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Christopher Walter MoncktonViscount Monckton of Brenchley
In Washington, D.C., January 2010
Born	(1952-02-14) 14 February 1952 (age 72)
Education	MA in classics, 1974; diploma in journalism studies
Alma mater	Churchill College, Cambridge University College, Cardiff
Occupation(s)	Politician, journalist
Political party	UK Independence Party
Spouse	Juliet Mary Anne Malherbe Jensen
Parent(s)	Major-General Gilbert Monckton and Marianna Letitia Bower
Relatives	Rosa Monckton (sister), Timothy Monckton (brother)

Christopher Walter Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley (born 14 February 1952) is a British politician, journalist, and hereditary peer. Formerly a member of the Conservative Party, Monckton has been the deputy leader of the UK Independence Party since June 2010. He served in Conservative Central Office and worked for Margaret Thatcher's Number 10 Policy Unit during the 1980s. He also worked for The Universe, The Sunday Telegraph, Today and Evening Standard newspapers.

He became known in the 1990s for his invention of the Eternity puzzle, a mathematical puzzle for which he offered a prize of one million pounds to the person who could solve it within four years. In recent years he has come to public attention in the UK and elsewhere for his outspoken scepticism about anthropogenic global warming.

Personal life

Monckton was born the eldest son of the late Major-General Gilbert Monckton, 2nd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley and Marianna Letitia (nee Bower), former High Sheriff of Kent and a Dame of Malta. He has a brother, Timothy, and a sister, Rosa, wife of journalist Dominic Lawson. His father raised the family as Roman Catholics after converting at Cambridge.

Monckton was educated at Harrow School and Churchill College, Cambridge, where he received an MA in classics in 1974, and at University College, Cardiff, where he obtained a diploma in journalism studies. In 1990, he married Juliet Mary Anne Malherbe Jensen. In 2006, on the death of his father, he acceded to the title of viscount.

He is a liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Broderers, an Officer of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, a Knight of Honour and Devotion of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, and a member of the Roman Catholic Mass Media Commission. He is also a qualified Day Skipper with the Royal Yachting Association, and has been a Trustee of the Hales Trophy for the Blue Riband of the Atlantic since 1986.

Professional life

Journalism

Monckton joined the Yorkshire Post in 1974 at the age of 22, where he worked as a reporter and leader-writer. From 1977 to 1978, Monckton was the press officer for Conservative Central Office. Monckton then became editor of the Roman Catholic newspaper The Universe, where he remained until 1981. Monckton became managing editor of The Sunday Telegraph magazine in 1981. He joined the London Evening Standard newspaper as a leader-writer in 1982.In 1986 Monckton became assistant editor of the newly established Today. He was a consulting editor for the Evening Standard from 1987 to 1992 and was the Standard's chief leader-writer from 1990 to 1992.

Policy advisor

Monckton joined the think tank Centre for Policy Studies in 1979 and served as the secretary to the centre's economic, forward strategy, health and employment study groups between 1980 and 1982. Ferdinand Mount, the head of the Number 10 Policy Unit and a former director of Centre for Policy Studies, brought Monckton into the Policy Unit in 1982, where he served as special policy advisor for housing and parliamentary affairs until 1986. At the Policy Unit, Monckton worked with Mount and Peter Shipley on projects such as the phasing out of council housing.

Entrepreneurship

In 1999, Monckton created the Eternity puzzle, a geometric puzzle that involved tiling a dodecagon with 209 irregularly shaped polygons called Polydrafters. The £1 million prize offered by Monckton for solving the puzzle was won by two Cambridge mathematicians 18 months after the puzzle's release. On the recommendation of his publicity agents, to boost sales of the puzzle Monckton reported that he would have to sell his 67-room estate in order to help cover the prize money. In fact, Monckton reported, he had made a healthy profit from the first version of the puzzle, despite it being solved so quickly. A second puzzle, Eternity II, was released in 2007, with a prize of $2 million.

