Published: Thursday, 28th January, 2010 3:43pm

'Experts' false claims on climate change

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REgarding last week's letter, "Tory at odds with party over global warming" - good news on global warming!

In this uncertain world it's nice to know some things don't change - SNP candidate Mrs Gibson just keeps on slinging the mud of personal attacks. Apparently, having a mind of my own on 'global warming' is a bad thing.

It is worth remembering that Galileo was found "vehemently suspect of heresy" by the Inquisition, forced to recant, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest for defending Copernicus' heliocentric model, which placed the Sun at the centre of our universe. Speaking out can be dangerous indeed.

However, I have good news for readers (and Mrs Gibson). Global sea levels are not rising significantly, and as the global warming 'industry' was forced to admit last week, Himalayan glaciers are not in rapid retreat as they had falsely claimed. Increasing numbers of scientists are admitting that global temperatures over the last century are entirely consistent with well-established, long-term, natural climate cycles, despite deliberate attempts by the Climate Research Unit to hide the truth by falsifying the figures.

China and India are not prepared to sacrifice economic performance to solve an entirely speculative problem. In Britain a majority of voters no longer believe in man-made climate change, but are being forced to pay for pointless attempts to control it, while watching their jobs disappear to eastern Europe and China due to carbon taxes on industry.

I'm not surprised Mrs Gibson is 'astonished' at my comments - the public are so used to candidates, MPs and MSPs being little more than spineless puppets with no mind of their own who simply dance to the Party line. I am absolutely loyal to my Party but I will always speak out for what I believe to be right - it's called democratic politics. As David Cameron said only last week, "This election campaign is already in danger of boring people to tears and if it's all about…claim and counter claim we won't get anywhere. But what we do need is people who stand up and say what their values are, say what they think, say what they care about and say how we can help to mend our broken society."

I could not accuse Katy Clark of mindlessly toeing the New Labour line under Tony Blair. Perhaps this is why Mrs Gibson continually fails to recognise the difference between me legitimately criticising Gordon Brown and Labour for the terrible damage they've done to our economy and public finances, without making personal attacks on a well-meaning and (in my experience) principled woman.

I will not indulge in petty personal attacks, but will rightly criticise Parties and policies where criticism is due - which is why I criticised the SNP for failing to prepare Scotland for the ice and for their ludicrous energy policies which will not only mean the loss of 500 hundred jobs from Hunterston nuclear station, but almost certainly lead to power cuts as well as higher energy bills and the waste of thousands of millions of pounds of public (i.e. our) money.

Philip Lardner,

Westminster Conservative candidate