What do they know?

It's been a year of denial. Perhaps this is a game anyone can play.

Climate change? Nothing to do with us, guv. It's all down to sun spots (Piers Corbyn, who refuses to disclose his "commercially sensitive" weather forecasting methods), or simply "baloney" (David Bellamy, who has never responded to George Monbiot's accusation that he accidentally inflated the number of "advancing" glaciers by hitting the wrong key on his keyboard)

Iraq has increased the terrorist threat to the UK? Absolute nonsense (we can't remember who said this, but few people in the ministry of defence seem to agree)

Evolution by natural selection? It's obvious that something as complex as the human eye must have been designed (any number of people who have never studied the fossil record)

The holocaust? Well, with so many people not sure about the numbers these days, and locking people like David Irving up to stop him expressing his views, you have to keep an open mind, don't you (a dinner guest at a table near you)

The trouble with progressive people is that they have a boringly pedantic attitude to things like evidence. They keep on insisting that you should have some acquaintance with it before you spout your views, or that you should be careful to make sure that the people whose opinions you value do have that acquaintance, preferably extending over many years of professional study in a peer review environment. Well maybe it's time for the other side to have a go at denial. Here are some established beliefs all of which we declare not to be true -

• British possession of nuclear weapons makes us safe
• Immigration creates problems for the UK
• Cheap air travel is a boon
• The NHS is inefficient
• It's reasonable to use information obtained under torture in the war on terror

So we are moving into the denial business. Readers will notice that we don't provide any serious evidence for our beliefs, but that's because it's part of the routine. Proof? Evidence? You're missing the point old boy. I mean, these Daily Telegraph wallahs, what do they actually know? I met a chap in the pub a few nights ago who told me our new Trident missiles would be totally controlled by the US. What more do you need? As for flying, well the government really knows - but won't admit: trust me, my pal plays golf with someone in the ministry - that air travel is climatically unsustainable (at least I think that was the phrase). As for the NHS, there was this TV programme on whatever channel that explained all about the huge cost of healthcare in the US....

So why don't we give ourselves a break, and stop trying to base our arguments on verifiable evidence? Well there is a reason.

We don't want to appear idiots, like the real deniers.