Plimer withdrawn before he's counted out.

Well it was never going to live up to expectations, but the Monbiot/Plimer fight has unfortunately ended in a damp squib.

As Plimer had failed to answer Monbot's simple questions about his own book (not hard you'd think. If my finals had been asking about a book I'd written I may even have got a decent grade) Monbiot gave him ten days to reply or the debate was off.

Four days before the deadline expired The Spectator, the right wing rag sponsoring the debate, pulled the plug. In doing so they, and their star columnist Rod Liddle, launched into a tirade against Monbiot.

Bizarrely the injustice of this led to Monbiot being defended by people who normally attacked him. This is from The Spectator's own blog:

Not that I am a fan of Monbiot. From what little of his material I have read, I think he is a pompous ass. And I think that the global warming crowd have largely failed to make their case, have probably faked or fudged at least some of the numbers, and may well be proven wrong in time.

But unless Monbiot has fabricated the email exchanges with The Spectator and Plimer on his website (which would be pretty easy from The Spectator to expose), Plimer is just dodging reasonable questions and The Spectator is backing off from commitments already given.

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Hang on. I dislike Monbiot as much as the next man; but surely he is saying the opposite of 'let there be an end to the debate.' I think he's entitled to ask why Mr Plimer why he won't debate. If Plimer's view is correct, you can hardly say Monbiot hasn't handed the fellow enough on which to sharpen his teeth.

So what is The Spectactularlyboring playing at? And why is Liddle: ex-Radio 4 editor, wife beater and Millwall fan, joining?

The magazine championed Andrew Wakefield and the campaign against the MMR vaccine, so being anti-science appears to be in their blood, but Wakefield was at least a real GP whilst Plimer is in no way a climate scientist.

I guess Boris isn't coming back to take over again any time soon, so I wonder what their next great lost cause will be?