In Praise of Rod Liddle and Dale Campbell-Savours

Last Sunday Rod Liddle in The Sunday Times delivered a stinging attack on scientists and their inability to agree.

He particularly had in his sights Professor Neil Ferguson of Imperial College who has form of over-estimating deaths in bird flu, swine flu and mad cow disease.

One of the problems, Liddle states, is that most journalists have an arts degree and cannot question his conclusions.

Thus it is that supposition is presented as hard fact.

Another professor whose name I can’t recall – or want to – gave evidence before the House of Commons Select Committee predicting 40,000 deaths from the virus.

Jeremy Hunt rapidly endorsed his prediction and it became a lead item on the news.

It would not have been if Dale Campbell-Savours was on that committee. The ex-Labour MP for Workington, now in the Lords, was much feared when he was on Select Committee duty.

He knew his brief and expected those before him to justify theirs in the face of shredding questions.

He would want to know the methodology, the matrix of facts, the justification of the conclusions and would not rest till he had them.

You may not share his politics but he was fearless, championing the victims of rape allegations based on flimsy evidence incurring the wrath of some activist women.

In a world of self-servers, with their own agenda they need personality pricking by the gatekeepers like Liddle and Campbell-Savours.