There is no doubt that the climate scam and the cult that pushes it, will come to an end, at least the scam will come to an end as the evidence shows there is no “climate crisis”, however the cult may not so much end, as just morph into somethings else like a Mushroom worshiping cult.

However, climate does what the climate wants, and the soonest we expect to see any significant cooling is approx five years. And, even if the actual climate cools, the adherents of the cult, who think a perfectly normal and very ordinary climate is a “crisis”, still won’t believe it. Mere evidence won’t change their beliefs.

Because the simple fact is that there is not the slightest connection between the “climate crisis” and reality. The “Crisis” is a purely human created myth which neither was created by fact nor can be destroyed by the mere facts. And let’s be frank, the real climate, and real climate trends are about as boring as … I’d say “paint drying”, but as least with paint drying there is a change, whereas our real climate has spent 20 years going sod all.

Indeed, perhaps the reason this mad cult was able to grow up, was because there was so little newsworthy interest in the real climate, that people jumped on the fake climate to create news.

10 years ago on the 17th November 2009, some 3,000 e-mails, software files, and other documents from the University of East Anglia Research Unit were covertly released by someone** onto the Internet.

Not long after I created the petition asking for an investigation into the University of East Anglia. Looking back, those ten years, I now realise how gullible I was. I really did believe that when the evidence of academics deluding themselves by fabricating the data on climate was known to the press & politicians, that inevitably the renewable energy scam would blow out.

10 years later, the fact is that the press had not the slightest interest in the truth. Instead, over the years I have watched in horror as they encouraged the truth to be deliberately hidden. The original “crime” of Climategate was some inept academics deluding themselves by changing the data. But Climategate became one of the most blatant cases of official corruption deliberately hiding the truth from press and public. That was done by creating three under-lapping inquiries designed to give the appearance of a “thorough” investigations but intended to allow the main accusations and allegations to slip through the gaping hole that had been deliberately left in the middle.

As for those like the the Biased Corp, a decade ago I thought they were mistakenly on the wrong side. Today, I know they were deliberately on the wrong side. For over those 10 years I have seen them using the propaganda techniques straight out of Goebbels propaganda manual of the big lie. They lie and lie and lie and lie again without any ethical standards and without care at all for science. They have absolutely no credibility on climate and as time progressed, I learnt they had no credibility on a host of other subjects as well.

On the other hand … whilst the academics involved in climate AS A GROUP behaved dishonestly and fraudulently, at least some academics (namely Phil Jones) did seem to learn the lessons of being caught out and did for a while amend their ways and begin looking scientific. So, guilty yes, but guilty of being inept and deluded. And thus, if it hadn’t been for the establishment corruption, the lies from the press and if that recognition of problems had been shared across all of academia, I really do think the scam would have disappeared into history and be largely forgotten by now.

The problem with Climategate, was that the worst culprits were not in the UK where the rumpus was, but in the US. So whilst the UK saw an improvement in standards, that did not last long nor have any profound effect, because their US colleagues, unaffected by Climategate and wholly unrepentant, quickly dragged those in the UK back into the mire.

The result is that the subject of climate has literally been going backwards for the last decade. Because instead of making progress in understanding the climate, the data has been tampered with more and more to fit a non-science theory of catastrophic warming and it is very arguable we know less about how the climate works today than we did a decade ago.

The Climate Cult

However, for all the angst about Climategate, it is largely academic now. For whilst ten years ago, the science did matter, today, it doesn’t matter one iota what the science says. The Climate Cult is now a fully fledged religions with its own 16 year old prophets of doom and martyrs. The cult is no longer based on any science, and so, to be honest, it wouldn’t matter if every climate academic in the world confessed on camera that they had been altering the data and that the sceptics were right, the Climate cult would just claim they were being manipulated by “Big Oil” and return to their crusade with even more fervour.

The irony, is that we sceptics and the academics are now very much in the same boat as the academics are about as impotent and unimportant as we sceptics were 10 years ago. It’s no longer about science, no one listens to the vast majority of academics. They can only watch as they see their subject being dragged into a medieval quagmire the Climate Cult’s religious nuttery.