Monckton has also been the director of RESURREXI Pharmaceutical since 2008. According to the UK Independence Party, he is "responsible for invention and development of a broad-spectrum cure for infectious diseases", including Graves' Disease, multiple sclerosis, influenza, and herpes simplex VI, as well as HIV.

Monckton and his wife opened Monckton's, a high-end shirt shop in King's Road, Chelsea, in 1995.

Political career

Although Monckton is an hereditary peer, his father's membership of the House of Lords was ended by the House of Lords Act 1999. Monckton has referred to himself as "a member of the Upper House but without the right to sit or vote."

The House of Lords has said he is not and never has been a member, and that there is no such thing as a non-voting or honorary member. The Clerk of the Parliaments, the chief clerk of the House of Lords, wrote to Monckton in July 2010 "confirming that he has no association with the House and advising him to stop branding himself as such", and instructing him not to use any emblem resembling the portcullis symbol of Parliament. He was also referred to the Lord Chamberlain over his use of the portcullis emblem, which belongs to the Queen.

He stood unsuccessfully in four by-elections for vacant seats created by deaths among the 92 hereditary peers remaining in the Lords after the reforms. He stood for a Conservative seat in a March 2007 by-election; of the 43 candidates, 31 received no votes, Monckton included. He subsequently stood in the crossbench by-elections of May 2008, July 2009, and June 2010, again receiving no votes. He was highly critical of the way the Lords was reformed, describing the procedure in the March 2007 by-election, with 43 candidates and 47 electors, as "a bizarre constitutional abortion."

He has also considered standing for election to the House of Commons (which hereditary peers are entitled to do if they are not members of the House of Lords). At the 2010 general election he was nominated as the UK Independence Party (UKIP) candidate for the Scottish constituency of Perth and North Perthshire, but withdrew in accordance with UKIP's policy of not opposing other Eurosceptic parliamentary candidates. In June 2010, UKIP announced he had been appointed its deputy leader, to serve alongside David Campbell Bannerman.

Lawsuits

In 1989 Monckton claimed damages for libel over the article "Rosa's bit of cheek" in the March 9 edition of the Daily Mail. In 1991, Monckton won a libel case over a September 28, 1990 article about his financial affairs in Private Eye.

Political views

Climate change

Monckton is critical of the theory of anthropogenic causes for climate change and the stated scope of it, which he regards as a controversy catalysed by "the need of the international left for a new flag to rally round following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989".

In the first of two Sunday Telegraph articles published in November 2006, Monckton disputed whether global warming is man-made, suggested that it is unlikely to prove catastrophic, and criticised the science presented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In particular, he has criticised the IPCC's interpretation of the Medieval Warm Period, cited the "hockey stick" controversy as evidence of faulty science, argued that the science in the IPCC reports has misapplied the Stefan–Boltzmann law, and supported the solar variation theory as a possible explanation of global warming.

In his second Sunday Telegraph article Monckton looked at economic aspects of the UK government's Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, arguing that the review's recommendation to invest 1% of global GDP per annum in climate change mitigation would be ineffective, as would the introduction of carbon taxes and emissions trading, as a means of curbing carbon emissions. He has proposed instead that the best solution should be to "go nuclear and reverse 20th-century deforestation."

In February 2007, he published a critique of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report on climate change. Monckton's CV as Chief Policy Adviser at the Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI) claims that "the correction of a table inserted by IPCC bureaucrats... earned him the status of Nobel Peace Laureate," a comment Monckton explained was a joke.

Monckton backed Stewart Dimmock in litigation against the British government in an effort to prevent distribution Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth to British schools. In an interview with the American talk radio host Glenn Beck, Monckton described his involvement in the litigation against the British government, the outcome of which was a finding that the film contained "at least 9 scientific errors" and a ruling that guidance on the errors must be provided to teachers before screening the film. Monckton is reported to have funded the distribution of The Great Global Warming Swindle as a riposte to Gore's film.

