Booker and North provide food for thought

Sunday February 10, 2008

“Both men have done journalism great service over the years with their informed probing”

Christopher Booker was one of the founders of Private Eye. He currently writes a weekly column in the Sunday Telegraph. Richard North is a political analyst who was formerly a consultant on public health and food safety. Together they have written Scared To Death: From BSE to Global Warming which highlights some of the great scares of recent times and seeks to refute many of the claims on which they are based.

Published late last year, the book has inevitably sparked controversy. “Obviously I’m going to get hate mail,” Booker told Sarah Freeman in the Yorkshire Post, “but what I wanted to do was look at how and why stories which have a kernel of truth suddenly snowball out of control. Part of the problem is that when something goes wrong we demand explanations and if someone puts forward a rational and reasonable argument we grab onto to without questioning it any further.”

Reviewing the book in the Daily Telegraph, James Delingpole suggested that the book’s key chapter is its “devasting critique” of the global warming industry. “Even if you’d like to disagree with the authors violently – and if your heroes include Al Gore and George Monbiot you surely will – the chapter is well worth reading for the clear, methodical, well-documented way in which it analyses the growth of the phenomenon.”

Much of the information is interesting, added Robert Murphy in Metro, but “As they cast themselves as bold heretics against a brainwashing tyranny, they start to sound rather like cranks. Not all of the book is that odd, however, and the alternative, often well-supported views expressed on a whole range of folk-devils are just about stimulating enough to make you want to check out their claims.”

Robin McKie, writing in The Observer, was more critical. “I don’t believe for a minute the authors seek to delude readers. The delusion lies within. No nanny state is going to control their lives, limit their car-travelling, stop them driving fast or make them recycle their rubbish. If research backs such restrictions, then it must be wrong and by carefully selecting sources, a demolition of mainstream science can be given precarious credibility. The end result is misguided, sad and rather desperate.”

John Lloyd, The Herald, took a more balanced view. “Both men have done journalism great service over the years with their scepticism, their refusal to join the media band, their informed probing of large claims,” writes “They do it again here … marshalling what at times is a numbing amount detail. Sadly,” he confesses, “I am not competent to tell you if Booker and North are any nearer the truth” than the “distiguished experts” the authors criticise.

Michael Leese, London Lite, was adamant that “Whether or not you agree with the authors’ arguments … it is hard not to appreciate the rigorous approach they have taken to their subject. At the very least there is food for thought here as to why it seems we are so quick to believe what the ‘experts’ tell us.

“I can’t imagine many people would devour this in one go, but you can dip in and out. That’s not to say it’s heavy-going – it’s generally a lively and easily digestible read. It does, however, present some challenging arguments that need time to be digested. Edifying stuff.”

Scared To Death: From BSE to Global Warming
Christopher Booker and Richard Booker
Continuum, 2007, 256pp, £16.99