Historical Viewpoint

Climategate may now be largely irrelevant, but from a historical view, when people in the future look back at the scam, and knowing it was clearly a scam, Climategate is going to be critical. Because without it, people could claim “no one knew”, but with Climategate no one can claim that the sceptics did not make the world aware of what was going on so proving governments have the evidence which should have compelled them to start investigating the corruption properly. Instead, Climategate will show a conspiracy by the British Establishment to prevent the evidence being heard, both by public and politicians. That is not something that is going to be easily swept under the carpet, because it will be one of the key events recorded in all its gory detail that every historian will recognise. It should have prevented the scam going further. It will not be easy to explain how the evidence showing climate alarm was based on delusion was ignored, without facing the fact that there was a criminal conspiracy by members of the establishment.

The original “crime” could be passed of as over-enthusiastic, inept and deluded academics. But the establishment cover up was a deliberate, premeditated conspiracy to deceive public and politicians.

**A few years after the event, on the 1st April as I recall, I stated that I had been involved. Strangely no one believed me 🙂

Introduction

Anyone who has been following British politics, cannot but be bemused, by the recent happenings in the UK Parliament. There we have a group of MPs, who having numerous times said they would respect the referendum vote of the UK populace (which was to leave the EU) have voted against every deal* and none, refused to sack the PM or back him, and have vehemently refused to present themselves for scrutiny before the electorate at a General Election. Then, despite having a perfectly good procedure to block any action of the PM (through a no confidence motion) when the PM tried to start a new session of Parliament, which the opposition had long demanded and which was an entirely normal practice, the MPs who had refused to stop the PM themselves, went to the Supreme court who then invented new law to bring back Parliament, where MPs sat around with nothing much to do. Clearly, even the MPs who took the PM to court, had not expected to win the supreme court case, as they had absolutely no plans what to do when they came back!

Against most expectations, Boris Johnson, one of the finest political speakers I have witnessed as PM, managed to secure a new deal from the EU, which appeared to meet the concerns previously expressed by Parliament. But, instead of accepting the deal, the biased speaker of Parliament, who should be an “impartial referee” worked against one side and with a foreign power (the EU) to block the expressed will of the British public to leave the EU.

As a result of their lies about respecting the referendum result and their various shenanigans, the main opposition party’s electoral support has plummeted, and it is now obvious their only chance of any substantial presence in the next Parliament is to allow the UK to exit the EU and desperately hope the electorate forgives them in the two years before the next scheduled election.

Instead, politicians in the UK Parliament, now appear to be much like a wild animal trapped in its lair. Refusing to come out and meet the challenge of a General Election, unable to move from their position, but viciously attacking the public if we dare to express our anger at their behaviour.

Bizarrely, this does appear to have a connection to climate. In this article, I will attempt to explain this. The quite irrational behaviour by our British politicians seems to have parallels in the area of climate and thus climate may explain the current crazy situation of UK politics. And having seen the behaviour of US politicians, this rise of irrational political behaviour does not appear to be unique to the UK. Indeed, given the police brutality now being seen in France, Spain and other places across Europe, it may represent a general and growing hostility between politicians and the public. And, I do put it that way. Politicians versus the people. Although having campaigned in climate, I was used to insults, I was surprised by the vitriolic language used by politicians. We public were called racists, Nazis, xenophobes and bigots, simply for wanting our own Parliament to be in control of our own country.

The Academic Ape

The key to understanding this appalling behaviour by politicians, lies I think, in understanding the similarly appalling behaviour we have seen by academics against climate sceptics. None of us here have to be reminded of the language used. Nor do we have to be reminded of the unwarranted lies such as our “massive fossil fuel funding” (which is particularly galling for those like me who chose to give up paid work to campaign on this important issue). Nor will we forget the vile behaviour such as Lewandowsky who made up accusations that sceptics were “moon landing conspiracists” or Michael Mann who appear to spend all their time in hate filled lawfare attacks on sceptics. But worst of all, I thought, was the appalling behaviour I saw given to several academics. As I was a first hand observer of the vitriol against Prof Salby I can relate these. His “crimes” were 1) to be a professor (which seemed to trigger a particular vicious response) and 2) that he said that at least some of the change in CO2 was natural. An undeniable statement given that the evidence clearly pointed to that, and that even some of those attacking him admitted that CO2 levels changed with the ENSO cycle. The attack was all the more galling, because for this “crime” of telling the undeniable truth, Prof Salby lost his job.

Again, we have a situation where a group in society (academics) appeared to be acting irrationally and were engaged in vicious name calling and totally unwarranted attacks on others.

