Fake science: NOAA manipulating data in order to exaggerate global warming

What many have suspected already for a long time turns out to be true: NOAA has published data, which knowingly exaggerates global warming:

The Mail on Sunday today reveals astonishing evidence that the organisation that is the world’s leading source of climate data rushed to publish a landmark paper that exaggerated global warming and was timed to influence the historic Paris Agreement on climate change.

A high-level whistleblower has told this newspaper that America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) breached its own rules on scientific integrity when it published the sensational but flawed report, aimed at making the maximum possible impact on world leaders including Barack Obama and David Cameron at the UN climate conference in Paris in 2015.

The report claimed that the ‘pause’ or ‘slowdown’ in global warming in the period since 1998 – revealed by UN scientists in 2013 – never existed, and that world temperatures had been rising faster than scientists expected. Launched by NOAA with a public relations fanfare, it was splashed across the world’s media, and cited repeatedly by politicians and policy makers.

But the whistleblower, Dr John Bates, a top NOAA scientist with an impeccable reputation, has shown The Mail on Sunday irrefutable evidence that the paper was based on misleading, ‘unverified’ data.

Read the entire Mail on Sunday article here.

Breitbart´s Thomas Williams comments on the Mail on Sunday article:

The Obama administration, which persistently denied that a climate debate even existed, channeled billions of federal dollars into programs and studies that supported its claims, while silencing contrary opinions.
Thomas Karl, the lead author on the Pausebuster paper, had a longstanding relationship with President Obama’s chief science adviser, John Holdren, giving him a “hotline to the White House.” Holdren was an ardent advocate of vigorous measures to curb emissions.
“In reality, it’s the government, not the scientists, that asks the questions,” said David Wojick, an expert on climate research spending and a longtime government consultant.
Federal agencies order up studies that focus on their concerns, so politics ends up guiding science according to its particular interests.
“Government actions have corrupted science, which has been flooded by money to produce politically correct results,” said Dr. William Happer, professor emeritus of physics at Princeton University and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
“It is time for governments to finally admit the truth about global warming. Warming is not the problem. Government action is the problem,” he said.
NOAA, the world’s leading source of climate data, not only produced a severely flawed study for political motives, it also mounted a cover-up when challenged over its data.
Not long after the study’s publication, the US House of Representatives Science Committee initiated an inquiry into its claims that no pause in global warming had existed. NOAA refused to comply with subpoenas demanding internal emails and falsely claimed that no one had raised concerns about the paper internally.
President Donald Trump has pledged he will withdraw from the Paris Agreement that binds signer countries to a series of stringent measures to lessen emissions.

Larry Kudlow: "President Trump has the potential to be a transformational figure"

Larry Kudlow, who describes himself as "an old Ronald Reagan guy" focuses on the real message in president Donald Trump´s inauguration speech:

In all the media back and forth over President Donald Trump's inaugural speech, most have missed a central point: His address was infused with a wonderful sense of optimism.
As an old Ronald Reagan guy, I have learned through the years that optimism equals true leadership. And yes, true leadership cannot be achieved without optimism.

Toward the end of his speech, Trump said, "We must think big and dream even bigger." To understand Trump and his message on Inauguration Day is to appreciate the importance of that sentence.
He then added: "The time for empty talk is over. Now arrives the hour of action. Do not let anyone tell you it cannot be done. No challenge can match the heart and fight and spirit of America. We will not fail. Our country will thrive and prosper again." --

Trump and Reagan are very different people. And Trump's governing style will be nothing like Reagan's. But the underlying principle of optimism is the same.
"Finally, we must think big and dream even bigger," he said. How quintessentially American is that? Can we return to being the proverbial City Upon a Hill? Yes, we can.
For these reasons I believe President Trump has the potential to be a transformational figure. And he is moving fast. His actions and energy in just the first couple of days have been remarkable.
Everywhere he repeats the theme of economic growth with lower taxes and fewer burdensome regulations. The war on business is over. We will reward success, not punish it.
He talks bilateral trade deals that can be enforced. He is freezing federal hiring, proposing to cut government spending $10.5 trillion over 10 years, doing away with Obamacare mandates, getting the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines in place, welcoming a constant flow of visitors from businesses and unions and taking calls from foreign heads of state.

Read the entire article here.

