitting, etc., they are certainly great and creative, if not therapeutic, activities to engage in whatever one's financial situation.

  • Comment number 22.

    #21 addendum

    The aforementioned hackers may for all we know
    Work as double or multiple agents waiting for the doh'
    Hoping to bask in glory covered in golden chains
    Leaving a lot of people behind in quite a bit of pain.

    mim

  • Comment number 23.

    20. At 06:25am on 04 Dec 2009, mimpromptu wrote:
    With regard to the scandal 'created' by 'scientists', I'd like to say that although an enquiry is clearly required, their documents as they currently stand should be completely disregarded at the forthcoming Copenhagen gathering.


    Would that just be documents that have lead to the so-called 'Climategate' which the politico media establishment have found 'inconvenient' in the run up to their jamboree, or the entire set of 'science is settled' ones that have suited all sorts of command and control agendas just nicely 'til now?

    (And one is sure many, from Miliband. E to Black. R would concur.)

    If the former, that's an interesting notion that does seems to have some traction in the 'if we don't like it, either ignore, steamroller or try over and over 'til we get the result we like' systems we currently 'enjoy' today.

    If the latter, then a few tens of thousands of folk are kicking out a bunch of GHG's to mainly climb aboard planes to have a bit of party, though they may squeeze in deciding how best to shunt around, tax and rake commission from them allowing those they rule (representation is so last millennium) to do not what they do but what they say.

    Which is a principle I am sure today's leaders are quite comfortable with and will indeed be discussing. Along with 'dealing with' pesky types finding stuff out that they really have no business knowing, especially if it is untrue or inaccurate. Can't have anything said at PMQs trotted out to suit not based on 'fact', can we?

    Good luck with that.

  • Comment number 24.

    #23
    JunkkMale

    I'll leave it up to the World's Leaders to decide. I've only made a few suggestions.

    It's kind of understandable, though illegal, to be hacking into my computer but to be hacking into anything and everything that one fancies as part of the 'game' is another and I should imagine consequences will need to drawn sooner or later.


  • Comment number 25.

    JUST CAUGHT A GLIMPS OF OUR LEADER AND LIMITED ED 'DOING CHAT'

    Apparently they were fielding questions from 'young people' about climate. (I just can't bring myself to add the tautological word 'change'.)

    The first words to come from Ed's (mealy) mouth were praise for his world-saving leader!

    SPOIL PARTY GAMES.

  • Comment number 26.



    All this started around 2000. For many years I had been using multistory car parks to photograph buildings for construction and architectural commissions. In West Bromwich in 2000 I was 'rushed' by 'security' - had to stop the work and get written permission detailing what I was doing and why. This was before 9 11. Then for a commission in the same year to document the architecture of a city I took around a letter to show who ever came up to me - it was an almost daily occurance, during the eighties (little cctv) I was left alone apart from those with mental health problems and drunks who seem to be attracted by a tripod and camera. I bet NN has had its moments on the streets. One wonders what Tony Ray Jones would make of the UK these days.

    The Pakistan chap looked a bit freaked by Brown. His country is a mess and going to get worse. Sorry mate but Uncle Sam may well have to kill your nukes.

    Susan watts report seemed important but needed to know how the sloppy code would affect the data results. Are you able to run any tests - make a comparison ?

  • Comment number 27.

    Excellent Newsnight with Jon last night, particularly his interview with the Pakistani PM when he was questioned on where he thought Bin Laden would be as he had categorically denied he was in Pakistan. Also liked the fact that Jon pointed out that PM Brown would not have publically stated that Pakistan was not doing enough to find Bin Laden.

    Also liked Jon's interview with Geoffery Robinson & Vince Cable on bankers' bonuses too. Oh and loved Paul's report on the "handbags at dawn" conflict of bankers v government. Ha ha ha ha!!!!!

  • Comment number 28.

    Also wanted to add that Jon Sopel was Political Journalist of the Year in 2007 :o)

  • Comment number 29.

    If the United Nations is going to investigate this allegation, they also need to investigate WHY AND HOW this timely leak happened just before the Copenhagen Climate Summit. I hope the media and the United Nations looks at how the information was obtained and whether or not the person (s) who leaked this were compensated in any way and and by whom.

    What a coincidence that this is leaked just before the Summit. How convenient to get the media to discuss this allowing it to cast a cloud of doubt on the goals of the Summit. Climate change policy has powerful opponents who are ruthless and will stop at nothing to protect their interests; even manipulate the climate debate in the media with "timely leaks". This has been done before.

    I would only hope that Scientists asked questions and debated this throughly before arriving at a consensus. This is manipulation of the media at it's finest. Congrats to the opponents of climate change policy for their tactics. It seems to be working.

  • Comment number 30.

    These RBS board members really don't have a clue. It's also about time that the government's lawyers looked carefully at how the "exceptions" within the terms of the "rights" enshrined within the Human Rights Act might best be used to bring these City bigheads to heel. Permanantly! A spell in The Tower wouldn't do any of them any long term damage and, might help improve their social consciences - if they have any at all in the first place.
    The next step is for the government to seriously look at micro-finance and mutuals. If small businesses can be funded in this way, in the long term the bankers become an irrelevancy. As does The City and its bonus culture.

  • Comment number 31.

    Laughing all the way to the bank

    looks like Gordon caved in to the bankers. The FO won't deal with terrorists or hostage takers but HMG deals with bankers?


    climate terrorism

    just because ice is melting it doesn't follow that is proof the only agent is man. how did Greenland get its name? because it all ice or because at some point it was green? and why does carbon trading have to be the main mechanism?


    make do with a million

    it seems the only people who do not have to make do and mend are the bankers? [and some upper levels of the public sector?]

  • Comment number 32.

    World leadership seems to be a bit a problem these days.

    First they came for the UK, and I didn't get to speak...

    Then they came for the EU... and I didn't speak...

    I'd be up for some of it were it not that those that are out to save the world above all can't seem able first to scare up the ability to save enough back home for a stamp to put on a letter.

    If you get my drift.

    Ed and Gordon and Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice all getting aboard, along with 35 other science is settled PR reprinting remoras... are not the most inspiring collection to have deciding anything on current evidence... at least IMHO, for my kids' best interests.

  • Comment number 33.

    Does white ryme with shiet or PARAsite

  • Comment number 34.

    The clowns who pelted the the Baroness with eggs just what are they doing in this country.

    there are airports

  • Comment number 35.

    Bonnie Greer on The Daily Politics -

    'We have all benefited from the bankers'

    'They are like waiters'

    What planet is she on ?

  • Comment number 36.

    have the new paper clips arrived Enid... Yes mister johnson there over there you dozy stupid plonker.

    Gary Mckinnon has done the septics a favour.

    I do hope they have sorted their security isSUEs 2

  • Comment number 37.

    corus job losses

    nothing to do with china's devaluation that leaches jobs from the uk to china of course? its merely those 'market forces' at work?

    at some point the govt will have to let go of their false beliefs about how markets work and have a strategy to combat those bending the market so the money and jobs falls to their side of the table?

  • Comment number 38.

    It would appear that the eco-fascists are now attempting to portray that big business was somehow behind the CRU data hack / leak when nothing could be further from the truth. Brown was only crowing the other day that he had got 850 companies behind his proposals for Copenhagen including Shell and Tesco. Companies don't care about basic human rights, ( which Copenhagen intends to destroy ) look what Shell did to Ken Sarawiwa in Nigeria, Copenhagen is just an excuse to internationally legalize a license to rip people off.

  • Comment number 39.

    GREER HANGS ON EVERY WORD SHE UTTERS - THAT'S GENIUS (#35)

    I registered the same planetary displacement in Her Greerness. I am still trying to forget her 'performance' on Question Time. Are there no Counter Irritation laws yet?

  • Comment number 40.

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