South Thanet MP Craig Mackinlay: Changing PM, Gibraltar, global warming and investment at QEQM

Craig Mackinlay

The run up to Parliamentary summer recess is generally characterised by the government finishing off uncontentious business as the final days clock down. Not so this year as we find ourselves in the full swing of the Conservative Party leadership election.

I’ve stayed purposefully detached from the fray, but I have to say I am unimpressed that we find ourselves changing Prime Minister once more. Some may say that Boris had to go: his errors, lack of attention to detail and other misdemeanours were too great for him to stay. Whatever his faults he did deliver a huge, once in a generation Conservative majority, got the constitutional impasse of Brexit over the line and prevented Jeremy Corbyn and his Marxist brand from being anywhere close to government. I have had constituents in the street deeply unhappy about his defenestration. I’d recommend that we all write down the reasons he ‘had to go’, put in an envelope and open again in a couple of years’ time and see how these reasons then look. Just a thought.

I was in Gibraltar on a Parliamentary trip with the European Scrutiny Committee as the Ministerial resignations piled up and the inevitable resignation arrived. A little-known fact, and the reason for the trip, is because negotiations are at a critical stage for the new tripartite UK-Gibraltar-EU deal. Gibraltar left the EU with the UK but an ongoing agreement for Gibraltar’s unique situation has yet to be finalised and so it finds itself in a roll-over halfway house.

The trip was fascinating, meeting the Chief Minister and members of his Cabinet, senior civil servants, the UK armed forces and finally residents who face border delays and in some cases outright refusal to cross into Spain by some Spanish border officials whose determination on free passage depends on the mood of the border guard of the day. An inscrutable position given that 15,000 Spanish workers enter a buoyant Gibraltar daily for work taking their salaries home to Andalusia, an area of high unemployment.

Additionally many Gibraltarians and temporary residents spend millions shopping in Southern Spain which adds to the mystery of the behaviour of the Spanish Government. I suppose little changes as the border has been used regularly over decades as a point of friction.

As we bask in hot weather many will claim, as ever, this is the reality of global warming. That maybe so, but we’ve had heatwaves before and one need only look at the weather patterns in the USA in the 1930s which were truly brutal with extended record-breaking hot weather. One thing I can guarantee with a high degree of certainty is that the weather will revert to overcast, windy and rainy for the summer holidays.

Strange isn’t it that we look to travelling abroad to similar temperatures with a smile but grumble when we have similar here, however irregularly. But let’s say yes, this is because of human activity and will be an ongoing feature of the UK weather pattern. We are looking at a cost of £3 Trillion to reach Net Zero, probably now more as the £3Tn was based on building the infrastructure, laying the cables, making the concrete, smelting the metals, making the batteries etc. on the back of lower cost energy and upon copper and commodities costs far lower than what we’re seeing today. Just to put this into context, this is about 150% of the entire annual output of the UK economy or 1,500 times the size of the annual Kent County Council budget. We are responsible for just 1% of global output of CO2; growing nations like China, India and Indonesia are ramping up their coal production so their economies can grow on the back of cheaper energy and their populations can be taken further out of poverty.

Even if our costly endeavours got our 1% of CO2 output to zero, I can hardly see that spending £3 Trillion or more can be good value or will do anything at all beyond being a costly ‘virtue-signal’. Better I’d have thought to spend on adaptation to a changing climate. This eye-watering amount of money could buy a lot of home insulation, expand traditional domestic energy supply, eliminate practically every domestic funding shortfall, plant a lot of trees, improve sea defences if necessary and be a force for real good in the world.

On local issues I’ve been working with the leaders of Dover District Council to get a Levelling Up Fund bid into a better place and am spending an increasing amount of time within the offices of Thanet District Council as the £20m Levelling Up Fund allocation progresses to action and on other locally important issues.

I had a meeting with the new CEO of East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust which included a tour of the maternity suite at QEQM. A substantial investment by a local company is on the horizon. I’ve been trying to encourage those with the corporate purse strings that Thanet is undoubtedly the place to do business.

We know it is, we love it.

66 Comments

  1. Every time you writesl an opinion piece, it goes to reinforce the idea that you are totally useless.
    Boris was chucked out by your mates because he was, and is, a liar, a cheat, an unprincipled philanderer. But you and your party were quite happy with that, until it became obvious that Boris was an electoral liability.
    He did not get Brexit done. It wasn’t “oven ready”. He didn’t even have a list of ingredients. In addition to Gibraltar’s difficulties, there is the not inconsiderable problem of the Northern Ireland border. Oven ready?
    It fills me with horror to read of your simplistic comments about climate change: it sounds similar to the stuff churned out by the wannabe PMs the other night.
    It doesn’t matter how much decarbonising costs: if we don’t, there won’t be any economy to grow.
    And your last comment, about QEQM and commercial involvement is terrifying.