In March 2007, Monckton ran a series of advertisements in The New York Times and Washington Post challenging Al Gore to an internationally televised debate on climate change. The former U.S. Vice President responded in writing but refused to debate. The Science and Public Policy Institute provided funding for Monckton to produce a response to An Inconvenient Truth, titled Apocalypse?, No!, described as "showing Monckton presenting a slide show in a vitriolic attack on climate change science." The film includes footage of Monckton giving a Gore-style presentation on 8 October 2007 at the Cambridge Union in which he asserted that Gore and the IPCC had systematically falsified and exaggerated the evidence for global warming.

In July 2008 Monckton wrote an article about climate sensitivity for the American Physical Society's Forum on Physics and Society, concluding: "it is very likely that in response to a doubling of pre-industrial carbon dioxide concentration will rise not by the 3.26 °K suggested by the IPCC, but by <1 °K." The APS added a disclaimer to Monckton's article stating that the Council of the APS and "the world scientific community" disagreed with Monckton's conclusions, but was compelled to remove the disclaimer, as the Council had not in fact taken a position on Monckton's paper. In a response, Monckton called the APS "red flag" "discourteous" and claimed his paper had been "scientifically reviewed in meticulous detail".

During the autumn of 2009, Monckton warned that a treaty was planned for the United Nations Climate Change Conference in December 2009 that would "impose a communist world government on the world", which no country would then be able to repeal. The St. Petersburg Times's PolitiFact.com described his assertions as "not only unsupported but preposterous" and stated "...Lord Monckton earns a special ruling — Britches on Fire!". After attending one of Monckton's talks, Ethan Baron of the Canadian newspaper The Province criticised Monckton's assertions as the product of a "whacked-out, far-right ideology, combined with an ego the size of the Antarctic ice sheet." The scientific assertions made by Monckton have been criticised as "pure fantasy" by Professor Barry R. Bickmore of Brigham Young University, who comments: "when you see a complete amateur raising objections about a highly technical subject, claiming that he or she has blown the lid off several decades of research in the discipline, you should be highly suspicious."

Vaclav Klaus, the president of the Czech Republic, defended Monckton's views, commenting: "I agree with Lord Monckton that the cap-and-trade bill 'is the largest tax increase ever to be inflicted on a population in the history of the world'", and nationally syndicated US right-wing conservative radio commentator Michael Savage praised Monckton's tour, saying: "it is very rare we get someone as succinct, and as literate, and as passionate ... as Lord Christopher Monckton."

In October 2009, during his tour of North America, Monckton gave a talk on climate science at an event held at Minnesota's Bethel University, sponsored by the Minnesota Free Market Institute. In response, University of St. Thomas professor of thermal engineering John Abraham published an online rebuttal of the claims made by Monckton in his talk. Abraham's presentation, in which he asserted that Monckton had misrepresented and misunderstood scientific findings, received praise as a "long-needed factual voice on climate change." Monckton's response accused Abraham of misrepresentation and libel, criticised the university and its head, and demanded a retraction, apology, disciplinary action against Abraham and a compensatory payment. The University of St Thomas supported Abraham, threatening legal action if Monckton continued making "disparaging or defamatory comments".

Social and economic policy

Eddy Shah: Today and the Newspaper Revolution describes him as "a fervent, forthright and opinionated Roman Catholic Tory" who has been closely associated with the "New Right" faction of the Conservative Party. As one of Margaret Thatcher's policy advisors, he has been credited with being "the brains behind the Thatcherite policy of giving council tenants (public housing) the right to buy their homes." Criticizing the campaign to save the Ravenscraig ironworks, Monckton wrote, "The Scots are subsidy junkies whingeing like crumpled bagpipes and waiting for a fix of English taxpayers' money."

He has been associated with the Referendum Party, advising its founder Sir James Goldsmith, and in 2003 he helped a Scottish Tory breakaway group, the Scottish Peoples Alliance. In 2009 he joined the UK Independence Party; he is now deputy leader.

In 1997, Monckton criticized works at the Fotofeis (the Scottish International Festival of Photography) and Sensation as "feeble-minded, cheap, pitiable, exploitative sensationalism perpetrated by the talent-free and perpetuated by over-funded, useless, muddle-headed, middle-aged, pot-bellied, brewer's-droopy quangoes which a courageous Government would forthwith cease to subsidise with your money and mine."

