According to today's Metro*, Stewart Dimmock has sort of won his Court case, saying that Al Gore's film should not be shown to all schoolchildren as it is brainwashing.
The judge** agreed that the film "contained statements about climate change for which there was insufficient scientific evidence".
So far, so good, unfortunately, the Department for Children, Schools and Families have now decided that the film will be shown in a "more balanced way".
What the f*** does that mean? Either you show it or you don't!***
* Update - LFB has found the link on the BBC website here. Interesting how the right-wing Metro reported this as a victory for Mr Dimmock but the left-wing BBC presented it as a victory for Al 'Lying F***wit' Gore, who according to something that Tim W uncovered, has bought himself a beachfront property, despite his claims that sea levels are going to rise by 22 feet. What a complete f***ing bastard.
** It appears that not all judges are bastards, liars or f***wits.
*** WOAR gives a full explanation of how little this means in the comments. As ever, ta muchly for that, WOAR.
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They hid it away Mark, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7025119.stm
"What the f*** does that mean?"
This is an instance of the delicate politics between the judiciary and the government. Bear in mind that the judiciary are now under the Ministry of Justice, in the classic Orwellian fashion.
Even when journalists understand what the process of judicial review is, it is still a bugger to explain in a single column, so the coverage is either misinformed or inadequate.
Essentially, judicial review is a critique of the process of decision making, not the decision itself. (Exceptions apply but I'm not going in to that now.)
The judge is not able to act as a film and content critic; he can only look at the Education Act and ask 'did the government comply with its own regulations?'.
Even a decade ago you would have heard judges carefully making statements such as 'not usurping the authority of parliament', but the growth in the use of JR since the Human Rights Act, and the tendency of government to make ever worse decisions which cut in to the authority of the individual and their family, has led to a string of challenges. (Rightly in my view, but others disagree.)
In this case, the judge is dancing around trying to find a tactful way of saying the government is not compliant with its own rules, but it would be if it had observed the requirement for balance.
What he does not - and cannot - say, is that the government didn't give a hoot about balance and just wanted to push some propaganda, and have been rumbled.
So what he has done is give the government a face-saving strategy. They issue a change of practice before the written judgment, and by the time the judgment comes out, they will be compliant so nobody has to criticise anybody else. Get the drift?
The judge might have passed an opinion on the content of the film, but then judges are entitled to a personal opinion as much as the next person. It is confusing for the audience that they mix them in with their legal pronouncements because it makes it sound like all utterances have legal weight, but they don't.
In summary: the government passes the HRA and makes a great song-and-dance about being accountable before the law. Fair enough. It then makes a string of bad decisions - and one or two good ones - all of which are challenged at JR using the 'procedural compliance' heading, rather than the 'bloody stupid decision' heading.
Everybody knows what the challenge is REALLY about, everybody has to pretend it is about process.
Upshot - a surprising number of judges ar regarded as "bastards, liars or f***wits"* and the government finds it suddenly very easy to overturn 300 years of judicial independence whilst making it sound like they are acting for the public good.
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* There definitely are a few bastards, liars and f***wits, but more been systematically lied to by civil servants and local authority workers.
The police don't tend to do as much lying as they once did. Lawyers will risk lying to judges as the chances of getting found out are relatively low, but getting higher.
You'd think that people lying to them would be the first thing a judge realizes about the job, but you would be wrong. There have been a string of cases in the past few years, such as the Gene Morrison debacle, where the judges have been manipulated by their own over-deferrence to anyone claiming to be an expert, especially a scientific one.
Re Gore's house in San Fransisco. Apparently it's "several blocks" from the waterfront and from watching countless American police shows I seems to remember that SF is quite hilly. This could mean that Chez Gore is above the 22' contour and hence safe.
Of course, this doesn't mean he isn't a cynical grasping politician even if he does believe in the bollocks he spouts. If the property is built say at the 30 to 35' countour, what is now several blocks from the sea could become prime beachfront property (and thus worth a lot more) when the waters do rise.
Perhaps what's more disturbing is that the place will be packed with luxuries like spas, pools. That's lots of wasteful water and electricty usage, surely.
WTF champion of Common Sense I suppose you also think kids should be taught intelligent design...
No, I don't. What on earth makes you say that, Anonymous?
You failed to mention that the judge quite clearly expressed that the movie won't be banned from schools, as Dimmock demanded, because the detected errors were minor in nature and that the movie contains four messages that are very well and truthfully documented: That climate change is made by man, that temperatures will rise further, that the climate change will have bad consequences and that it is possible for goverments and individuals to do something about it.
Yes I agree with the last post; the film is basically a very good thing but it is what it says it is - a very inconvenient truth for all of us and so it's not surprising that a lot of people are still in major denial. "Dimmock"; well named imho!
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