Renowned Princeton physicist William Happer: Predicted moderate global warming "will be beneficial"

Princeton physicist, professor William Happer has long been one of the most outspoken critics of the "scientific consensus" on global warming. Despite all the scare propaganda about the "warmest ever" years, the truth is that a possible moderate warming will be beneficial to humanity:

"Global warming is a well-established fact. This statement is only half true. A more correct statement would be “global warming and global cooling are both well-established facts.” The earth is almost always warming or cooling. Since the year 1800, the earth has warmed by about 1° C, with much of the warming taking place before much increase of atmospheric CO2. There was a quite substantial cooling from about 1940 to 1975. There has been almost no warming for the past 20 years when the CO2 levels have increased most rapidly. The same alternation of warming and cooling has characterized the earth’s climate for all of geological history.
…more CO2 will be a benefit to humanity. The predicted warming from more CO2 is grossly exaggerated. The equilibrium warming from doubling CO2 is not going to be 3° C, which might marginally be considered a problem, but closer to 1° C, which will be beneficial. One should not forget that the “global warming” is an average value. There will be little warming in the tropics and little warming at midday. What warming occurs will be mostly in temperate and polar regions, and at night. This will extend the agricultural growing season in many countries like Canada, Scandinavia, and Russia. More CO2 greatly increases the efficiency of photosynthesis in plants and makes land plants more drought-resistant. So, the net result of more CO2 will be strongly beneficial for humanity."

Read the entire article here

Former NATO secretary-general Fogh Rasmussen: "President Trump can restore America’s global leadership"

I have always had the greatest respect for Anders Fogh Rasmussen, former Danish PM and former NATO secretary-general. His latest article on the incoming Trump administration is truly worth reading:

The intellectual elites in much of the Western world are still shell-shocked by Donald Trump’s election victory in November. However, instead of squawking nervously about every tweet, astute political observers should focus on the underlying political dynamics in the coming months and years.
The elites would do well to remember that populism is often based on a core of truth. Rather than ostracize populists, establishment parties are often better off welcoming them and working with them. The government I led in Denmark between 2001 and 2009 was based on a successful coalition of so-called populists and established center-right parties. We didn't agree on every issue, but together we were able to reform the welfare state, improve our immigration laws, and back the U.S.-led coalitions in Afghanistan and Iraq. Most importantly, we dealt a cultural blow to political correctness and bureaucratic elitism.
The emerging Trump coalition of conservative activists has broad appeal in America, which remains a fundamentally center-right nation politically. Barring significant errors of execution, Donald Trump has the potential to stabilize American politics and restore reliable American leadership to the world stage in the coming years.
So far, Trump has made several personnel appointments that present a more nuanced picture of future U.S. foreign policy than superficial media coverage suggests. He has brought in many globally respected figures from business and the military. These strong leaders won't tolerate a weak and meek America. And personnel is policy, as the saying goes.

I believe President Trump will be unorthodox, challenge the status quo and look at the global stage with fresh eyes. If applied wisely, this could be an effective approach. Let’s take military spending as one example. It would be disastrous to abandon U.S. allies in Europe, but Trump is right to point out that the U.S. is paying a disproportionate share of total defense costs in the NATO alliance. Trump’s unambiguity on this issue combined with Russia’s saber rattling have sent shock waves through many European countries. Most recently, Latvia and Lithuania have taken concrete steps to reach the 2% defense target in 2018. Others are likely to follow suit.

Read the entire article here.

Trump’s inauguration "will be the beginning of the end for the Green Blob"

There is definitively something good to look forward to next year!:

But with Trump’s inauguration it will be the beginning of the end for the Green Blob—that sinister cabal of corrupt politicians, UN- and EU-technocrats, bent scientists, shrill activists, rent-seeking corporatists, blood-sucking lawyers and gullible journalists which has held the world to ransom these last four decades by promoting the man-made climate change scare story and other, related environmental scams.

Read the entire article by James Delingpole here.

The Trump administration takes on the global warming establishment

There is reason to believe that the Trump administration will return to sanity with regard to global warming:

