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Christopher: A man of many talents

Friday, 4th June 2010

UKIP's new joint Deputy Leader, Christopher Monckton, 58, is a true polymath with a range of knowledge and interests extending across medicine, finance, journalism and science.

Following the start of his career in journalism, Lord Monckton was talent-spotted by Margaret Thatcher and spent four years as one of the PM's key advisers.

He returned to newspapers after four years, and simultaneously developed his love for fighting a cause through his eponymous consultancy.

More recently, his focus has turned to the issue of climate change and internationally he is known as one of the leading global warming sceptics.

Alongside these interests, Lord Monckton has also found a cure for the chronic infection Grave's Disease – which affects the thyroid gland –and invented the hugely popular Sudoku X puzzle.

His full CV is below:

Born 14 February 1952, Christopher Walter, eldest son of the late Major-General The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, CB, OBE, MC, MA, DL, of Runhams Farm, Harrietsham, Maidstone, Kent, ME17 1NJ, and Marianna Letitia (nee Bower), former High Sheriff of Kent. Married 19 May 1990, Juliet Mary Anne Malherbe Jensen, youngest daughter of Jorgen Malherbe Jensen and Mary Jensen, nee Lillis. Clubs: Brooks’s; Pratt’s; Beefsteak.

Education

1965 – 1970 HARROW SCHOOL: Domus Scholar, 1965. O Level English Language, English Literature, French, Latin, Greek, Elementary Mathematics, Additional Mathematics. A Level English, Latin, Greek, Ancient History. Peel Medal for Latin Essay, 1969. Founder, Harrow School Bookbinding Guild.

1970 – 1973 CHURCHILL COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE: BA (Honours) Classics, 1973; MA 1974. Member, Trinity Foot Beagles, University Pitt Club, Cambridge Union Society (Standing Committee 1973), University Conservative Association (Committee, 1970-1973; Treasurer 1973).

1973 – 1974 COLEG Y BRIFYSGOL CAERDYDD (University College, Cardiff): Diploma in Journalism Studies, 1974. Shorthand (100wpm, 100% accuracy), 1974. Member, University College Cardiff Debating Team. Founder, University College Cardiff Conservative Association, 1973.

Employment

1974 – 1977 YORKSHIRE POST, Leeds: Reporter 1974-1975; leader-writer (youngest on a major newspaper) 1975-1977. Revealed that in International Law Scotland’s oil is really England’s oil.

1977 – 1978 CONSERVATIVE CENTRAL OFFICE, Smith Square, London: Press Officer, and speech-writer to Margaret Thatcher, Leader of the Opposition, and Sir Geoffrey Howe, Shadow Chancellor. Inventor of the Labour Pound, a banknote shrunk in size in proportion to inflation under Labour.

1979 – 1981 THE UNIVERSE, The Catholic Newspaper, Fleet Street, London: Editor-Designate 1978; Editor 1979-1981. Circulation 130,000 (1978); 150,000 (1981). Poll of readers on preference for old or new liturgy drew 15,000 responses (10,500 readers – more than two-thirds - preferred the old rite).

1981 – 1982 TELEGRAPH SUNDAY MAGAZINE, London: Managing Editor. Author of a 1200-word article for the Daily Telegraph on the reasons in international law why the Falkland Islands are British, read out on the BBC World Service’s Argentinian broadcasts every 20 minutes during the Falklands War.

1982 – 1986 PRIME MINISTER’S POLICY UNIT, 10 Downing Street, London: Special Adviser to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister. Projects included tax/benefit modelling to address poverty; economic modelling to control government spending; sale of publicly-owned houses to their tenants (1,000,000 sold); mathematical development of indexed mortgages (to make them affordable to the poorest); privatisation of water authorities in England and Wales; psephological forecasting by computer; hydrodynamic analysis of warship hull-forms to expose a major Defense fraud; modelling of retrovirus transmission to plan for the HIV crisis; budget control (e.g. £20 billion overspend on housing budget prevented); speech-writing; and drafting answers to Parliamentary Questions.

1986 – 1987 TODAY Newspaper, London: Assistant Editor. Exposed the Government’s cover-up of its own experts’ report that AIDS would spread from high-risk groups into the general population and kill tens of millions worldwide. Forecast the house-price crash of 1987/88 three months before it began.