    • Wrote a lengthy letter to Craig last week regarding public sector pay and the current state of the economy, only to be sent a letter with a copy and pasted response straight from guidance that I helped write! Let down is an over exaggeration. Boris was ousted because he was a lying pig with no regard for anyone other than himself and I’m afraid the party no longer reflects the conservative values we want.

    • Craig Mackinlay would like to get rid of the NHS by the sound of it.

      And of course he’s a climate change denier. Does he actually know anything at all about science?

    • I beg to differ Phyliss! Johnson did get Brexit done, by lying! He made all sorts of rash promises about the benefits of leaving the EU, none of them were true, because the Terms & Conditions hadn’t been agreed with the EU at the time, and others were undeliverable! This is worth repeating but remember Johnson swanning around in a bus that said leaving the EU would mean £350million a week could go to the NHS, instead of the EU? That was one big fat lie, but people fell for it, which is why they voted Tory!

      Mackinlay is delusional if he thinks 12 years of conservative rule has been good for Britain, it hasn’t! According to a TV programme about the economy on the 1st February, the pound now has the same buying power as it did in 2008! But one thing has shown an exponential growth, Food Banks! The country now has tens of thousands of Food Banks that it didn’t have before the Conservatives got elected. And Thanet now has one of the highest amount of children living in poverty in the country!

      Johnson was a chancer, and inveterate, pathological liar, a mini Trump, telling people what they want to hear, and then ignoring them! Apart from doing nothing for working people, he has the morals of an ally cat, is a serial adulterer, who has destroyed the NHS, which now has ambulances queuing up in A & E car parks for hours with patients desperately needing clinical help! I could go on, but I am depressing myself, but just one last word, Johnson was never, and never could be a statesman!

  2. Slight back pedalling on the, climate change denials but trust me, human climate change and excess CO2 in the atmosphere is real. Scientists, astronomers and meteorologists provide masses of testable evidence. Religious nutters, flat earthers and our, current MP disagree. Pretty clear who we should choose to believe.

    • Don’t you think that any political party’s manifesto should be slightly more ambitious than beating the opposition?
      War in Europe, pandemic, climate emergency, poverty, cost of living, maybe?

  3. I’ve filled several envelopes now and am looking forward to opening them in a few years and being horrified to be reminded we had a PM who was so awful. Supporting Boris so wholeheartedly has gone into your envelope, Craig!

      • Not everyone that dislikes Johnson and this current government is a leftie. Politics is not and should not be like supporting a football team. It’s not a case of Red vs Blues. It’s a manifesto to lead the country Vs another. It’s about judging the actions of those in power.

        You keep voting by colour and churning out you “leftie” insults. When most of us here are clear central or slightly left or right leaning. Why you are intent on turning it into a “them” and “us” constantly is beyond me.

        Over my time I’ve voted for four different parties for various reasons at the time. Actually listening to what the parties and saying and what they are proposing and how the current government at the time was acting. Exactly how voting should be done. Not blind support for a party.

        • Define “you”. If you’re referring to I, Peter Checksfield of Birchington-on-Sea, I’ve voted Tory, Labour, UKIP and Green, depending entirely on candidate and situation (I was very tempted by the Monstor Raving Loony Party too!).

  4. Climate change is false, our 8 year old grandson said “ I think it’s the sun just getting a bit closer at times grandad don’t you” I fully agree with him. As for Boris and the Tories they have cooked their goose. They hate each other and have done more harm to the U.K. than any other party could possibly do a true disgrace they are all all useless individuals.

    • I hope you’ve explained the Milankovich Cycles to your grandson; about how the Sun and Earth do indeed get closer and move further apart on a time scale measured in 10,000 to 100,000 years; a fact known to scientists for over 100 years; none of which explains the extremely rapid rise in global temperatures since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and coincident with the consequent rise on CO2?
      If you’re going to influence your grand son’s understanding of scientific matters, you might at least base your discussion on science, rather than Daily Mail headlines.

    • Are you also going to explain to your grandson that the Earth is flat and at the centre of the Universe? That the moon is made of cheese? There are only four elements – earth, fire, air and water?

      • Phyliss, don’t forget that Climate change deniers are most likely not to get vaccinated, and end up needing hospital care, where most of them die (90%) because they tend to be overweight, or obese!

