Richard A. E. North
Encyclopedia
Doctor Richard Anthony Edward North is a British blogger and author. He has published books on defence and agriculture. In 2006 his blog was rated by the Financial Times
as the UK's most influential political blog. North was previously research director in the European Parliament
for the now-defunct political grouping Europe of Democracies and Diversities
, which included the UK Independence Party (UKIP).
Dr North has collaborated with journalist Christopher Booker
on climate change
, public health
and other issues. North has co-authored a number of books with Booker, as well as collaborating on Booker's journalism.
's journal Economic Affairs described him as "an independent food safety adviser". "He then moved into trade politics and thence to the European Parliament as research director for the group of European Democracies and Diversities
," a grouping of eurosceptic political groupings which existed from 1999 to 2004, in which the UK Independence Party (UKIP) participated. At the European Parliament in Strasbourg he shared an office with UKIP's leader Nigel Farage
.
In the 1990s North completed a phd on public sector food- poisoning surveillance at Leeds Metropolitan University
.
Dr.North stood for the Referendum Party
in the 1997 election, in South Derbyshire
, having joined the party in 1996. In the 2004 European elections North was UKIP's number one candidate on the party list for the Yorkshire region, until he was supplanted by Godfrey Bloom
, who won a seat. North later resigned from UKIP, describing his service for the party as "optimism, descending into frustration, to disillusionment and to betrayal".
, co-publishing on a range of issues, including the European Union
. Their first book, The Mad Officials: How The Bureaucrats Are Strangling Britain (1994) focused on EU regulation in the UK, and was followed by The Castle of Lies: Why Britain Must get Out of Europe (1996) and The Great Deception: Can the European Union Survive? (2005). In 2004 he published a Bruges Group
paper on the European Union
's Galileo satellite navigation system.
on the 2001 United Kingdom foot-and-mouth outbreak, describing the subsequent merger of the Agriculture (MAFF)
and Environment ministries to form the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
(DEFRA) as the "most cynical makeover since Windscale changed its name to Sellafield
". North's 2001 book The death of British agriculture: the wanton destruction of a key industry included some of the same health issues in terms of their negative effect on British agriculture: "Struggling under the onslaught of successive crises - the effects of the Common Agricultural Policy
and the bureaucratic demands of the EU; food scares from salmonella to BSE; the spread of intensive farming and the concentration of buying power in the hands of the retail giants - British farming has been brought to its knees."
More recently North collaborated with Booker on Scared To Death: From BSE To Global Warming, Why Scares Are Costing Us The Earth (2007), a study of the part played in Western society in recent decades by the 'scare phenomenon'.
paper on UK defence policy.
from a sceptical position, including co-authoring (with Christopher Booker
) Climategate to Cancun: The Real Global Warming Disaster Continues..., the followup to Booker's The Real Global Warming Disaster
. North also collaborated with Booker in January 2010 on what Booker dubbed "Amazongate",
when North showed that an IPCC
claim that 40 percent of the Amazonian forests could react drastically to "even a slight reduction in precipitation" was sourced to a World Wildlife Fund report. While North was correct to point out that the report was not peer-reviewed scientific literature, it later became clear that there was evidence supporting the report's claim, based on research by "the respected Amazon Environmental Research Institute(IPAM)". The Sunday Times printed an apology and retraction for an article based on material from North.
In December 2009, Christopher Booker and Richard North published an article in The Sunday Telegraph in which they accused Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC), of using his position for personal gain, with a follow-up Telegraph article in January 2010.According to George Monbiot
, "The allegations ... were widely aired in the media and generally believed." On 21 August 2010, The Daily Telegraph
issued an apology, and withdrew the December article from their website, having reportedly paid legal fees running into six figures. Dr Pachauri described the original allegations as "another attempt by the climate sceptics to discredit the IPCC." After the retraction, North "called The Telegraph's retraction and apology 'meaningless' and the result of 'blackmail' by Mr. Pachauri's lawyers. The story 'stands uncorrected,' Dr. North stated, though he presented no evidence to support his claims that Dr. Pachauri had earned millions of dollars from consulting and other ventures since becoming the head of the United Nations panel."
In 2006 North wrote on his blog, "if being wrong gets one closer to the truth – as it does – then it is worth putting up half-formed speculation and letting the debate rage."
Financial Times
The Financial Times is an international business newspaper. It is a morning daily newspaper published in London and printed in 24 cities around the world. Its primary rival is the Wall Street Journal, published in New York City....
as the UK's most influential political blog. North was previously research director in the European Parliament
European Parliament
The European Parliament is the directly elected parliamentary institution of the European Union . Together with the Council of the European Union and the Commission, it exercises the legislative function of the EU and it has been described as one of the most powerful legislatures in the world...
for the now-defunct political grouping Europe of Democracies and Diversities
Europe of Democracies and Diversities
Europe of Democracies and Diversities was a euro-sceptic political group with seats in the European Parliament between 1999 and 2004. Following the elections in 2004, the former MEPs of the group took MEPs from the new member countries on board and together, they registered the new group...
, which included the UK Independence Party (UKIP).