Now the backers of the global warming alarm will not only be called upon to debate, but will face the likelihood of being called before a highly skeptical if not hostile EPA to answer all of the hard questions that they have avoided answering for the last eight years.  Questions like:  Why are recorded temperatures, particularly from satellites and weather balloons, so much lower than the alarmist models had predicted?  How do you explain an almost-20-year "pause" in increasing temperatures even as CO2 emissions have accelerated?  What are the details of the adjustments to the surface temperature record that have somehow reduced recorded temperatures from the 1930s and 40s, and thereby enabled continued claims of "warmest year ever" when raw temperature data show warmer years 70 and 80 years ago?  Suddenly, the usual hand-waving ("the science is settled") is not going to be good enough any more.  What now?
And how will the United States fare on the international stage when it stops promising to cripple its economy with meaningless fossil fuel restrictions?  As noted above, people like Isabel Hilton predict a combination of ostracism and "loss of leadership" of the issue, most likely to China.  Here's my prediction:  As soon as the United States stops parroting the global warming line, the other countries will quickly start backing away from it as well.  This is "The Emperor's New Clothes," with the U.S. in the role of the little kid who is the only one willing to say the obvious truth in the face of mass hysteria.  Countries like Britain and Australia have already more or less quietly started the retreat from insanity.  In Germany the obsession with wind and solar (solar -- in the cloudiest country in the world!) has already gotten average consumer electric rates up to close to triple the cost in U.S. states that embrace fossil fuels.  How long will they be willing to continue that self-destruction after the U.S. says it is not going along?  And I love the business about ceding "leadership" to China.  China's so-called "commitment" in the recent Paris accord is not to reduce carbon emissions at all, but rather only to build as many coal plants as they want for the next fourteen years and then cease increasing emissions after 2030!  At which point, of course, they reserve their right to change their mind.  Who exactly is going to embrace that "leadership" and increase their consumers' cost of electricity by triple or so starting right now?  I mean, the Europeans are stupid, but are they that stupid?

Read the excellent article by Francis Menton here.

Trump´s realism on environmental policy is most welcome after Obama´s crusading

Donald Trump´s realism and pragmatism with regard to global warming and environmental policy is most welcome after Obama´s ideological crusading. Trump is actually very close to what Bjorn Lomborg and the Copenhagen Consensus has been propagating. 

John Tierney summarizes in an article in the City Journal:

Trump has vowed to ignore the Paris international climate agreement that committed the U.S. to reduce greenhouse emissions. That prospect appalls environmentalists but cheers those of us who consider the agreement an enormously expensive way to achieve very little. Trump’s position poses a financial threat to wind-power producers and other green-energy companies that rely on federal subsidies to survive.
During the campaign, DebateScience.org, a consortium of science groups, submitted a questionnaire to the candidates. Hillary Clinton responded to a question about climate change by calling it a “defining challenge of our time” and promising to make America the “clean energy superpower of the 21st century.” Steering clear of this litany of green promises, Trump said merely that there was still “much that needs to be investigated” about climate change. Instead of promising to install a half-billion new solar panels, as Clinton promised to do, Trump offered the kind of perspective found in the Copenhagen Consensus, a group of prominent economists who have concluded that other problems are far more pressing than climate change.
“Perhaps the best use of our limited financial resources,” Trump said, “should be in dealing with making sure that every person in the world has clean water. Perhaps we should focus on eliminating lingering diseases around the world like malaria.  Perhaps we should focus on efforts to increase food production to keep pace with an ever-growing world population.  Perhaps we should be focused on developing energy sources and power production that alleviates the need for dependence on fossil fuels.  We must decide on how best to proceed so that we can make lives better, safer and more prosperous.”

The Trump presidency is the best thing that could happen for solving real environmental problems

The Trump presidency is the best thing that has happened for the advancement of real environmental goals. By finally putting an end to the global warming hoax, the United States will lead the way in working for a better and cleaner environment. The billions of dollars that have been wasted in order to "combat climate change" will now be used for meaningful environmental projects:

Trump’s election also has upended the global near-consensus on climate policy, given his skepticism of global warming and embrace of the coal industry.
The United States has been the indispensable nation concerning global warming politics since the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. Environmentalists had hoped the Paris Agreement of December 2015 was the final nail in the coffin of climate skeptics and locked in a permanent, binding agreement curtailing emissions – and future fossil fuel development – for the rest of the century.

Enter Donald Trump. He is the only candidate to become a head of government in the past several years who rejects the scientific consensus on climate change. Between calling that science “a hoax” and actively supporting the U.S. coal industry’s recovery, his ascent could result in the U S. withdrawal from the 1992 Climate Convention Treaty, which underpins the Paris Agreement.
It’s difficult to underestimate how large a political earthquake this would be for many of the world’s left-leaning political classes. The primary focus of European industrial and foreign policy in the last 20 years has been built around climate change treaties, while China has dramatically adjusted its energy production system to come into alignment with U.S. and other developed-economy climate goals. Now, the U.S. will likely entirely reverse its stance, possibly putting China’s planned economy under duress.