  5. Dear Craig,
    BJ was booted out by his colleagues and a majority of the Parliamentary tory party.They had enough, but clearly you didn’t, which says more about you than your parliamentary colleagues.Even some of your Brexit colleagues had enough.
    The defenestration you refer to happened in Prague in 1613, was an insurgency that went badly wrong and led to the 30 years war.Booting out BJ, will be a clearing of the augean stables or perhaps a pig sty.
    The point is Craig, Boris did not pick you to fill any of the vacancies, even when he recruited the 4th 11 to man the caretaker govt.The fact you were not picked even when the standard was so low, says even more about you.Instead you spent days on a pointless visit to a rock which is physically joined to Spain.How long do you think it will be before Gibraltar accepts some kind of accomodation with the EU?
    Meanwhile back at the ranch, the 5 amigos are pulling strips off each other, and trashing what little credibility the BJ govt had left.Their infighting is so bad that the last TV ‘debate’, had to be cancelled.
    Because you cannot explain the inexplicably bad Johnson Govt, you revert to banging on about Corbyn, even though he went with far more dignity than BJ.
    In 2019 the country faced choosing an unelectable Corbyn versus an incompetent,deceitful Johnson, and thinking the latter was the least worst option, it picked a wrong ‘un.
    Not even Peter Checksfield has much to say about you or Johnson, which says much about the pair of you.
    By the way, I hope you are feeling very warm and that your fan has blown a fuse, because you have steadfastly refused to acknowledge climate change, and now yet again we are facing record temperatures.Perhaps you could write something sensible and act in the interests of everyone in Thanet, instead of always being extreme in future.

    • “TV debate had to be cancelled”? No, it was just Sunak and Truss who pulled out, worried that it might dent their popularity. The other 3 were quite happy to carry on (and, much as I want Penny to win, it is probably Kemi who came out best in the debates).

  6. Have you any idea how bad of a flex it is to keep denying climate change? Like.. the science is SO clear.. you do understand, don’t you, that it’s not just about us having a few warmer days.. but the fact (fact! A literal fact!!!) That unless we make fundamental changes to how we live now, future generations are not going to be able to live… Think about what world you grandson will be in when he’s your age, Bill. It won’t be your problem but it’ll certainly be his!

    Palming the problem off on other nations doesn’t change the fact (literal fact, once again) that it’s happening and we (collectively, as a species) needs to do something about it.

  7. He talks about climate control but wants to open a dirty cargo hub.

    He also totally ignores the 9,000 kids living thanet. I guess their parents arent his voters.

  8. Hmm. Perhaps craig should put all the reasons he gave us for leaving the EU in an envelope and see how they look in a few years time! I doubt that will make good reading.

    • No need to wait a few years. It’s already obvious. Boris (and presumably his replacement) was about to rip up part of the Agreement he signed with Europe.

  9. Doesn’t matter how you say it Craig Boris had to go your party and colleges who were able to see sense forced him out, there are plenty of people in your constituency including myself would be happy to see you resign, you don’t believe in climate change well 1976 was a very hot summer I remember it well at 20 years old the fact is the 9 yes 9 hottest temperature in Britain has been since 1990 that is a fact, you seem to be in cloud cuckoo land with climate change denial, and to upset a few more Conservative voters out of the 5 up for leader 3 were with Boris up to the hills and the other 2 will be ousted very soon, so we will end up with 1 of 3 Boris’s lackeys so no chance of a new start, biggest worry is they all promise to cut taxes what a load of b——s and the rest of the 300plus members baring a small minority will dutily follow their leadership whomsoever itis as most have not got the balls to speak out.

  10. OMG what a awful MP we have. A climate denier of the highest order – can’t believe we have extremely dangerous people like this as MPS peddling this nonsense – “We only have to look to the US in the 30s” – a one of event in a different part of the world cannot be equivalent to the year on year changes we are seeing across the world. Tories have never been one to let facts get in the way of money though.

    Just come back from a trip walking round Mount Blanc and every glacier is half the size it was 10 years ago. This is because of year on year changes in climate. This is happening now and we need to change now. Get old timers like Craig out and get people in who care about our future and not just themselves.

  11. All these “ hero’s “ who think it’s so brave to land on the moon they want to try landing on the sun then they could measure how much pollution the sun emits into the atmosphere then they would be true hero’s.

  12. One of the causes of the 1930’s Dust Bowl was the invention of a plough that could go deeper into the soil than previous ones. The pioneers who had settled on the prairies to farm virgin land that had been grassland before, ploughed ground that had never been touched by agriculture. They ploughed deeper and deeper with nothing to bind the soil.
    That coupled with dry weather and winds that swept across the open land blew the topsoil away. It had little to do with global warming but a lot to do with the demand for food and a growing population. It is similar in some ways to the deforestation of the Amazon Rainforest to produce beef cattle.

