Energy and Climate Change and Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

I have been listening to these speeches about how this is the important issue, and 23 Members of the House of Commons have managed to stay this long, or were here in the first place, out of 646, so it has clearly captured the imagination of this country's elected representatives. In a similar way, everyone's propaganda will say that this is their top priority, or one of their top priorities, in the months to come. I listened with interest to my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott), who is not now present. He made a good speech, and I am glad that he is going to Kyoto, because he has done a lot of the ground work. [Hon. Members: "Copenhagen."] He was in Kyoto and he is going to Copenhagen. However, I heard the sneering remark from the Liberal hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes), who is also not present, about how people should not fly to Copenhagen. I call that the "Monbiot syndrome", after The Guardian writer. What such people do, from their intellectually high position, is sneer on the masses when it comes to everything to do with the environment, and they believe that, in some way, such tokenistic little gestures move things on. Well, they do not. They polarise the population and people dismiss the idea that what we say is important.