However, what I found peculiar about the Salby attack, was that although I have written over 1000 articles on my own blog, some which were far more contentious than the write up of Prof Salby’s speech, the only one that had ever drawn such vicious attacks, was the one where I chose to write up the presentation by Prof Salby in a very “academic” manner. (my normal being more light hearted) Why was this? And why was it that some sceptic blogs like my own, had very few attacks, but others like WUWT were constantly under attack?

In particular, why when academics attacked sceptics for just having “blogs”, were they then viciously attacked when they presented work to a journal and finally managed to jump all the endless hurdles to get it published? After looking at the range of blogs & sceptic publications and the behaviour they attracted from academics, whilst academics criticised sceptics for not presenting their work in an “academic fashion”, I had to conclude, that: the more academic the work, the more careful and considered the article, the more the work should have been accepted, the higher the shrill, the more vicious the language, the more sustained the attack on our work by academics.

Instinctive aggression

My conclusion, was that the behaviour we sceptics were being subjected to, was not a rational attack based on the credibility of our work, but something more primitive and instinctual.

I had seen very much the same behaviour before in the field of archaeology. As a non-academic I was part of an online forum consisting predominantly of academics. It became clear that there was particular hostility between “archaeologists” and “metal detectorists”. As I was in neither camp, I could see that neither side was a paradigm of virtue. Many metal detectors have been used to rob historic sites. But, for example archaeologists had previously stripped bare the Stone Henge monument so that if anyone went back today using more modern methods the site is practically destroyed in terms of evidence.

So, it very much surprised me when, as a neutral observer, I spoke up to say that “metal detectorists” were being unfairly attacked, that I then found myself under a vicious attack by young archaeologists. They took extreme dislike that I had “sided” with “the other side (although I had tried to be neutral). And, like the Salby affair, they would not stop attacking, but instead tracked me down to another website and a group carried on the wholly unwarranted attack there (at Christmas). Clearly and quite unintentionally I had “trodden on someone’s toes”. I was getting attacked, not for backing one group, but for being impartial and not joining the attack on the metal detector users.

This bizarre pattern of irrational aggression by academics both in archaeology and climate, appeared to be related. There were many similar features:

• It was one group against another
• The stimulus for attack seemed to be work & activity that encroached into “the domain” or perceived “territory” of the other.
• The attacks were often carried out by groups of younger males (this was a notable feature of the metal detector wars, where older academics & females seemed to egg on the younger males but otherwise took no part in the attacks)
• It seemed to involve “ritualistic” behaviour. Where one group would form a pack (in climate there were websites where alarmists would gather) and they would hurl ad hominem attacks at the other side. These appeared to have very little relevance to the article or work at contest and were totally out of all proportion to any issues. A lot of noise, a lot of commotion … it reminded me of the behaviour of chimpanzees rushing around and hurling sticks at another troop.
• Another feature, was that individuals or very small groups would leave the general group holding one “territory”, and then intentionally make a “running attack” on the other and then return to great praise. Again typical of ape attacks where groups stand off against each other and then individuals or small groups rush across to attack the other and then return.
• Very often the attacking group would spend a lot of time locating the “prized work” of members of the other group, and then set about attempting to destroy it. In this context the way that alarmists spend inordinate amounts of time trying to discredit the academic qualifications of sceptics was bizarre. Also if someone had put a lot of work into a website – even on an unrelated theme – I have seen these being attacked. The more it was “their baby”, to put in the terms of ape behaviour, the more viciously it was attacked. Again very characteristic of apes.
• The most vicious attacks were directed against those who had or appeared to have changed membership. This was not something I’d read about ape behaviour, but I had seen this “primitive” aggression against “blacklegs” when I was working in a very unionised company.

From the characteristic of the behaviour I had seen in both archaeology and climate and perhaps a few other areas where I have dabbled, I realised that the vicious attacks on sceptics by academics, appeared to be very closely related to those of apes like Chimpanzees and their behaviour in territorial disputes. So the appalling behaviour of by those like Lewandowsky who have no expertise in climate, but joined in vicious group attacks, may have nothing at all to do with what we were saying, instead we were being attacked for “invading” the “territory” of academia.

It seems that Lewandowsky, and so many other academics, with absolutely no idea about atmospheric physics, joined in the attacks on sceptics simply because they perceived sceptics as being “outsiders” invading the “academic territory”. Of course, academics have no right whatsoever to call climate “their territory”, nor do they have any right to keep out non-academics from journals (which should be solely on merit) but they clearly perceive this as their domain. Like any trade union, academia as a group aggressively attacks those who dare to encroach on “their turf”. And the attacks are most vehement against those who “desert” one side, or in trade union terms “the blackleg”.