      • That the “Dust Bowl” effect was not necessarily directly linked to Global Warming doesn’t mean that Global Warming isn’t happening.

      • Jenny Matterface has not said anything about the current global warming situation. She has given facts about why parts of America became a “Dust Bowl”. If she comments on the current degree of global warming, she might well say something which climate change deniers such as Mackinlay wouldn’t agree with.

        Why the exclamation mark after “Labour”?

    • The Dust Bowl also gave us one of the greatest singer/songwriters in Woody Guthrie.

      I could have added to my original post that many of the farmers were sharecroppers who had to give their landlord a share of the harvest that meant they tried to grow more and more without the knowledge that soil needed feeding not just cropping.

        • Peter, You know, of course, that Dylan made his debut wearing one of Guthrie’s suits since, by that time, Guthrie was in hospital terminally ill from the scourge that inflicted his family, Huntington’s Disease.

          • I forgot about that. The first Woody Guthrie song I heard though was probably Lonnie Donegan’s cover of ‘The Grand Coulee Dam’ (which reached No. 6 in the UK ‘Hit Parade’!).

        • I think that you’re forgetting /ignoring Bruce Springsteen’s connection to Woody Guthrie music especially the song “ This is your land “.plus “ The Boss” has sang many of his songs over the years

        • So please tell us all what has Bruce Springsteen ever done to warrant your uncalled for outburst ?
          Springsteen single-handedly has done more for promoting the music of Woody Guthrie than anyone other than the man himself ……and I include Dylan in that statement !
          That’s not only my opinion but the hard facts !

  13. I can’t even be bothered to read this word soup of delusion and incompetence. It must pain Isle of Thanet News to post the turgid nonsense that flows from Mr Mackinlay’s mind each month. Not to mention having to watch the diatribe of anti-intellectual comments, fuelled by the Dunning–Kruger effect that inevitably follow.

  14. How does Craig square off his climate change denial and actively campaigning AGAINST green energy initiatives with the fact that a significant proportion of the Levelling Up Funds he now claims credit for are to develop green energy and green economy initiatives? How does he square it with the fact that we have one of the biggest offshore wind farms in the world in his constituency following a £900m investment in the area and major industries such as Vattenfall and London Array based in Ramsgate?

    Quite apart from his fuel lobby funded climate change denial idiocy, isn’t a local MP supposed to support major local industries and encourage their growth? This is part of the fundamental role of an MP. Ours is actively seeking to sabotage them.

    Craig is so busy trying to gain notoriety for his ongoing anti-Europe campaign (wasn’t Brexit “done?”) and climate change denial that he really doesn’t care if his own constituency or constituents are thrown under the bus in the process. MP for South Thanet? No. He’s the MP for Sod Thanet

    • For decades Ben, I have never seen the point of Constituency MP’s, they are elected to represent us in Parliament, and to hold government to account. Most people who attend MP’s surgery’s have local problems, like litter, Bin collections, social services, housing etc, none of which can be dealt with by Mackinlay, or any other MP, and are handed on to District, and Kent County Councillors!

      I would like to see a Proportional Representational electoral system, similar to the Germans, which means voters get two votes, one they cast for their political party of choice, and the other for an MP. Each vote is totted up, and awarded to the political party, and the others are given to the MP’s with the most votes on the parties List. Its a system that means governments are formed according to the wishes of the people, and not by a rigged, undemocratic system used in Britain, where the Prime Minister is chosen by a a couple of thousand blue rinsed elderly, hunter killer ladies who are members of the Conservative party, and not those who aren’t, Duurh!! Oh! Forgot, the Germans vote in local pubs too, on Sundays!

  15. So if we ignore that 95% of what’s written here is demonstrably nonsense. Why is a Thanet MP in Dover to help levelling up there?!? Why is he in Gibraltar?!? Who paid for that?

    Of course he still supports Johnson. This guy is as morally corrupt as Johnson.

  16. MP Craig Mackinlay, did you ask the main man there in Gib about the runway tunnel.
    Its the waiting time at the GB border to enter Spain and in reverse, hopefully it will be sorted soon after craigs gib holiday.

    Love Gib, such a nice place but so few hotels thou at reasonable enough prices to visit four times a year. So we stay in hotels in la linea (campo) so much cheaper and better service.

    Craig, is on it

  17. The Tories as personified by MacKinlay do seem to want to fight old battles over and over. Boris got Brexit done (and what a success it is), Boris beat Corbyn, Boris defeated Marxism etc. I suppose it fits in with the ignorant ‘two wars and one world cup’ trope of the average Tory supporter.

