The Monckton Files: His Lordship in a Nutshell

I came across this blog entry by Gideon Rachman at the Financial Times, in which he described his experience debating at the Oxford Union about the role of the U.K. in the European Union.  One of his opponents was Christopher Monckton, who ended up sitting across from Rachman at dinner before the debate.  Rachman’s description of his encounter with Monckton so beautifully encapsulated the Viscount’s essence that I had to quote it here.

The viscount is an interesting character. He once worked in the policy unit at Number Ten under Lady Thatcher and is now deputy leader of the anti-European UK Independence Party. More recently he has become famous as a vociferous climate-change sceptic and for fighting a Quixotic campaign to gain entrance into the House of Lords. I was seated opposite him at the pre-debate dinner, and initially I found his conversation rather unsettling: a blizzard of statistics and anecdotes on everything from climate to Europe, all delivered with supreme confidence and a slight gleam in the eye.

I began to think that Viscount Monckton might be a formidable opponent during the debate. Then he told me that he has discovered a new drug that is a complete cure for two-thirds of known diseases – and that he expects it to go into clinical trials soon. I asked him whether his miracle cure was chiefly effective against viruses or bacterial diseases? “Both”, he said, “and prions”. At this point I felt a little more relaxed about the forthcoming debate.