Political Aggression

Fortunately, in the long run science is settled by the evidence. Thus for all the silliness, despite academics grouping together to “circle the wagons” against reality, the evidence will eventually force them to admit there is no such thing as a “climate emergency”. Moreover, with most of the public sceptical, the costs rising so practical political support disappearing, in practical terms the behaviour of academics in the area of climate is … “academic”. For me, climate is an irritation, indeed a very expensive irritation, but eventually it will sort itself out as academia will be forced to accept the science.

However, if I am right, that the climate wars largely result from the increasing availability of data, knowledge and discussion through the internet, allowing those with an interest in academia to start becoming “internet experts”, then not only does this explain the appalling behaviour we saw in the area of climate, but it may also explain other apparently irrational changes we have seen lately.

Where else do we find a group of people who have hitherto dominated a sphere of activity which was formerly difficult or impossible for the public to gain entry into, but which are increasingly finding themselves exposed to the public?

In politics.

One hundred years ago, politics was an activity that almost exclusively involved two groups: politicians and the press. The politicians claimed what in the UK was called “Parliamentary supremacy”, but is better called “politician supremacy” meaning they were “in charge”. The press likewise claimed their domain: that they were the voice of “public opinion” and as such should be the ones to scrutinise politicians.

Today it is an absurd notion that journalists, who had no idea what most people thought, were somehow the voice of the public, but that is how the press portrayed themselves. Likewise it is an absurd idea that politicians are the “masters” of the public and not our servants. But that is how politicians viewed their roles.

There was a cosy relationship between the two. Political scrutiny was the press’ self-proclaimed “territory”, and through this role journalists as a group became the public arbiter of politics, deciding what the public should and shouldn’t hear and thus the lies that should and shouldn’t be called out. As a result journalists who came from a relative narrow social group, dictated as a group who got into power and as a group politicians came to reflect the politics of journalists.

Likewise the politicians had their domain: running the country was their job. They were “supreme” as the public were almost entirely excluding and even ignored. So, for example, in the UK, whilst the public were always against joining the EU superstate, the politicians thought that as they ran things, they could ignore the public view and turn our democracy over to the unelected Eurocrats.

Until the rise of the internet, the press and politicians kept this cosy relationship where the politicians chosen by the voice of “public opinion” (in the press) ran the country. Politicians tended to reflect the culture and views of journalists and, any politician who went against the view of the journalistic “troop” and raised an issue like leaving the EU, controlling immigration or building a wall, was ruthlessly attacked. With no means to put their own side except through the press, any politician subject to such a group attack by the media would have their views and motives totally twisted in the media to an extent that they were doomed to political oblivion and with them the causes they pursued.

Then came the internet.

The internet provided three things. Firstly it enabled ordinary people to access information such as climate data or the day’s proceedings in Parliament. Secondly it enabled ordinary people to publish information on sites like blogs, so that it became incredibly easy to bypass the press. And thirdly it enabled people from extremely different places to find each other and discuss subjects that had never interested, or had been repressed, by the press. Because the internet gave the public much more freedom to discuss the issues that concerned it, rather than the press as before, this I think is why soon after the internet, we saw a rise in issues that had been hitherto repressed by the media like control over immigration.

This has created a revolution, not just in areas like climate where it enabled the sceptic movement, but also in politics where it would have been impossible for Trump and Brexit to have happened without the internet.

However, just as we have started to see some bizarre irrational behaviour from academia in the area of climate, it is now clear, that we are seeing equally bizarre and irrational behaviour in the area of politics. In both the US and UK, where once, the public (or press) would very quickly accept the result of any vote, we have started to see he anti-democratic behaviour of rejecting the democratic vote. In the US, this became the “Not my president” movement. In the UK it is the “remainers”, who became “remoaners” and are now sometimes called “remainiacs” for their refusal to accept the democratic decision.

Likewise we are seeing politicians in our Parliament, behaving as I said at the start: like wild animals trapped in their lair. I am truly amazed by some of the delusional behaviour I have seen recently, I watched the proceedings in Parliament about a week ago, when Boris Johnson returned with jet lag from the US to face Parliament. After three hours of continuous aggressive and repetitive questioning, an MP, entirely without foundation, inferred he was somehow condoning the death of an MP who was murdered during the brexit campaign by a mentally ill person who happened to support brexit. Boris replied “Humbug” (a type of sweet). It was so innocuous I hardly noticed at the time.