Read the entire article here

Michael Goodwin on the Trump voters

Michael Goodwin´s column in the New York Post is worth reading. Here is an excerpt:

Trump voters had the courage of their conviction to go against all their betters, all the poobahs and petty potentates of politics, industry and, above all, the fraudulent hucksters of the national liberal media.
And who, at this extraordinary juncture, dares say that Trump is not worthy of victory and of the salute of his countrymen? He has done what nobody thought he could, overcoming the doubts and scoffs every incredible step of the way.
No candidate in modern times and perhaps ever has suffered such abuse at the hands of the dominant culture. Virtually every day, nearly all the front pages and broadcasters in the entire country vilified him in an attempt to destroy him.
The late-night comics made fun of him like so much trailer trash, Wall Street saw him as a threat, Hollywood looked down on him and even the pope added his two cents of disdain.
It was dirty pool, against any standard of fairness and decency, but that was not the would-be assassins’ biggest mistake. It was that failing to destroy Trump, the elite smart set unleashed its contempt on his supporters.
The effect was the opposite of what was intended. Instead of demoralizing the Trumpsters, the nonstop attacks hardened them and made them more determined to finish what they had started.

Read the entire column here

PS

Steve Hilton´s column on Fox News is another excellent read:

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016/11/09/trumps-incredible-victory-is-second-brexit-only-better.html

Morning news

After Brexit, now this:

The polls, the mainstream media and the pundits were

all wrong!

Loss making New York Times is planning to intensify its global warming propaganda

The loss making New York Times is planning to intensify its global warming scare propaganda:

The New York Times is looking for a climate change editor

Drone footage that shows Greenland melting away. Long narratives about the plight of climate refugees, from Louisiana to Bolivia and beyond. A series on the California drought. Color-coded maps that show how hot it could be in 2060.

The New York Times is a leader in covering climate change. Now The Times is ramping up its coverage to make the most important story in the world even more relevant, urgent and accessible to a huge audience around the globe.

We are looking for an editor to lead this dynamic new group. We want someone with an entrepreneurial streak who is obsessed with finding new ways to connect with readers and new ways to tell this vital story.

The coverage should encompass: the science of climate change; the politics of climate debates; the technological race to find solutions; the economic consequences of climate change; and profiles of fascinating characters enmeshed in the issues.

The coverage should include journalism in a variety of formats: video, photography, newsletters, features, podcasts, conferences and more. The unit should make strategic decisions about which forms are top priorities and which are not.

The climate editor will collaborate with many others throughout the newsroom, but will operate apart from the current department structure, with no print obligations. --

To Apply

Applicants should submit a resume, examples of previous work, and a memo outlining their vision for coverage to Dean Baquet and Sam Dolnick by Sept. 19. This vision is the most important part of the application. It should be specific and set clear priorities. Some important questions to wrestle with:

What audiences should we be focusing on?

How will our coverage fit into their lives, and how will they experience it?

How will we distinguish our coverage from other journalism in this space?

What will be the main vehicles for the coverage? Features? News? Videos?

Should there be a signature voice attached to our climate coverage? Who?

How will you make a difficult subject interesting and accessible?

What stories are we willing not to do?

What should the team look like to get it done?

This non-Guild position is open to internal and external candidates. Applications should be sent to nytrecruit@nytimes.com.

PS
I´ll bet that the well paid job goes to the person who answers the penultimate question by demanding that the NYT should, if possible, even more emphatically refuse to publish any stories criticizing the global warming hysteria ...

The shame- and brainless John Kerry has been advising David Cameron about ways to overturn Brexit!

Here is another proof that US Secretary of State John Kerry is a walking disaster:

The US secretary of state has raised doubts about whether Brexit will ever happen, suggesting most leave campaigners do not truly believe in Britain’s divorce from the EU and do not know how to achieve it.
Claiming there were a number of ways in which Thursday’s vote could be “walked back”, John Kerry, who visited Downing Street on Monday, said David Cameron was loth to invoke article 50, the EU exit procedure.          

Several scenarios could see the vote overturned, involving either a Labour or Tory prime minister. But all are speculative

                         

He said the British prime minister felt powerless to “start negotiating a thing that he doesn’t believe in” and “has no idea how he would do it”.
Apparently referring to Boris Johnson, one of the frontrunners to replace Cameron, Kerry added: “And by the way, nor do most of the people who voted to do it.”

PS

Fortunately this shame- and brainless politician will soon be out of work.

This does not reflect very well on David Cameron either. He should not have put in this way when talking to a US Secretary of State!

Will Bill Clinton again be handed the keys to the White House?

One wonders whether Americans are ready to accept that this man again will have the keys to the White House ...

There are probably still a lot of people, who remember this

Donald Trump´s views on global warming and climate change are to be welcomed

Steve Milloy points out that Donald Trump has been a consistent critic of the global warming hysteria and green extremism in general. Here are some of the points Trump has made:

Global warming is a “hoax,” echoing the words of leading Senate climate skeptic Sen. Jim Inhofe.

Trump has mocked Obama for saying that climate change is the top global priority, especially as compared to Islamic terrorism and rogue nuclear states like Iran and North Korea.

Other countries, especially China, push global warming hysteria to cripple the U.S. economy and gain competitive advantage.

Trump has ridiculed Obama’s climate “deal” with China in which the U.S. cuts its CO2 emissions now while China gets away with a commitment to only possibly peak its emissions by 2030.

When global temperatures failed to rise as predicted by climate models, “global warming” became “climate change.”

Global warming hysteria is being pushed by “Jonathan Gruber-types,” the infamous architect of Obamacare who called Americans “stupid.”

Trump has observed that the polar ice caps are not melting as predicted by global warming hysterics.

PS

At least with regard to global warming, Donald Trump would be hugely better as President than the present one.

Human rights advocate Harry Wu dies

The great human rights advocate Harry Wu sadly has passed away. Here is how Wu is commemorated by the Washington based Laogai Research Foundation, which he founded:

It is with great sadness that the Laogai Research Foundation announces the passing of its founder, Harry Wu, who died in Honduras this morning at the age of 79. Mr. Wu was vacationing with friends when he passed away.
Harry Wu was a Catholic and a well-known presence on Capitol Hill for his defense of people who suffered in China’s brutal Laogai camps. The Laogai are China’s forced prison labor camps that began under Mao and continue in China today.
While a college student, Mr. Wu was sentenced to 19 years in China’s Laogai after being labeled a counter-revolutionary for speaking out against the former Soviet Union’s invasion of Hungary.
Harry Wu was released in 1979 and came to the United States in 1985 with just $40 in his pocket. Since then, he traveled back to China multiple times to further investigate Laogai camps and promote human rights developments in China. Mr. Wu founded the Laogai Research Foundation in 1992 to gather information and raise public awareness of the Chinese Laogai.
In 1995, Chinese authorities arrested and charged Mr. Wu, then a US citizen, with "stealing state secrets" in retaliation for his efforts to expose human rights abuses in China, among them his participation in a CBS 60 Minutes segment documenting China's vast labor camp system. A Chinese court subsequently sentenced him to another 15 years in prison. Due to the tireless efforts of US politicians, human rights activists, and diplomats, Chinese authorities deported Wu just prior to the beginning of the Fourth World Conference on Women, which Hillary Clinton attended in 1995.
Harry Wu was the author of many books including “The Chinese Gulag”, “Bitter Winds”, and “Troublemaker.” He dedicated his book “Troublemaker” “To the Chinese people who have suffered, who have left, who have stayed; someday soon, no more Laogai.”
Harry Wu spoke out for international labor rights and religious freedom, and against the death penalty, forced organ harvesting, and China’s brutal one-child policy. Harry Wu was a great supporter of the Dalai Lama, a Free Tibet, and 2010 Nobel Prize Honoree Liu Xiaobo.
In 2008, Harry Wu opened the first Laogai Museum in Washington, DC. Mr. Wu was the recipient of many international awards and honors.
Harry Wu is survived by his son, Harrison, and his former wife, Ching Lee. He was beloved by many.

Obama´s stupid scaremongering against Brexit backfires

The majority of UK mainstream media did their best in order to support B. Obama´s stupid scaremongering against Brexit, but all in vain:

Pollsters ICM found that 46 per cent of those quizzed want the UK to leave while 44 per cent want to stay. 
The result suggests that Barack Obama’s call for the UK to stay in the EU failed to shift support towards the Remain camp.
Interviews for the ICM internet tracker poll were carried out during the US President’s visit to Britain last week during which he claimed Britain would lose global influence by leaving the EU and fall to the back of the queue in negotiations for a US trade deal. 
Jennifer Bottomley, of ICM, said Mr Obama’s remarks may even have strengthened the resolve of Brexit supporters to vote in the referendum on June 23.

PS

Donald Trump has said that he is for Brexit, and now also Ted Cruz shows who is a true friend of the UK:

“If Brexit takes place, Britain will be at the front of the line for a free trade deal with America, not at the back.”

Two failed American politicians urge the UK to stay in the EU - A good reason to support the leave campaign

"White House hopeful Hillary Clinton has waded into the Brexit debate, throwing her weight behind President Obama’s advice that Britain should remain within the European Union (EU)."

Two failed American politicians are urging Britain to remain in the EU. That is another huge reason for the British to vote leave!

Obama´s meddling in UK politics will be ignored when the British vote for Brexit

According to David Cameron, his "very good friend", pictured in the best selling t-shirt above, has always been "someone who gives sage advice".

This was Obama´s "sage advice" in London yesterday:

“And on that matter, for example, I think it’s fair to say that maybe some point down the line there might be a UK-US trade agreement, but it’s not going to happen any time soon because our focus is in negotiating with a big bloc, the European Union, to get a trade agreement done”.

“The UK is going to be in the back of the queue.”

Obama will of course, and fortunately, be gone when a new trade deal between the US and UK is to be negotiated. So, his "advice" is of no value whatsoever.

No wonder Obama has been chosen the worst US President since WW2. His brazen meddling in UK politics will certainly be utterly ignored by the British voters, when they have a chance to vote for leaving the Titanic called the Europea Union!

PS

An excellent summary by Stephen Pollard:

You would have to be mad to take lessons in foreign policy from this of all US presidents. He tells us that our membership of the EU is vital to European and even world security.
This from the man who has reduced the world standing of the US to such a joke that President Putin knew he would be able to grab an entire section of Ukraine while the US – and, yes, the EU – simply stood by and watched.

Boris Johnson to Obama: "Americans would never contemplate anything like the EU, for themselves or for their neighbours"

London Mayor Boris Johnson´s message to Obama:

"For the United States to tell us in the UK that we must surrender control of so much of our democracy - it is a breathtaking example of the principle of do as I say but not as I do.
"It is incoherent. It is inconsistent, and yes it is downright hypocritical. The Americans would never contemplate anything like the EU, for themselves or for their neighbours in their own hemisphere. Why should they think it right for us?"

Niall Ferguson: "Margaret Thatcher was right about most things"

Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were the kind of leaders that the West would dearly need in these turbulent times, when so many politicians seem to have lost touch with reality. That is why it with great pleasure I urge you to read professor Niall Ferguson´s brilliant article on the Iron Lady:

It is still terribly hard for those who opposed her to admit it, but Margaret Thatcher was right about most things.
She was right that Britain’s trade unions had become much too powerful. She was right that nationalised industries had to be privatised. She was right that inflation has monetary causes.
She was also mostly right about foreign policy. She was right to drive the forces of Argentina’s junta out of the Falklands and she was right to exhort a “wobbly” George H.W. Bush to mete out the same treatment to Saddam Hussein’s forces in Kuwait.
Though labelled the “Iron Lady” by a Soviet magazine, her hawkishness in the cold war did not blind her to the possibilities of doing business with Mikhail Gorbachev. Like Ronald Reagan, she was quick to see the opportunity offered by his policies of glasnost and perestroika.
The outcome of the cold war seems inevitable with the benefit of hindsight. But for most of the 1980s, Thatcher had to endure a relentless stream of criticism from fellow travellers and useful idiots: believers in unilateral disarmament who would gladly have allowed the Soviets to establish dominance in intermediate range nuclear forces in Europe, as well as exponents of “convergence theory”, who insisted that the countries of Nato and the Warsaw Pact were gradually and peacefully growing alike (give or take the odd gulag). Above all, however, Thatcher was right about Europe. She was right to push Europe in the direction of real free trade by backing and signing the Single European Act of 1986. Yet she was equally right to oppose the idea of a single European currency.
On this issue, the Financial Times, as well as a great many other respected publications, owes Thatcher not only the respect due to a great leader, but also an apology. Throughout the 1980s, many critics consistently heaped opprobrium on her for resisting the efforts of her own cabinet to get sterling into the European exchange rate mechanism.
Consistently, Thatcher’s sceptics took the side of those, such as Nigel Lawson, Geoffrey Howe and John Major, who favoured “shadowing” the Deutschmark and then pegging the sterling-mark exchange rate.

Read the entire article here

PS

I  am convinced that Margaret Thatcher would vote for Brexit, if she still were with us.

Fortunately Nigel Lawson has seen the light, and is now a leading figure on the Brexit side!