Janet Albrechtsen scribbles not to praise the lord, but to ignore him and go Gaga ...

(Above: look, I'm not a Vickers Viscount).

Christopher Monckton - oh dear, why do we call him Christopher? - perhaps it's the new house style of The Australian:

Christopher Monckton has defied a plea by the British parliament to stop claiming to be a member of the House of Lords, telling his critics to "get used to it". (Affronted aristocrat defies the Lords).

Anyhoo, it turns out the Oz's use of the first name was a momentary style guide aberration:

An affronted Lord Monckton brandished his passport and instructed National Press Club vice president Steve Lewis to read from it aloud.

“The holder is the Right Honourable Christopher Walter Viscount Monckton of Brenchley,” said Mr Lewis.

Lord Monckton added: “The House of Lords says I'm not a member of it. My passport says I am - get used to it.”

Um, actually nobody was disputing that Lord Monckton can call himself a Viscount, and so a Lord (of the minor kind), in much the same way as few dispute the right of any goose to call themselves the Right Honourable Lord Goose of East Cheam.

As to whether said Goose is a member of the House of Lords, why, we defer to the House of Actual Real Lords (Monckton specifically excluded, but who knows if they know what to do or say or what action to take to stop him behaving like an East Cheam Goose of the Most Honourable Kind).

Never mind, this being Dame Slap day, we thought it might be good to go back a few years to see Janet Albrechtsen channeling Lord Monckton in Beware the UN's Copenhagen Plot:

Even after Monckton’s speech, most of the media has duly ignored the substance of what he said. You don’t need me to find his St Paul address on YouTube. Interviewed on Monday morning by Alan Jones on Sydney radio station 2GB, Monckton warned that the aim of the Copenhagen draft treaty was to set up a transnational government on a scale the world has never before seen. Listening to the interview, my teenage daughters asked me whether this was true.

Eek, it's the black helicopters, coming to take me away, hah hah. Of course it turns out that it was all true:

So I read the draft treaty. The word government appears on page 18. Monckton says: “This is the first time I’ve ever seen any transnational treaty referring to a new body to be set up under that treaty as a government. But it’s the powers that are going to be given to this entirely unelected government that are so frightening.”

Uh huh. And Monckton is still terrifying the citizenry down under with this kind of one world government international conspiracy nonsense.

So where are we today Dame Slap? What fresh conspiracy has the UN concocted that will strip us of our precious liberties, or perhaps our precious bodily fluids?

Well sadly with the Murdoch family in the headlines, and Christopher Monckton in full flight in his antipodean follies tour, Janet Albrechtsen has retreated to a little cultural analysis, and in particular, in Hermione and Lady Gaga heroines for our times, to the joys of being Hermione Granger, Emma Watson and Lady Gaga.

Move along people, nothing to see here, except for the closer:

In their different ways, Watson, her alter ego Hermione and Lady Gaga are proud to be who they are. Perhaps only a generation who has grown confused by who are can fully appreciate the power of that message.

Perhaps only a generation who has grown used to copy delivered without a subbie can fully appreciate power message last sentence.

Of course this puts Albrechtsen at odds with the considered cultural thoughts of Miranda Devine who tweeted - twitterer that she is - last year a link to Paglia on Lady Gaga, wherein Paglia is alleged to demolish an icon, while Gaga presumably keeps laughing all the way to the bank.

Apart from the vulgarity of the Devine tweet page, and the astonishing presence of those leftie Fairfax rags' mastheads, if you follow the link, you end up on Lady Gaga and the death of sex, back in the day when the Sunday Times' magazine trawled for trade by stirring up trouble over pop icons, a hallowed tradition since the epic days of The Beatles versus The Who versus the Rolling Stones, and about as useful and meaningful.

Well the pond's happy for a three way shoot out between Janet Albrechtsen, Camille Paglia and Miranda the Devine, and may the most useless and meaningless win.

Meanwhile, it seems that News Corp is now moving away from its Monckton "group hug, let's all have a climate change denial love-in" days, with Malcolm Farr leading the way in the addled Punch with Debunking the bunkum of that dopey Monckton.