But apparently this “language” (Humbug) so incensed the MPs that they went on the offensive in the press about it. Their total, and apparently unrecognised, hypocrisy attacking Boris for saying “Humbug”, when some of these very MPs had called brexiteers like Boris “Nazis” and “Racists”, was bizarre. It was irrational behaviour, behaviour not dissimilar to academics in climate and other topics when their “area” was “invaded” by “outsiders”.

Can we explain this rise in irrational behaviour by the political elites seen in both the US, UK and probably worldwide?

If we go back, formerly the press saw their role as being the people who should not only scrutinise Parliament, but they also told us what issues to consider and decided which issues the public should not. Likewise, except for the press, with whom the politicians had a very cosy relationship, the MPs were above effective criticism from the public as the public could only effectively critique them through the press who for obvious reasons favoured opinions similar to their own.

Today however, politicians are under huge pressure through social media. Today the press no longer can prevent discussion on topics like immigration control. The politicians & parties who came to power in the age of press dominance are now struggling to cope with the realities of a public who are now far more able to get directly involved in politics through social media.

And, I think it is this mounting pressure, which is resulting in some bizarre behaviour as seen recently in the UK Parliament, and has been going on for some time in the US press and political life with the endless vicious and dishonest attacks on Trump. It can be explained as politicians & the press, having “their” territory “invaded” by the public, who, like the climate academics, are responding in an instinctive territorial way like all apes with insults and attacks ON THE PUBLIC by the politicians.

I will repeat: the politicians are now ATTACKING those who vote for them for invading what politicians see as “their territory”.

In the UK this is causing extreme anger. People have even talked about the army forcing a general election. The politicians look to us like despots clinging to power. It is becoming possible that the overwhelming majority of politicians currently in power will be kicked out in the UK and a party that never existed last year (Brexit party) could be running the country in a few years.

There is now a political crisis in the UK and it is not brexit. Politicians are blaming it on brexit and they think it is something temporary, but I think not. Like climate academics, we are are now seeing a political elite from politicians to judges, who are no longer acting rationally. Likewise there appears to be much the same thing occurring in the US. Likewise throughout Europe, in France we have the ongoing yellow vest protests, in Catalonia the separatists, and in many places extreme concern about immigration. The political class is losing the support of the public and the public are literally beginning to riot. If it escalates much more, it will turn into literal violent revolution.

I don’t claim to have a solution.

All I can say, is that the first stage in tackling the bizarre behaviour of some politicians must be to understand the problem. From my research it does seem that changes created by the internet together with very primitive territorial behaviour are combing to create a very real problem: a growing political crisis in many places of the world marked by irrational political behaviour by politicians attacking their own electorates. We need a solution fast.

*Whilst Boris won one of the latest votes in Parliament, it was then prevented from proceeding.

I’m coming to realise that politics is a game where people try to pretend that they are doing what the electorate want (who do not all want the same thing) usually whilst trying to push through an entirely separate and selfish agenda.

So, for example, the whole of the last three years has been one long facade of politicians pretending they intend to deliver brexit whilst having no intention of doing so, but also trying to pin the blame for us not getting brexit on the opposition.

So, no one actually wants to be in government, because whoever is in government will get the blame for not delivering brexit. But nor do they not want to be in government, because not being in government means they can’t push through their undisclosed private agenda.

This explains some of the bizarre behaviour we’re seeing. Boris, doesn’t want to be able to govern, because if he could govern, then he would be responsible for not getting brexit. But, nor do opposition parties want to be in government. But they want to blame Boris for the mess, hence the chicken supreme move …. get the court of remainer wantabe politicians to say that Boris was acting unlawfully to try and suggest he’s “anti-democratic”. This however, has played into Boris’ hands, because now parliament has been recalled and he can legitimately say he has no control over parliamentary business and therefore the ones blocking brexit are the opposition MPs. So, the opposition MPs who have seized power, now desperately want Boris to get the “veneer” of power back so that they can blame him for not getting brexit -whilst quietly stabbing him and brexit in the back.

This is quite bizarre. The more remainers grab control of parliament, the less they can blame Boris for us not leaving, so the more they take the blame for their backstabbing of the EU exit. So, the less room they have to back-stab brexit. The more power they have, the more powerless they are to stop brexit without incurring the wrath of the people.