1987 – 1992 EVENING STANDARD, London: Consulting Editor, Chief Leader-Writer and Columnist. The Evening Standard was the only national newspaper which opposed Britain’s entry to the ERM (European exchange-rate mechanism) from the moment we joined in 1990 to the moment when we were expelled in 1992. It was the Standard which obtained and revealed the then-secret text of the Maastricht Treaty, against Foreign Office opposition. The Standard was the only national newspaper which advocated sending a task-force to expel Saddam Hussein from Kuwait within hours of the invasion: all the other national papers were to advocate mere round-table diplomatic discussions.

1986 – date CHRISTOPHER MONCKTON LIMITED, consultants in public administration: Founder and Director. CML finds and implements innovative and effective solutions to problems inflicted by bureaucracies on governmental, corporate and individual clients.

A futures brokerage firm was threatened with closure by a corrupt City regulatory agency, which was itself closed after we intervened.

A manufacturing company employing 350 people with a £10 million investment, threatened with destruction by proposed new Government regulations of which it had been given only three days’ notice, was saved within a week when we halted promulgation in Parliament and had the regulations redrafted.

A leading national scientific institute threatened with cancellation of its annual grant was saved within a week when we said we would publicly expose the Minister who had failed to consult it before withdrawing its grant.

An international lawyer imprisoned for almost seven years on charges trumped up by a corrupt foreign regime was released after we intervened.

An eminent journalist who had been tortured for nine months in a British psychiatric prison was freed within weeks when we said we would report the judge in the case to the Attorney-General for torture.

A major cleaning services company which had been raided by the Inland Revenue and the Home Office, losing all its records in the raid and facing prosecution by both departments, was reopened by us the day after the raid, whereupon we instigated a successful High Court application for leave for judicial review, resulting in a substantial award to our clients and the collapse of both prosecutions.

A property tycoon who had spent six months trying to gain access to an overseas government minister met him three days after we were engaged.

A services corporation defrauded by its insurers received premium reductions totalling £150,000.

An award-winning fund manager threatened with prosecution by the Serious Fraud Office on the ground that he had posted trades late so that he could allocate the best results to himself had all charges dropped after we produced a 200-page computerised study of his entire trading history, proving that he had made the same return for his clients as for himself – to within 0.05%.

The owners of a stately home who had spent nearly two years trying to persuade their insurers to meet a £100,000 subsidence claim were paid in full three months after we were engaged, on the basis of a 100-page technical report by us.

A billionaire who had spent two years unsuccessfully trying to recruit several hundred candidates for a new political party had 17,000 willing names six weeks after we were engaged; he appointed 600 of them.

A new Scottish political party looking for policies published a complete, detailed manifesto two months after we were engaged to consult party members and to draft it.

A Scottish regional elected authority wishing to ensure that its region’s only direct railway service to London was not withdrawn sought our advice on public administrative law when QCs both sides of the Border had said nothing could be done, our nine-page brief on the interpretation of the word “such” in the Railways Act 1993 won the case in the Outer and Inner Houses of the Court of Session, a perpetual interdict was granted, and the West Highland Sleeper is the only train in the world obliged by law to run “till a’ the seas gang dry”.

2007-present: Climate change research: As a former Prime Ministerial adviser on scientific and domestic policy to Margaret Thatcher, Lord Monckton advised her in 1986 that "global warming" might be a problem and recommended that it be investigated.

Two years later, Margaret Thatcher established the Hadley Centre for Prediction and Research. In 2007 a City institution invited Lord Monckton to advise it on whether "global warming" was a problem. Lord Monckton's 40-page report concluding that "global warming" would not, after all, be a global crisis was shown to the Editor of the Sunday Telegraph, who commissioned him to write two major articles on the subject.

The first article attracted 127,000 hits to the Telegraph website in just two hours, causing it to crash. No other article ever printed by the Telegraph newspaper group has ever attracted so much interest in so short a time.

Lord Monckton is recognised internationally as an expert on the climate question. He has had papers on the determination of climate sensitivity published in the reviewed literature and on the internet, and has given speeches, lectures and physics-faculty seminars on the subject all over the world.