    • ‘Ignorant’ I suggest if you throw insults and generalisations about please have the courtesy to publish your real name but as we know this comments column is filled with rude and ignorant people like you who go under pseudonyms.

  18. You should all be more concerned with the links, Sunak, Mordunt and Truss have with fossil fuels and climate science denial, plenty of money thrown their way by
    Sir Michael Hintze (google if you wish)

  19. (Man made) Climate Change is the new religion. At one time, we’d have fire and brimstone preachers telling us we’re all going to burn in hell if we don’t change our ways; nowadays, we have “experts” on TV (and Andrew on here) telling us we’re all going to burn on earth if we don’t change our ways!

  20. By “experts” I guess you mean scientists? If you’re going to try and introduce historical religious parallels with what’s going on here, the one you’re looking for is the flat-earther zealots who also denounced Galileo and other scientists of their day as heretics when they said the world was round. Those scientists also fought to get people to listen to similarly expert and scientifically proven facts that were inconvenient and uncomfortable for those with vested interests in maintaining the status quo, much as Craig and his fossil fuel lobby chums do today.

    • There are plenty of scientists who disagree, but they (a) don’t get air time, and (b) rarely get funding.

      I’d rather put my faith in God (or even Status Quo) than the one-sided opinion that we’re constantly brain-washed with.

      • Who are these scientists that don’t agree?
        The IPCC is made up of thousands of scientists across a number if disciplines. The aspirations of COP26 were adopted by politicians from almost every nation on Earth.
        So enlighten us; just who are these plentiful climate change denying scientists? Do they come from the same research establishments frequented by anti-vaxxers?

    • I think is the majority of scientists said that there was no such thing as climate change, people like Peter Checksfield would argue that there was.

      • I also believe there is such a thing as Climate Change. It has been changing all the time, with the Roman period almost certainly warmer than today, and the medieval period considerably colder.

        • Indeed it has.
          But what it hasn’t done is changed so much, so quickly with no other explanation other than man-made climate change.
          People on here have several times talked about cycles involving the distance between the Earth and the Sun. These are called the Milankovich Cycles, and have been known about and understood for more than 100 years. These cycles have timescales in the range of 10,000 – 100,000 years. Their impact is visible in the ring growth in ancient trees, and sediment and ice cores, and in deposition of sedimentary rocks.
          They do not explain the meteoric rise in global temperatures since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.
          A couple of days ago was the hottest *EVER* recorded in the UK.
          The 10 hottest summers *EVER* recorded have happened since 2000.
          Something is going on with our climate. There are no satisfactory “natural” explanations. There’s a very good one though … the profligate burning of fossil fuels.

  21. Where is the proof that CO2 is dangerous?

    CO2 is 0.04% of the atmosphere, which means that it is 1 part in 2,500. It is a TRACE GAS, and that 1 part in 2500 cannot warm up the orher 2,499 by any measurable ammount.

    Only 3% (1 part in 33) of all the CO2 in the atmosphere is manmade. The other 97% comes from rotting vegeation, wildfires and volcanoes. So manmade CO2 is in fact only 1 part in 33 X 2,500 of the atmosphere. That is 1 part in 82,500. Which is insignificant.

    Also CO2 is required by vegetation. They add CO2 to the air in greenhouses to increase growth.

  22. That’s a good question.
    There are many, many examples of where quite small quantities of something change the behaviour of gasses, liquids and solids.
    For example, pure water freezes at 0 degrees C (under normal pressure). The addition of just a small amount of salt depresses the freezing point. Seawater (3.5% salt) freezes almost 2 degrees lower than pure water, for example.

    CO2 is beyond doubt a “greenhouse gas”. It allows visible sunlight to pass through, and that warms up the ground. The ground re-radiates that heat, but at a longer wavelength. This re-radiated heat is trapped, just as happens in a glass house.
    If you claim that the CO2 increase is insignificant, then you need to explain why there is such a tight link between the increasing amount in atmospheric CO2 and the rise in the global air temperatures.

    See here …
    https://earthathome.org/quick-faqs/why-is-carbon-dioxide-called-a-greenhouse-gas/

    • Thank you. I will look into it further.

      Although I am sure the IPCC(TAR3)admitted that “the effect of increasing CO2 on atmospheric warming decreases sharply with additional quantity added, not increases.”

      and stated “The climate system is a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.”

      The use of modelling to predict the future is only as good as the information YOU choose to enter, remember “Climategate” and the unusual use of data to get the answer they required.

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