Dr North has collaborated with journalist Christopher Booker
Christopher Booker
Christopher John Penrice Booker is an English journalist and author. In 1961, he was one of the founders of the magazine Private Eye, and has contributed to it for over four decades. He has been a columnist for the Sunday Telegraph since 1990...
on climate change
Climate change
Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...
, public health
Public health
Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals" . It is concerned with threats to health based on population health...
and other issues. North has co-authored a number of books with Booker, as well as collaborating on Booker's journalism.
Background
Dr.North had "a brief career in the Royal Air Force" before becoming a local government officer, and then for two decades ran his own consultancy business. A 1994 contribution to the Institute of Economic AffairsInstitute of Economic Affairs
The Institute of Economic Affairs , founded in 1955, styles itself the UK's pre-eminent free-market think-tank. Its mission is to improve understanding of the fundamental institutions of a free society by analysing and expounding the role of markets in solving economic and social...
's journal Economic Affairs described him as "an independent food safety adviser". "He then moved into trade politics and thence to the European Parliament as research director for the group of European Democracies and Diversities
Europe of Democracies and Diversities
Europe of Democracies and Diversities was a euro-sceptic political group with seats in the European Parliament between 1999 and 2004. Following the elections in 2004, the former MEPs of the group took MEPs from the new member countries on board and together, they registered the new group...
," a grouping of eurosceptic political groupings which existed from 1999 to 2004, in which the UK Independence Party (UKIP) participated. At the European Parliament in Strasbourg he shared an office with UKIP's leader Nigel Farage
Nigel Farage
Nigel Paul Farage MEP , a position he previously held from September 2006 to November 2009. He is a current Member of the European Parliament for South East England and co-chairs the Eurosceptic Europe of Freedom and Democracy group....
.
In the 1990s North completed a phd on public sector food- poisoning surveillance at Leeds Metropolitan University
Leeds Metropolitan University
Leeds Metropolitan University is a British University with three campuses. Two are situated in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England while the third is situated in Bhopal, India...
.
Dr.North stood for the Referendum Party
Referendum Party
The Referendum Party was a Euro-sceptic, single issue party in the United Kingdom formed by Sir James Goldsmith to fight the 1997 General Election. The party called for a referendum on aspects of the UK's relationship with the European Union.-Policy:...
in the 1997 election, in South Derbyshire
South Derbyshire (UK Parliament constituency)
-Elections in the 2000s:-Elections in the 1990s:"-Elections in the 1980s:-Elections in the 1940s:-References:...
, having joined the party in 1996. In the 2004 European elections North was UKIP's number one candidate on the party list for the Yorkshire region, until he was supplanted by Godfrey Bloom
Godfrey Bloom
Godfrey Bloom is a Member of the European Parliament for Yorkshire and the Humber for the United Kingdom Independence Party...
, who won a seat. North later resigned from UKIP, describing his service for the party as "optimism, descending into frustration, to disillusionment and to betrayal".
European Union
In the early 1990s North began collaborating with journalist Christopher BookerChristopher Booker
Christopher John Penrice Booker is an English journalist and author. In 1961, he was one of the founders of the magazine Private Eye, and has contributed to it for over four decades. He has been a columnist for the Sunday Telegraph since 1990...
, co-publishing on a range of issues, including the European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
. Their first book, The Mad Officials: How The Bureaucrats Are Strangling Britain (1994) focused on EU regulation in the UK, and was followed by The Castle of Lies: Why Britain Must get Out of Europe (1996) and The Great Deception: Can the European Union Survive? (2005). In 2004 he published a Bruges Group
Bruges Group
The Bruges Group is a think tank based in the United Kingdom.The group is often associated with the Conservative Party, though it is independent of it and remains an all-party organisation...
paper on the European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
's Galileo satellite navigation system.
Health
North and Booker wrote a special edition for Private EyePrivate Eye
Private Eye is a fortnightly British satirical and current affairs magazine, edited by Ian Hislop.Since its first publication in 1961, Private Eye has been a prominent critic and lampooner of public figures and entities that it deemed guilty of any of the sins of incompetence, inefficiency,...
on the 2001 United Kingdom foot-and-mouth outbreak, describing the subsequent merger of the Agriculture (MAFF)
Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food
The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food was a United Kingdom government department created by the Board of Agriculture Act 1889 and at that time called the Board of Agriculture, and then from 1903 the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, and from 1919 the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries...
and Environment ministries to form the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is the government department responsible for environmental protection, food production and standards, agriculture, fisheries and rural communities in the United Kingdom...
(DEFRA) as the "most cynical makeover since Windscale changed its name to Sellafield
Sellafield
Sellafield is a nuclear reprocessing site, close to the village of Seascale on the coast of the Irish Sea in Cumbria, England. The site is served by Sellafield railway station. Sellafield is an off-shoot from the original nuclear reactor site at Windscale which is currently undergoing...
