Tom Fort

The other day someone — actually it was my MP, the member for Henley-on-Thames and former editor of this magazine — asked me if I ‘believed’ in global warming. The question was put in such a way as to suggest it was a matter of faith rather than commonsense. I replied that only half-wits and conspiracy nuts refused to accept that it was real and largely our doing. The question is no longer whether or not it is happening, but where it will take us and how quickly. If James Lovelock’s analysis of the condition of our planet is sound, the answer is: into the flames of Armaged- don, fast. He suspects we are already past the point of no return; that even if we abandoned our tribal differences and foolish ways now, it would probably be too late.

In more tranquil times, before the Gilligan storm broke over his head, the BBC's admirable and honourable director of news, Richard Sambrook, contributed a foreword to one of the corporation's periodic attempts to remind its journalists of their responsibilities towards the English language. 'Clear storytelling and language,' Sambrook wrote, 'is at the heart of good journalism.' These are words which, given subsequent events, have acquired an ironic resonance. What is at issue here is not Sambrook's unexceptionable sentiment, but his grammar. Richard, Richard, I can hear myself saying in the pedant's weary tones (for many years ago, when he was an eager and fresh-faced newsroom subeditor, I used to check his stories), plural subject requires plural verb.