HENRY DEEDES sees the US envoy address Commons on climate change
John Kerry must have heard the howls of hypocrisy the last time he troubled headline writers over here. In January he flew into Davos, Switzerland, on a gas-guzzling mission to lecture the great and good attending the World Economic Forum onguzzling too much gas. Not yesterday though. Presumably the Gulfstream jet he reportedly owns was parked in a hangar near one of his five homes. Instead, he dialled into a Parliamentary Defence Committee inquiry via video-link. You see, Mr Kerry and his wife are fabulously rich more so, Mrs Kerry. Someone once told me that in Washingtons snootier salons, theyre mischievously referred to as Cash and Kerry. His doomed 2004 presidential bid was widely considered one of the dullest on record, for he can zap audiences into sleepy submission with ease. Lest we forget, this is man who managed to make George W Bush look articulate. Nowadays hes the US Special Envoy on all things green and he hasnt lost his yawn-inducing touch. He delivered his sermon, sorry, evidence to the committees inquiry into defence and climate change over one torturous hour. Not for us earthlings the sort of whacky titbits he fed to reporters at Davos, including when he whinnied that Its almost extraterrestrial to talk about saving the planet. How those of us sat in the pews longed for an enlivening soundbite on ET or a digression into the Pentagons X Files. What is it that makes failed presidential candidates turn into a crashing climate bores? Al Gore had set the bar for hot air that Kerry is more than equal to. He appeared to us behind a desk bookended by two American flags. Like most of Georgetowns ageing movers and shakers, he was looking suitably well-preserved. The eyes were a little puffy but otherwise he was sporting the same thatched hair, and jowl-free slab-like chin you could crack a coconut on. Most of what he said was the usual climate calamity stuff temperatures were rising, ice caps melting, weather was getting wilder etc. He claimed that in some areas of the world, climate change would cause more destruction than wars. Well, certain wars, he added cautiously. So hopefully nothing as disastrous as the mess the Yanks left behind in Iraq and Afghanistan, then. For 13 minutes he rambled on in those grave, earnest tones. It was like listening to one of those Open University programmes the BBC used to put out during the witching hour. Spirits would momentarily lift when Kerry would inject an and lastly into the conversation, then swiftly wilt as he launched into another lengthy monologue. By the time hed finished, even his flagpoles looked ready to keel over. Only five members of the committee had bothered to show. Two of them, John Spellar (Lab, Warley) and Derek Twigg (Lab, Halton), legged it without even asking a question. Chairman Tobias Ellwood (Con, Bournemouth W), who for some reason had developed a weird mid-Atlantic accent, could frequently be heard whispering to his colleagues over the microphones. Probably trying to rustle up enough questions to pad out the session. Robert Courts (Con, Witney) thanked Kerry for his incredibly sobering and impactful evidence. He seemed a bit stumped as what to ask before eventually enquiring how the rest of the world should approach the Chinese in regards to climate change. China are critical to a solution, Kerry advised. Well, duh. Kerry revealed hed recently been holding discussions with Beijing until his opposite, Xie Zhenhua, apparently called off sick. A likely story! If he had any sense, Mr Xie will have simply left his phone off the hook. Earlier in the chamber, Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle granted Angela Rayner an urgent question on the Suella Braverman speeding business an odd decision considering the Home Secretary had already faced a lengthy peppering on the matter the previous afternoon. Naturally, Labour wanted to stick their spoon back into the tea cup in which this storm has brewed to give it another stir. What was more telling were the number of Tory MPs prepared to go into battle for Braverman, even ones who professed not to like her much. Sir Charles Walker (Con, Broxbourne) admitted Suella wasnt exactly on his Christmas card list but even he considered the matter ludicrous. Sir Edward Leigh (Con, Gainsborough) wondered what on earth was happening to this country. He lamented the loss of proper scandals which concerned sex or money. Hear, hear. Forget this puffed-up claptrap about penalty points, its time we got back to the good ol days of suspciously plump brown envelopes and three-in-a-bed romps.