Views on AIDS

Monckton's views on how the AIDS epidemic should be tackled have been the subject of some controversy. In an article for The American Spectator entitled "AIDS: A British View", written for the magazine's January 1987 issue, he argued that "there is only one way to stop AIDS. That is to screen the entire population regularly and to quarantine all carriers of the disease for life. Every member of the population should be blood-tested every month ... all those found to be infected with the virus, even if only as carriers, should be isolated compulsorily, immediately, and permanently." This would involve isolating between 1.5 and 3 million people in the United States ("not altogether impossible") and another 30,000 people in the UK ("not insuperably difficult"). The article was highly controversial, with The American Spectator's then assistant managing editor, Andrew Ferguson, denouncing it in the letters column of the same issue. Monckton appeared on the BBC's Panorama programme in February 1987 to discuss his views and present the results of an opinion poll that found public support for his position.

Monckton has since stated "the article was written at the very outset of the AIDS epidemic, and with 33 million people around the world now infected, the possibility of is laughable. It couldn't work."

European integration

Monckton has been an advocate of Euroscepticism for many years; as he put it in a 2007 interview, he would "leave the European Union, close down 90 per cent of government services and shift power away from the atheistic, humanistic government and into the hands of families and individuals." In 1994, he sued the Conservative government of John Major for agreeing to contribute to the costs of the Protocol on Social Policy agreed in the 1993 Maastricht Treaty, although the UK had an opt-out from the protocol. The case was heard in the Scottish Court of Session in May 1994. His petition for judicial review was dismissed by the court for want of relevancy.

Published works

• The Laker Story (with Ivan Fallon). Christensen, 1982. ISBN 0950800708
• Anglican Orders: null and void?. Family History Books, 1986.
• The AIDS Report. 1987
• European Monetary Union: opportunities and dangers. University of St. Andrews, Department of Economics. 1997
• Sudoku X. Headline Publishing Group, 2005. ISBN 0755315014
• Sudoku X-mas. Headline Publishing Group, 2005. ISBN 0755315022
• Sudoku Xpert. Headline Publishing Group, 2006. ISBN 0755315294
• Junior Sudoku X. Headline Publishing Group, 2006. ISBN 0755315286
• Sudoku Xtreme. Headline Publishing Group, 2006. ISBN 0755315308
• "Climate Sensitivity Reconsidered". Forum on Physics and Society, American Physical Society. 2008. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)

The Science and Public Policy Institute, of which Monckton is policy director, has published numerous written works by Monckton on climate science and politics.

See also

• Gilbert Monckton, 2nd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley
• Rosa Monckton

References

1. Template:Cite article
2. Template:Cite article; Template:Cite article; Template:Cite article
3. ^ Who's Who 2007, p. 1599
4. ^ Kandiah, Michael; Seldon, Anthony (1997). Ideas and think tanks in contemporary Britain, Volume 2. Routledge. p. 59, 62. ISBN 9780714647715.
5. ^ "Tory project to phase out council houses". The Times. 1982-12-06. p. 1.
6. "Policy unit at full strength". The Times. 1984-11-06.
7. "Two more advisers at No 10". The Times. 1982-11-25.
8. ^ "£1m Eternity jackpot scooped". BBC News Online. BBC. 2000-10-26.
9. Frank Urquhart. "Aristocrat admits tale of lost home was stunt to boost puzzle sales". The Scotsman.
10. Frank Urquhart. "Aristocrat admits tale of lost home was stunt to boost puzzle sales". The Scotsman.
11. Mackay, Neil (1999-11-28). "Aristocrat's game plan puzzle". The Sunday Herald. Retrieved 2008-05-05.
12. Template:Cite article
13. "Christopher: A Man of Many Talents". 2010-06-04. Retrieved 2010-08-28.
14. "The Undie-Serving Rich". Evening Standard. November 10, 1995.
15. "House of Lords Act 1999 (original text)". 1999-11-11. Retrieved 2008-05-21.
16. Monckton, Christopher (2020-07-15). "Questions from the Select Committee Concerning My Recent Testimony". Science & Public Policy Institute. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |url= (help) Monckton said: "The House of Lords Act 1999 debarred all but 92 of the 650 Hereditary Peers, including my father, from sitting or voting, and purported to – but did not – remove membership of the Upper House. Letters Patent granting peerages, and consequently membership, are the personal gift of the Monarch. Only a specific law can annul a grant. The 1999 Act was a general law. The then Government, realizing this defect, took three maladroit steps: it wrote asking expelled Peers to return their Letters Patent (though that does not annul them); in 2009 it withdrew the passes admitting expelled Peers to the House (and implying they were members); and it told the enquiry clerks to deny they were members: but a written Parliamentary Answer by the Lord President of the Council admits that general legislation cannot annul Letters Patent, so I am The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley (as my passport shows), a member of the Upper House but without the right to sit or vote, and I have never pretended otherwise."
17. ^ Hickman, Leo (2010-04-20). "Lord Monckton throws his safari helmet in the ring as Ukip candidate"..
18. Hickman, Leo (2010-08-11). "Christopher Monckton told to stop claiming he is a member of the Lords". The Guardian. Retrieved 2010-08-28.
19. "Conservative Hereditary Peers Byelection March 2007 Result" (PDF). British Parliament. 2007-03-07. Retrieved 2008-08-18.
20. "Crossbench Hereditary Peers' By-election, May 2008: Result" (PDF). 2008-05-22.
21. "Results: Crossbench hereditary Peers' by-election following the death of Viscount Bledisloe" (PDF). 2009-07-15.
22. "Results: Crossbench Hereditary Peers' by-election" (PDF). 2010-06-23.
23. Beckett, Andy (2007-02-24). "Born to run: There are 47 voters, 43 candidates, and the race to be elected a hereditary Tory peer is on. Is this democracy at last in the House of Lords?". London: The Guardian. Retrieved 2008-04-30.
24. "Lord Monckton is new deputy leader". UK Independence Party. 3 June 2010. Retrieved 7 July 2010.
25. "Law Update: In court: who's suing whom". The Independent. March 24, 1989.
26. "Law Update: In court: who's suing whom". The Independent. October 12, 1990."Journalist Wins Libel Apology". Press Association. May 24, 1991.
27. Brown, Allan. "From here to Eternity II". The Sunday Times, 22 July 2007
28. Monckton, Christopher. Wrong problem, wrong solution, The Sunday Telegraph, 15 November 2006.
29. Monckton, Christopher (February 2007). "IPCC Fourth Assessment Report 2007 Analysis and Summary" (PDF).
30. "SPPI Personnel". Retrieved 2010-06-19.
31. O'MALLEY, NICK (2010-01-26). "Nobleman is no Nobel man". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 2010-06-19.
32. ^ Leake, Jonathan (2007-10-14). "Please, sir - Gore's got warming wrong". London: The Times.
33. "Glenn talks with Lord Monckton". Glenn Beck. 2008-03-04.
34. http://archives.chicagotribune.com/2007/dec/16/news/chi-naysayers_bddec16
35. Hardie, Josh. "Global warming: fact or theory?", The Cambridge Student, 13 October 2007
36. Editor Jeffrey Marque, Alvin Saperstein (2008). "Editors Comments". American Physical Society. {{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
37. Monckton, Christopher (2008). "Climate Sensitivity Reconsidered". Forum on Physics and Society. American Physical Society. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
38. Wagenseil, Paul. "Newsletter Article Causes Climate-Change Kerfuffle". Fox News, 21 July 2008
39. "Lord Monckton's Letter to Dr. Bienenstock" (PDF). Science & Public Policy Institute. 2008-07-19. Retrieved 2008-09-27.
40. Koppelman, Alex (2009-10-19). "Warming treaty to usher in one-world government?". Salon.
42. "British climate-change skeptic says Copenhagen treaty threatens "democracy," "freedom"". The St. Petersburg Times. 2009-10-14.
43. Baron, Ethan (2009-10-07). "Difficult to warm to climate-change denier". The Province.
44. http://www.sltrib.com/ci_14856887
45. http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/11/05/v-225-clav-klaus-largest-tax-increase-in-world-history.aspx
46. http://vodpod.com/watch/2584299-dr-savage-interviews-lord-christopher-monckton-4
47. McAuliffe, Bill (July 22, 2010). Minneapolis Star Tribune http://www.startribune.com/local/99072699.html?page=1. {{cite news}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
48. Karnowski, Steve (July 23, 2010). "UK climate change skeptic accuses US prof of libel". Associated Press.
49. MacArthur, Brian. Eddy Shah: Today and the Newspaper Revolution, p. 154. David & Charles Publishers, 1988. ISBN 0715391453
50. ^ Virginia Berridge. AIDS in the UK: The Making of a Policy, 1981-1994, p. 132. Oxford University Press, 1996. ISBN 0198204736
51. ^ Leppard, David. "Top Tory in a kilt hit by visa 'racket' case", The Times, 3 October 2004
52. Angus McLeod (April 16, 1995). "Christopher Monckton and his support for subsidies to Scotland". Sunday Mail.
53. Vaughan, Adam (2009-12-11). "In denial: Lord Monckton's climate change rant at activists". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 26 March 2010.
55. Christopher Monckton (September 23, 1997). "'It is feeble-minded, exploitative sensationalism perpetrated by the talent-free'". The Scotsman.
56. "Monckton, Christopher. "AIDS: A British View"" The American Spectator, January 1987
57. Bawer, Bruce (1993). A place at the table: the gay individual in American society. Poseidon Press. p. 75. ISBN 9780671795337.
58. "'I'm bad at doing what I'm told. I'm a born free-thinker ' - The 5-Minute Interview", The Independent, 24 August 2007
59. "Lawful for UK to contribute to European social policy costs - Scots Law report", The Times, 12 May 1994
60. Science and Public Policy Institute - Monckton Papers