Today a group of people who in a democracy have one vote like the rest of us, a vote denied us by the treacherous MPs in parliament, decided that they wanted an early say on Boris Johnson’s premiership, whilst the rest of us are denied one. Of course, the judges are complete arseholes if they think it’s not obvious what they did was entirely political. Obviously these mini-dictators have to be put in their place, but that can wait.

Because what on earth are all these MPs going to do to justify this urgent recall to parliament that they could not have done during the last three years when they have sat on the benches with their thumbs up their arses intentionally blocking brexit by voting down every deal, no deal and even two elections?

The simple thing is that they’ve already dismissed every conceivable action … so all that is left is nothing. These morons have all but destroyed the credibility of parliament for what? To sit again on the same benches with their thumbs up their arses blocking any way forward.

All they have done is given Boris a massive boost. Indeed Labour and Illib Anti-dems have not so much lost 30 points at the poll as thrown them away.

The only strategy left for Labour and the illibs is to hang on desperately, refusing an election and refusing a no-confidence vote in the utterly insane belief that the public will begin to support them. In the utterly insane belief that having delayed and delayed Brexit and so put the UK parliament into stagnation so that nothing else much can be done, that somehow the public will thank them when these scumbags eventually allow us to vote on their behaviour.

For those of us who are sick to death with a mentally disabled girl with no knowledge of climate science being paraded on the TV like a puppet, what we need to remember, is that the only reason they have a child, is that children can lie with impunity whilst an academic could not. And it’s because only someone who is totally ignorant could claim there is any issue with the climate that they need someone totally ignorant to front the scam.

Put an actual scientist on the TV, and ask them about severe weather, and all they could do is umm and err because they know there are no trends to support the scam. Put an actual scientist, and they know the surface data temperature is not credible and the satellites show next to no warming.

That is why they need this ignorant brainwashed kid. Plausible deniability: no one expects her to know what she is talking about, so she can & does say total rubbish that no one else can get away with.

However, the very fact they are now resorting to such extreme measures is an indication of their desperation. The scam is falling apart, it is hanging by its fingertips. We are now in a La Nina period where we expect a return to cooler temps and so for at least the next five years the threat of (non fiddled) rising temperature has disappeared.

Dissenter is a variant form of web-browser that gives the ability to add comments to any website and so, make comments on twitter, wikipedia and I presume facebook.

The idea, is that when you go to a website, the browser displays the page, but it also provide an additional comment section for those with the dissenter browser. And this cn only be seen by those with the dissenter browser. So, unless you install and use the dissenter browser, you have asbolutely no idea what people are saying about a web page.

In practice, whilst I started by commenting on a few web pages which are notoriously dishonest, by far the most pages that people comment about are news sites like the Biased Corp (which long ago blocked any real discussion).

Usage

I think you may need to register through gab to be able to use dissenter. More of a problem is that all the big commercial browser are actively trying to block free speech so there are for example problems getting dissenter on a smart phone.

But, it is remarkably easy to use. In practice most comments that appear are about the latest news stories – predominantly in the US, but a substantial minority from the UK and a spattering of foreign languar from Sweden, Denmark and Germany.

For the first few days I did come across the odd racist or anti-semitic comment. But in these days of not only blatant but extremely manipulative censorship, seeing raw opinions free from the hand of censorship was a delight, although I quickly blocked them.

The result has been great. I’ve had one long conversation about the origin of fire (whether it was a drill or striking stones together). And several other quite esoteric discussions. It really does remind me of an old English pub where there would be a lot of men sitting down in a smoke filled haze talking about every subject under the sun without the slightest worry that the place will suddenly be raided by the Femi-stazis.

According to the fossil-fuel funded loss making Guardian:

Marie Claire is just the latest titan of women’s media to fall, following Lucky, More!, The Pool and Lenny Letter.

It goes on to say:

 we are mourning the UK print edition of Marie Claire, which at 31 has had its life cut short by the prolific killer, “social media”. Its other victims include Lucky, More!, Look and InStyle UK

…

It is an epidemic. Cosmopolitan saw its print circulation drop by a third in the last half of 2018; weeklies Woman and Woman’s Own were down 20% and 19% respectively. Now magazine dropped 43%.

What is perhaps most interesting here, given I’ve oft cited the decline of the press due to social media and the resultant move to extremism and fake news reporting of the remaining runts, is that Marie Claire started 31 years ago. This echoes the wholesale change that occurred at that time at the media was automated. This led to the notorious episode in 1986 when Rupert Murdoch took on the print unions and moved his entire British print works to Wapping in London’s Docklands, computerising the production process. Continue reading →