James Delingpole: The BBC and Jimmy Savile: peas in a pod

Guiltiest of all, in my book, is the BBC. Without the BBC’s relentless propagandising on behalf of the alarmist cause everywhere from the Today programme to Springwatch to the hysterically doom-mongering reportage of Roger Harrabin and David Shukman the public appetite for climate action at all costs would not have been nearly so strong or undiscriminating. Nor would our politicians have been quite so desperate to prove their green credentials with lunatic policies like the Climate Change Act. This in turn would surely have meant fewer wind farms. And, better still, fewer expensive sports cars for the noisome Dale Vince. Perhaps Vince might even have been forced to get a proper job.

How did the BBC feel justified in playing Al Gore’s Dr Goebbels when – under the terms of its charter – it is supposed to remain scrupulously balanced and neutral? Well, this is subject of a court case which has been going on this week, which has seen the massed ranks of the most expensive lawyers the BBC can muster pitted against a North Wales pensioner and his wife. It concerns the origins of this now-infamous occasion in 2006: