The Tory councillor living in denial

Darshan Nagi, a Conservative councillor in London, was at pains last week to deny claims he was a climate change denier, issuing a statement to the capital’s Standard saying comments he had posted on social media had been taken out of context.

In a written statement, Hounslow councillor Nagi said while his comment, posted on Facebook, was clumsy, he denied that he had said climate change was not real.

“The comment on Facebook doesn’t represent the view of the party or the Conservative Group,” he insisted. “I was trying to convey that climate change is a big process that won’t be stopped by one country alone pursuing net zero.

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“I appreciate my comment was quite clumsy, but at no point have I said climate change isn’t real – rather, the current policies that the government claims are supposed to tackle climate change are in fact about raising revenue as opposed to mitigating the impact of our changing climate.”

Watchers of the council wondered who had worded the statement for Nagi, as it was inconsistent with his usual style. The actual post he had written on Facebook – which in no way denied man-made climate change was real – read: “Climate change is a natural process.

“It started from ice age [sic] And [sic] haz [sic] been happening since upto [sic] now and it will carry on NOTHING WILL STOP IT.

“ALL THESE ORGANISATIONS WHO ARE HYPING UP CLIMATE CHANGE AND TAKING MONEY IN DIFFERENT TAXES AND CHARFES [sic] AND PAYING THEMSELVES HIGH WAGEZ [sic] AND GIVING FUNDING TO MULTINATIONAL COMPANIES TO PREVENT CLKMATE [sic] CHANGE. I WOULD CALM THEM………….”

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The post was in response to a post on community group Brentford Today reporting on the Leader of Hounslow Reform, Tony Brown, reposting tweets which say “climate emergency is a big hoax”. And funnily enough he doesn’t necessarily believe that either!

He said his view on the matter was “quite nuanced” and told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “The fact that I have liked a tweet does NOT make it my definitive position on the subject.”

Except, of course, he hadn’t just liked it, he reposted it. X users are unable to see the likes of other users.