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Political lunacy if you ask me. She seems very articulate but it was out with the dinosaurs. When you pressed her on climate change she fell to pieces. How can anyone still be arguing that we're not facing a crisis? Can't take a politician seriously unless they START from the point of view that climate change is the KEY problem facing us and our world.

Was she for real?

Margeret Thatcher lives on!!!!

During the whole series, Lea, Singer, Bragg, Robinson, Chakrabarti and not forgetting Dawkins, we had nothing but a middle class perception and worldview projected by these soothsayers, I’m delighted that William Crawley Meets, was put back on Tuesday night because I watched some working class philosophy in the One Life program about Ricky Tomlinson’s fight to clear his name against those that framed him and jailed him and conspired against himself and the Shrewsbury 24.

Ricky Tomlinson's worth a fortune C Hip! He's been making a fortune for years on the back of his former working class identity. I was glad to see Ruth Lea on TV. She's more influential than you seem to think. Politicians change people's lives, for better or for worse, and policy analysts like Lea have helped to shape generations of government strategy. In her case, I think, for the worse. Climate Change and the future of Europe are issues that matter and they are issues that will change the lives of hundreds of millions of people in the next decade. Middle class AND working class people. Welcome to the real world C Hip.

Why is it that anyone who seeks to limit the power of government and protect individual liberties are automatically regarded as "dinosaurs"? Is there no future in anything but statism? While I disagree with Ruth Lea on many issues, she's a brilliant mind and a voice of reason in today's predominantly leftwing political landscape. In a Britain where the Conservative Party aren't even conservative, people like Ruth Lea have stood against the lunacy of the bollocks that passes for rational policymaking these days. "Thatcher live on"? If she did, I may just move back across the pond. Would that that were the case.

And while we're on the topic, Sam Scott (comment #1) has bought into the leftwing rhetoric on climate change insofar as he won't even "start" (his word) to take seriously anyone who doesn't believe "...that climate change is the KEY problem facing us and our world." If ever a word was used incorrectly, it is the word 'liberal' to describe the kinds of people who make such statements. Sam Scott isn't alone in his closedminded approach to issues of science and public policy: he's joined by a plethora of 'liberals' who, for example, only recently tried to BAN Martin Durkin's documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle which provided a rare chance to hear the other side of the climate change debate. How open these people are to any points of view which happen to disagree with the philosophical criteria for belief that they gained suckling at the teets of great 'liberal' leaders.

What a joke. I suggest that such people have no basis on which to critique those who think for themselves like Ruth Lea.

I'm surprised she hasn't given up on Britain as hopeless already and moved to America. Who wants to take bets Tony Blair spends at least a good percentage of his time in the US once he retires.

I can't agree with her about global warming. I was skeptical myself...until I saw photographs of the melting polar ice caps and retreating glaciers. Not that I'd have the US sign up to Kyoto tomorrow, I don't believe in one sided treaties or so called international laws that are enforced sometimes for some people and overlooked for others when it's politically convenient. I was fortunate enough to fly over, sail next to, and explore glaciers in Alaska about 20 years ago. You get to understand just how vast they are. It would take an awful lot of heat to make them melt. Something is happening.

Mark- I agree, though the causes and degree to which warming is occurring is not understood as well as some political types would pretend. It is certainly the case that anyone who wishes to understand the truth about climate change would be open to all arguments on all sides, not wishing to silence, ridicule or prejudge those with which they are predisposed to disagree. And it is a vast jump from 'Climate change is occuring' to 'We must implement leftwing coercive measures of law to prevent it'. The unanswered questions, the lack of understanding the nature of the problem and the unwillingness of 'liberals' to admit this before implementing freedom-crushing measures which would be devastating to the economy make me very cautious.

I don't think global warming and climate change is a political issue, it's a scientific issue. I think the majority consensus among knowledgeable scientists is that climate change is a reality and I think they feel human combustion of fossil fuel creating CO2 is a major contributing factor. They certainly are alarmed.

The real issue is what to do about it. The EU has made a political football of it and it is blowing up in their faces. They'd love to blame it on the Bush administration and take pains at every opportunity to try. But when Kyoto was first negotiated, the US walked out because it so one sided and in a sense of the Senate resolution it was voted down 95-0. The US is not going to fall on its sword to save humanity. Besides it wouldn't work if they tried, it would cause a major economic downturn, possibly a worldwide depression and would result in hundreds of millions of people who depend on American agricultural surpluses starving to death. It would also destabalize many nations whose economies depend directly or indirectly on exports to the US, the world's greatest consuming nation. The cutbacks would trade a long term worldwide climate disaster into an immediate worldwide economic disaster. China which is exempt from cutbacks under Kyotos says it is more concerned with its economic growth, pays lip serivice occasionally but does nothing. It will soon pass the US as the number one GHG producer. India says the west produced a lot of GHGs when it was industrializing, now it is only right for it to have its turn. The EU also pays lip service but is falling far short of its Kyoto targets and is scrambling to assure adequate future supplies of fossil fuels It is very worried about Russia as a reliable supplier, one which could hold it political hostage in the future. In Germany, industrialists were furious as the prospects of manditory CO2 cutbacks in cars while top EU officials themselves drive large gas guzzling high CO2 producing vehicles. When challenged recently they all but said do as we say not as we do, it's none of your business. Nor are Europe's airlines interested in cutbacks. In fact the survival of Airbus may depend on increased air travel. I've flown on nearly empty 747s myself many times. How much useless CO2 will an A380 create when it happens to be almost empty?

Europe is the one place most concerned about global warming but it squandered its technological resources which might have been put to good use in finding new technologies for large scale alternative power sources by wasting it on development of commercial aircraft, a redundant space program, and an experimental fusion plant which optimistically won't produce power until nearly 2050 if it ever produces any at all. No I think the efforts to combat global warming will remain mostly talk. If we haven't passed the point of no return already, it may come soon. Talk about thawing permafrost in Siberia releasing vast amounts of methane, 20 times as effective as CO2 in trapping heat is also alarming.