Twice this year he has testified before the US Congress, but on a third occasion, when the elected Republican minority had chosen him to respond to testimony by Al Gore before the Energy and Commerce Committee of the US Congress, the Democrat majority rejected the ranking Minority member's chosen witness, attracting adverse media comment.

On Labor Day 2009, Lord Monckton addressed 100,000 mineworkers and their families on a reclaimed mountain-top in West Virginia. His announcement to the Petroleum Club of Calgary, Canada, that the then-secret draft Copenhagen Climate Treaty proposed the establishment of an unelected world government with powers to bring all free markets to an end and to inflict unlimited taxes, fines and regulations on all nations made front-page headlines across Canada.

The peroration of his 90-minute speech on climate change at Bethel University, St Paul, Minnesota, in mid-October this year was recorded by a member of the audience and posted on YouTube, where it has received 4 million hits (2.6 million on one site alone), going Platinum on YouTube faster than any other political speech.

In 2009/10 he addressed "Tea-Party" rallies in Texas and Washington DC, and a high-level briefing for underwriters and brokers at Lloyds of London. He also addressed the European, German and Danish Parliaments, and attended the UN climate change conferences in Copenhagen and Bonn. He is scheduled to speak on climate in the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, and Australia.

2008-present: RESURREXI Pharmaceutical: Director responsible for invention and development of a broad-spectrum cure for infectious diseases. Patents have now been filed. Patients have been cured of various infectious diseases, including Graves’ Disease, multiple sclerosis, influenza, and herpes simplex VI. Our first HIV patient had his viral titre reduced by 38% in five days, with no side-effects. Tests continue.

Some activities

1973 Kt of Honour & Devotion, Sov. Mil. Order of Malta; Officer (Brother), Order of St. John
1973 Freeman, City of London, by redemption, & Liveryman, Worshipful Co. of Broderers
1973 Member, International MENSA
1975 – date Proprietor, The Leeds Library, a private circulating library
1976 – 1977 Officer, St. John Ambulance Brigade (Wetherby Division)
1979 – date Student Member, Honourable Society of the Middle Temple
1979 – date Member, Roman Catholic Mass Media Commission
1980 Visiting lecturer in business studies, Columbia University, New York
1980 – 1982 Secretary, Forward Strategy Study Group, Centre for Policy Studies
1982 Editor, Not the Church Times (30,000 copies sold)
1982 Author, The Laker Story (with Ivan Fallon: 50,000 copies sold)
1986 Author, Anglican Orders – Null and Void?
1986 – date Trustee, Hales Trophy for the Blue Riband of the Atlantic
1986 Trustee, Lord Fairhaven’s No. 2 Settlement
1988 – 1996 HM Deputy Lieutenant, Greater London
1991 – 1996 Governor, The London Oratory School
1992 – 1996 Treasurer, Rannoch & Tummel Conservative Association
1996 Visiting lecturer in macroeconomics, University of St. Andrews
1996 – 2001 Restored Crimonmogate, a near-derelict 67-room Regency Classical palace
2000 Inventor, Eternity puzzle (£1 million prize paid: 500,000 copies sold at £35 each).
2002 – 2005 Restored Carie House, seat of Clan Robertson of Struan until the ’45.
2005 Inventor, Sudoku X puzzle and author of five Daily Mail Sudoku X books.
2007 July Inventor, Eternity II puzzle ($2 million prize offered: closing date December 31, 2010).
2007 Feature-length documentary movie Apocalypse? NO! about climate change.
2008 Inventor, cure for Graves’ Disease (100,000 UK sufferers) and other chronic infections.
2008 Visiting lecturer in climatological physics, Universities of Rochester & Hartford.
2008 July Climate Sensitivity Reconsidered, paper in Physics & Society.
2009 Multiple testimonies before US Congress on climate change.
2009 Sep Speech on climate to 100,000 mineworkers and their families in West Virginia.
2009 Oct Speech to 1000 citizens of Minnesota re UN world government: 4 million YouTube hits.
2010 Jan Speaking tour of Australia re climate. 650 media mentions: 10% opinion-poll movement.
2010 Apr Appointed environment & climate spokesman, UK Independence Party.

Interests

Climate, cures for infectious diseases, hill-walking, historic buildings, inventions, motor-cycling, number theory, politics, public speaking, recreational mathematics, romance, sailing, Scotland, theology of economics, wife.