Lord Monckton, and a little light entertainment involving the House of Murdoch ...

(Above: why not light up a Viscount today?)

Shocking news.

Lord Monckton has been de-frocked, or de-lorded or whatever else you do to advise a putative member of the house of lords that, lordy, lordy, you ain't no lord of the lordy lordy kind.

Yes, it's all here, in Climate sceptic Lord Monckton told he's not member of House of Lords, and if you don't believe the cardigan wearing lefties at The Guardian, why you might actually have to revert to the 'cease and desist' letter published at the actual House of Lords site, in A letter to Viscount Monckton of Brenchley from the Clerk of the Parliaments (also handily available in pdf from to send to friends and relatives).

Dear Lord Monckton

My predecessor, Sir Michael Pownall, wrote to you on 21 July 2010, and again on 30 July 2010, asking that you cease claiming to be a Member of the House of Lords, either directly or by implication. It has been drawn to my attention that you continue to make such claims.

In particular, I have listened to your recent interview with Mr Adam Spencer on Australian radio. In response to the direct question, whether or not you were a Member of the House of Lords, you said "Yes, but without the right to sit or vote". You later repeated, "I am a Member of the House".

Eek, it's that damn cardigan-wearing Marrickville ABC Mauler Adam Spencer who's done the good lord down.

I must repeat my predecessor's statement that you are not and have never been a Member of the House of Lords. Your assertion that you are a Member, but without the right to sit or vote, is a contradiction in terms. No-one denies that you are, by virtue of your letters Patent, a Peer. That is an entirely separate issue to membership of the House.

Oh golly, I could go on quoting the rest of the letter, but why do a spoiler?

Oh heck, stop twisting my arm, here's the wrap-up:

I am publishing this letter on the parliamentary website so that anybody who wishes to check whether you are a Member of the House of Lords can view this official confirmation that you are not.

Would it be wrong, would it be gloating, to suggest that Caroline Overington make the trip to the parliamentary website, so she can correct the egregious, erroneous errors to be found in Christopher Monckton won't lord it over us, assert ABC, Fairfax? (yes, yes, I know talking of erroneous errors is doubly redundant, but what fun to be a redundant like Overington, or as Jeeves might say, to show signs of being mentally negligible).

Throughout the column Overington kept blathering about Lord Monckton, seemingly refusing to accept that the good lord is a Viscount, not a lord in the Lords, and ended her piece thus:

Lord Monckton spoke at a Sydney function last night, and, all being well, will address the National Press Club on July 19.

All being well a few actual journalists might turn up and give Lord Monckton a little bit of curry, or stick, or what ho, I say old chum, as Bertie Wooster might say.

Let's not confuse the concept of a Viscount in the United Kingdom, a lord of a lesser kind, with the Vickers Viscount, or for that matter Viscount cigarettes (caution, ancient You Tube cigarette commercial of an Australian kind which may tempt reformed smokers to revert to primeval ways).

As always, the pond will respect the right of anyone to call themselves a lord, and claim any lordship they like.

Who can forget the fabulous contribution of Lord Humongous's contribution to the world of wrestling?

Yes, Mad Max lived on in the ring, and you can catch his lordship's career details, such as they are, here. He wasn't the only lord to grace the mat, and in many ways he probably added to the status of wider house of lords in a way that Lord Haw Haw never managed.

What next you ask? An apology from the fatuous Overington for taking cheap shots at Fairfax and the ABC when she might have been better off taking cheap shots at his lordship?

Sorry that's not the Murdoch house style.

UPDATE: news in from the ABC in Ballarat:

His (Monckton's) closing comments accused those behind the promotion of climate change science and those involved in the Copenhagen and Cancun climate change talks of being directly involved in a plot to establish a non-democratic one world government.

"Nearly 1,000 new central bureaucracies, globally, regionally, nationally and locally - all answerable to the State's parties - or the commissariat, rather - to the UN framework convention on climate change," he says. That's going to be the seat of the new world government; they're setting it up now as we speak." (Christopher Monckton in Ballarat: defund the ABC, beware the secret one world government, it's cheaper to do nothing about climate change).

Meanwhile, on another planet, menzies house (don't ask me, that's how they cap their name, as if Ming the Merciless would approve of grammatical hooligans) heroically defends their emissary, in Will ABC's Wendy Carlisle apologise for getting Lord Monckton's science embarrassingly wrong?

We look forward to their next blog entry, Will Menzies House apologise for relentlessly trading off on Lord (not the House of Lords) Monckton's title, and making it all the more embarrassing for all ...

Eek, I looked out the window, and there are some black helicopters hovering nearby.

UPDATE on the UPDATE: Tony Abbott now denies having said this:

“The other crazy thing about this is that, at the same time that our country is proposing to reduce its emissions by 5 per cent - just five per cent - the Chinese are proposing to increase their emissions by 500 per cent.

“So any emissions reduction that we put in place will be wiped out in just a few days by the emissions increase that the Chinese do.” (Tony Abbott undermines Coalition's carbon emissions policy).

What a relief. And here I was thinking Murdoch's minions had hacked my mind and changed black into white.

Meanwhile, thanks to ABC News, we learn that Lord Monckton continues to insist he's a member of the House of Lords because his passport says he is. Hmm, is he travelling on a false passport, or did the Murdoch minions hack into the House of Lords and plant a bogus letter?

Or is the telling of porkies just a national sport downunder when on your grand tour, you feed the colonials their diet of bread and pudding, because they're ever so grateful, guv'nor ...

Cue light music, and so to a little light entertainment before the chopper people take us away.

Oh it's a bit of old rope, but as things get stickier and stickier, what fun to relive a sketch based around It's a Wonderful Life (or Scrooge, or whatever):