Farr - a rough equivalent to the wretched Alan Colmes in attempting some kind of balance - took offence at Monckton saying Australia was now regarded as a sovereign risk, right down there with Greece, Ireland Spain and Italy, for bunging on a fake Australian accent, and for delivering a glib showbiz patter which liberally splattered big scientific names, Latin phrases, and a flurry of scientific studies, not to mention the matter of his Lordship's lesser Lordship:

... when Lord Monckton says Australia is considered a sovereign risk, it is likely he will be ignored by overseas financial markets who, like the Clerk of Parliaments, are confident they know the truth.

However, rank-and-file Australians might not know that. Having been dazzled by the names of philosophers, the Latin and the flurry of scientific studies, they might believe him when he says the Australian economy is wrecked.

Consumer confidence here is low, that is clear. Lord Monkton seems to want to drag it lower for his own purposes.

Actually Big Mal II, it's Tony Abbott who wants to drag Australia's economy, and consumer confidence ever downwards, and definitely for his own purposes, and meantime, for gawd's sake can we have a subbie in the house, lest that Monkton without a "c" decides to sue ...

Ah yes, it's a long way back to Janet Albrechtsen talking of Monckton as a prophet:

Monckton’s warning to Americans that “in the next few weeks, unless you stop it, your President will sign your freedom, your democracy and your prosperity away forever” is colourful. But no more colourful than the language used by those who preach about the perils of climate change and the virtues of a hard-hitting Copenhagen treaty.

Contrast Big Mal II's take on Monckton's "colourful language":

Showmanship is a valid tool in making a public case to ordinary listeners, and show-offs are not always wrong. However, one gets the feeling Lord Monkton does it for manipulation as much as entertainment.

Ah well, now Albrechtsen is going ga ga over Gaga and even Miranda the Devine seems to be a Monckton free-zone.

Again we pause solemnly to remember the good old days, back in 2010, as in Climategate gives lord of the sceptics plenty of ammunition:

The visit to Australia this week of Lord Christopher Monckton - the world's most effective global warming sceptic - couldn't have been better timed.

In those days, the Devine was all over the world's most effective sceptic like a rash:

Monckton is a man whose time has come because he owes nothing to anybody and he has the capacity to interpret the science to a public looking for answers.

The end result?

Could this be the last of the Monckton Follies and his regular tours of the antipodes? After all, even the best showbiz entertainers wear out their welcome, and can only make a return tour when their greatest hits turn up on the 'hits and memories' part of the dial.

There's a faint air of desperation over at Menzies House, the Robert Stigwoods of the tour, as they run this kind of desperate tosh: Next You Know the Left Will Say Lord Vader isn't a "Lord", when the whole world knows that Lord Vader and Screaming Lord Sutch are genuine Lords, and if you can take it, there's a video of the entire debate here.

Happily, Bryan Ferry can still get an audience, so there's hopes for Lord Monckton.

You might think that previous welcome mats offered by the likes of Albrechtsen and Miranda the Devine have left a permanent stain on their credibility, but that's to assume they had any credibility in the first place.

Anyway, better hurry to catch Monckton, whose tour has now been reduced to the level of a reality television show, a kind of mindless American or Australian Pop Idol, and who could do that better than the sozzled Punch team in No knockout blow in great climate stoush:

PRESENTATION
Ant: Denniss’ tie was awful. If you’re going to wear one, for God’s sake tie it properly.
Tory: Shit. I didn’t notice what anyone was wearing, I was too distracted by trying to work out who was in the audience and trying to come up with some sort of cheeky headline for this piece.

Dear sweet absent lord, does it get any more devolved than this, and presumably without the aid of a six pack or some weed?

Does Rupert Murdoch realise he's directly involved in stripping IQ points off any innocent Australian who stumbles into his publications like a mugwump in search of a swamp?

Never mind, if the idea of catching Monckton's act fills you with a vague sense of nausea and dread - much like you get when offered a News Corp publication - why there's always Randy Newman touring in August ... and if you've got a yen for something a little more modern than Newman's always croaky and now aged voice, with Lady Gaga Albrechtsen-approved, why we can all go Gaga now ...

(Below: Fiona Katauskas at New Matilda, here).