". North's 2001 book The death of British agriculture: the wanton destruction of a key industry included some of the same health issues in terms of their negative effect on British agriculture: "Struggling under the onslaught of successive crises - the effects of the Common Agricultural Policy
Common Agricultural Policy
The Common Agricultural Policy is a system of European Union agricultural subsidies and programmes. It represents 48% of the EU's budget, €49.8 billion in 2006 ....
and the bureaucratic demands of the EU; food scares from salmonella to BSE; the spread of intensive farming and the concentration of buying power in the hands of the retail giants - British farming has been brought to its knees."
More recently North collaborated with Booker on Scared To Death: From BSE To Global Warming, Why Scares Are Costing Us The Earth (2007), a study of the part played in Western society in recent decades by the 'scare phenomenon'.
Defence
North's 2009 sole-author book, Ministry of Defeat 2003-2009: The British in Iraq, was reviewed in the Daily Telegraph. North also blogs on defence matters, and is credited by Booker with early contributions to the criticism of the Ministry of Defence's use of under-protected Land Rovers in Afghanistan. In 2003 he published a Centre for Policy StudiesCentre for Policy Studies
The Centre for Policy Studies is a British right wing policy think tank whose goal is to promote coherent and practical public policy, to roll back the state, reform public services, support communities, and challenge threats to Britain’s independence...
paper on UK defence policy.
Climate change
North has written about and commented on climate changeClimate change
Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...
from a sceptical position, including co-authoring (with Christopher Booker
Christopher Booker
Christopher John Penrice Booker is an English journalist and author. In 1961, he was one of the founders of the magazine Private Eye, and has contributed to it for over four decades. He has been a columnist for the Sunday Telegraph since 1990...
) Climategate to Cancun: The Real Global Warming Disaster Continues..., the followup to Booker's The Real Global Warming Disaster
The Real Global Warming Disaster
The Real Global Warming Disaster is a 2009 book by English journalist and author Christopher Booker written from a standpoint of environmental scepticism which aims to show how scientists and politicians came to believe in anthropogenic global warming.In the book, Booker...
. North also collaborated with Booker in January 2010 on what Booker dubbed "Amazongate",
when North showed that an IPCC
IPCC
IPCC may refer to:*Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, of the United Nations*Independent Police Complaints Commission, of England and Wales*Irish Peatland Conservation Council...
claim that 40 percent of the Amazonian forests could react drastically to "even a slight reduction in precipitation" was sourced to a World Wildlife Fund report. While North was correct to point out that the report was not peer-reviewed scientific literature, it later became clear that there was evidence supporting the report's claim, based on research by "the respected Amazon Environmental Research Institute(IPAM)". The Sunday Times printed an apology and retraction for an article based on material from North.
In December 2009, Christopher Booker and Richard North published an article in The Sunday Telegraph in which they accused Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a scientific intergovernmental body which provides comprehensive assessments of current scientific, technical and socio-economic information worldwide about the risk of climate change caused by human activity, its potential environmental and...
(IPCC), of using his position for personal gain, with a follow-up Telegraph article in January 2010.According to George Monbiot
George Monbiot
George Joshua Richard Monbiot is an English writer, known for his environmental and political activism. He lives in Machynlleth, Wales, writes a weekly column for The Guardian, and is the author of a number of books, including Captive State: The Corporate Takeover of Britain and Bring on the...
, "The allegations ... were widely aired in the media and generally believed." On 21 August 2010, The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
issued an apology, and withdrew the December article from their website, having reportedly paid legal fees running into six figures. Dr Pachauri described the original allegations as "another attempt by the climate sceptics to discredit the IPCC." After the retraction, North "called The Telegraph's retraction and apology 'meaningless' and the result of 'blackmail' by Mr. Pachauri's lawyers. The story 'stands uncorrected,' Dr. North stated, though he presented no evidence to support his claims that Dr. Pachauri had earned millions of dollars from consulting and other ventures since becoming the head of the United Nations panel."
Other
In 2006 North's allegations that Hezbollah had staged some of the aftermath of the Qana airstrike were widely aired in international media.In 2006 North wrote on his blog, "if being wrong gets one closer to the truth – as it does – then it is worth putting up half-formed speculation and letting the debate rage."
Books
- (with Christopher Booker), The Mad Officials: How The Bureaucrats Are Strangling Britain (1994)
- (with Christopher Booker), The Castle of Lies: Why Britain Must get Out of Europe (1996)
- The death of British agriculture: the wanton destruction of a key industry, Gerald Duckworth and Company, 2001
- (with Christopher Booker), The Great Deception: Can the European Union Survive?, Continuum Publishing, 2005
- (with Christopher Booker), Scared to Death: From BSE to Global Warming: Why Scares are Costing Us the Earth, Continuum Publishing, 2007
- Ministry of Defeat 2003-2009: The British in Iraq, Continuum Publishing, 2009
- (With Christopher Booker), Climategate to Cancun: The Real Global Warming Disaster Continues..., Continuum Publishing, 2010
External links
- Eureferendum.blogspot.com
- Defenceoftherealm.blogspot.com
- North's columns for the Bruges GroupBruges GroupThe Bruges Group is a think tank based in the United Kingdom.The group is often associated with the Conservative Party, though it is independent of it and remains an all-party organisation...
- A natural disaster ... but a man-made catastrophe, Daily MailDaily MailThe Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
, 25 April 2010