External links

• Apocalypse Cancelled
• Greenhouse warming? What greenhouse warming? by Christopher Monckton
• Gore Gored Monckton's response to Gore
• Monckton saves the day!, The Observer, 6 May 2007

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v t e Extant viscountcies in the peerages of Britain and Ireland
Sorted by kingdom in which created, then creation date
England	Hereford
Scotland	Falkland Arbuthnott Oxfuird
Great Britain	Bolingbroke St John Cobham Falmouth Torrington Hood
Ireland	Gormanston Mountgarret Valentia Dillon Massereene Charlemont Downe Molesworth Chetwynd Midleton Boyne Gage Galway Powerscourt Ashbrook Southwell de Vesci Lifford Bangor Doneraile Harberton Hawarden Ferrard Monck Gort
United Kingdom	St Vincent Melville Sidmouth Exmouth Combermere Hill Hardinge Bridport Portman Hampden Hambleden Knutsford Esher Goschen Ridley Colville of Culross Selby Knollys Allendale Chilston Scarsdale Mersey Cowdray Devonport Astor Wimborne St Davids Rothermere Allenby Chelmsford Long Ullswater Younger of Leckie Bearsted Craigavon Bridgeman Hailsham Brentford Buckmaster Bledisloe Hanworth Trenchard Samuel Runciman of Doxford Davidson Weir Caldecote Camrose Stansgate Margesson Daventry Addison Kemsley Marchwood Montgomery of Alamein Waverley Thurso Brookeborough Norwich Leathers Soulbury Chandos De L'Isle Monckton of Brenchley Tenby Mackintosh of Halifax Dunrossil Stuart of Findhorn Rochdale Slim Head Boyd of Merton Mills Blakenham Eccles Dilhorne
Italics: This title is held by a peer who holds another of higher precedence.

Template:Persondata

• Alumni of Cardiff University
• Alumni of Churchill College, Cambridge
• British journalists
• British newspaper editors
• English Roman Catholics
• Knights of Malta
• Officers of the Order of St John
• Old Harrovians
• Viscounts in the Peerage of the United Kingdom
• 1952 births
• Living people