EnviroSpin Watch

Environmental elitism: I smell a class rat.....

Oh! I do like it when a tough, rough business 'person' punctures the PC platitudinousness of our more poncy PC environmentalists. And today's 'Quote of the Day' is a blinder in this respect.

Here is Michael O'Leary, Chief Executive of Europe's biggest low-cost airline, Ryanair [first half profits up to a record £160 million], on the environmentalists who are constantly whinging on about its low-fare structure increasing emissions:

"We will double our emissions in the next five years because we are doubling our traffic. But if preserving the environment means stopping poor people flying so only the rich can fly, then screw it."

And when you think about it, Mr. O'Leary has a good point. Scratch an environmentalist, and you will invariably find an elitist. First, as I have pointed out before on this blog, the leaders of the UK environmental movement are a particularly toffee-nosed bunch, Lord Snootys to a chap and gal, from Prince Charles to an Eton mafia [e.g. (Honourable Sir) Jonathan Espie Porritt, 2nd Baronet, CBE, educated at Eton and Magdalen College, Oxford - to be fair, he doesn't use his title].

Secondly, have you noticed? Environmentalists always want things "to cost more", from organic parsley to hemp underwear. It's hard cheese if you are on benefits, lass. Thirdly, they are forever hollering for more taxes and tolls, charges and curbs, on everything, and all of these proposed taxes are retrogressive on the poor. And finally, they just have to fly, my darlings, or drive spiffing cars, because what they do is so important, and, in any case, they will plant a few pretty trees on their estates to offset their 'naughtiness'.

The double standards are often breathtaking. I have never forgotten watching a television report of a 'Top People's Bash' in which a leading posh UK environmentalist stood blithely in front of a line of limousines delivering the great and the good of the environmental and PC worlds to the feast while lecturing the rest of us, 'the bedint', on environmentalist ethics. It really was the "We haves" and "You shall not haves"."If you don't do what We say, Nanny will be wery, wery cross."

To adapt a famous quotation: "Only the little people pay environmental taxes."

When you deconstruct so much of the environmentalist pieties, you will smell a class rat lurking beneath the garbage. And just watch the rich 'Green' farmers wriggle when you talk about the evils of subsidies and the need for free trade.

Class warfare? You bet. Thank goodness for the Michael O'Learys; we need them to blow away all this trustafarian tosh.

Yet, in the real world, despite all the nannying, the 'Sunday Colour Supplement Greenies' don't stand a chance. I also noticed that another low-cost airline, EasyJet, has just recorded a 13.7% increase in passenger numbers. It's up, up and away.

Philip, "Ee! I wer' browt up on tripe an' chips! Ah canna stand this poncy wafflin'" "Tea with six sugers, luv?" Let's all clear our minds of cant. Coffee.