Brexiteers like Michael Gove who dismissed expert warnings “probably don’t understand” the evidence and have reacted in a knee-jerk fashion, David Attenborough has said. In a video interview with Greenpeace’s investigative and news platform, Unearthed, the 91-year-old broadcaster and naturalist compared Brexit to “spitting in each other’s faces” and called the referendum “an abrogation of parliamentary democracy” because of a lack of facts.To which one commenter remarked: “De haut en bas”, as if Sir David considers himself part of an aristocracy.
That was from a left-leaning publication. In contrast, the relatively right-leaning publication the Daily Mail told us:
Prince Charles says piracy’s been ‘fantastic’ for sea life
Prince Charles’ latest remarks have sparked outrage after he claimed pirates have been ‘fantastic’ for marine life because fisherman were too scared to do their job. The 68-year-old royal said there had been a ‘fantastic explosion’ of bigger fish off the coast of Somalia due to the lack of activity in the sea.A more accurate quote from the Crown Chronicles:
Speaking to Sky News, Prince Charles said: “As a result, there hasn’t been any fishing there for the last ten or 15 years. And from that there has been a fantastic explosion of bigger and bigger fish”.
His comments came after delivering a keynote speech at the Our Ocean Conference (5–6 October) in Malta, which came on the same day that he released a rehabilitated turtle back into the wild.
Prince Charles has been lambasted for his comments by former SAS trooper and anti-piracy expert Phil Campion and former soldier Stephen Beardsley, who faced pirates in the Indian Ocean.
Mr Campion said: “These are nasty gangs doing extreme harm, not worrying about life. There’s a few extra fish. Compare that to people’s lives lost, it’s insensitive. If Charles thought about it he’d have a change of heart.”
Mr Beardsley said: ‘They aren’t friendly, never mind environmentally friendly.’
The future King revealed in his speech that there has been a positive effect of piracy on the east coast of Africa, saying it has created a fishing-free zone which has given time for marine life to recover.
He said, “A classic example of proof of all this is what’s been going on on the east coast of Africa, where off Somalia all this piracy has been going on. As a result, there hasn’t been any fishing there for the last 10 or 15 years and from that there has been a fantastic explosion of bigger and bigger fish, all along the coast, because there hasn’t been the fishing.”
“What you need to do is organise the fishing in a way that enables the fish, and everything the fish depend on, to survive in their eco-systems. It’s no good just letting people fish everywhere, with their bigger and bigger boats, with cleverer and cleverer technology to find and suck up every single last fish – that’s crazy, that’s not conversation, it’s madness.”
I am reminded of what G.K.Chesterton once said: “Democracy means government by the uneducated, while aristocracy means government by the badly educated.” (in New York Times, February 1, 1931).
But these days it’s not the aristocracy, but the entertainmentariat, that seem to have got above themselves. One more quote from Twitter:
Eminem destroyed Trump but ironically that might make those that did vote for him want to vote for him more.I haven’t followed that particular item, so I can’t comment on the first part, but the second part of that sentence seems only too close to the mark.
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