From Fairfax:
A prominent British Tory MP has launched a stinging attack on Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s climate change policies, calling them “incomprehensible”, “illogical” and a distortion of “what it means to be a Conservative”.
Richard Benyon, a former environment minister under British leader David Cameron, says Mr Abbott’s decision to become the first world leader to abolish a carbon price is “mystifying” and his attack on renewable energy targets “bewildering”, especially for a “supposedly pro-business government”.
…Mr Benyon argues that “those who, like Mr Abbott, persist in regarding climate change as a left-wing conspiracy based on speculative science are in a rapidly dwindling minority”.
He says “true Conservative values include distaste for over-regulation and enthusiasm for entrepreneurialism. But they also include a respect for sound science and economics, a belief in protecting the natural world and a responsibility to do the best for the biggest possible number of one’s citizens.”
Not according to Tony the troglodyte, from Battlelines:
To a conservative intuition is as important as reasoning; instinct as important as intellect. A way of life has far more demonstrative power to a conservative than a brilliant argument.
In short, you can take your reason and stick it where the earth don’t warm.
