I am a local Councillor. Green Councillors want a Party that works well, a Party that punches above its weight, a Party that will deliver the successes and the desperately-needed policy-changes nationally that Greens are already achieving all over the country, locally.

The Green Party stood in Haltemprice and Howden on a clear platform of being 'to the left' of David Davis on freedom in general and on civil liberties in particular. David Davis did all he could to marginalise and exclude us. The media didn't help, painting the by-election as a freak show, because neither the LibDems nor Labour were standing while a huge field of also-rans were standing.

The powers that be at Our Kingdom are welcoming the way Davis has called this highly-unusual byelection. I can understand that; I can understand the desire to applaud and welcome what he has done and what he is making possible. I said as much myself, in my earlier post on this on OK.

The amazing move that David Davis has made might just be the catalyst that we can use to turn the debate on political and civil freedoms in the correct direction. The kind of direction that, to most of us who write here on Our Kingdom, is second nature, but which has had precious little success in our polity in recent years.

If something bad happens, people who had warned that it was likely often say, "I don't like to say it, but, I told you so!"

Why is it that one is supposed not to like to say it?

Is it perhaps that we don't like to admit it when we were wrong, especially when we were warned that we were wrong? Are people who make us realise that we made a predictable - almost wilful - mistake unwelcomed because of that fact?

The honest truth is that we ought to listen to those who told us so. They saw it coming – they will be better at heading it off, next time.

Some people think the rhetoric of climate change is too emotive. But faced with a global catastrophe it would be unwise to tone down our language.

We are all familiar by now with the shrill voices of climate change deniers. But with every passing week they become more and more irrelevant, as their 'scepticism' about the reality of man-made climate change is exposed as risible. The issue now is not whether we are certain that dangerous climate change is real and is happening - the issue is only how we are going to tackle it. So how do we motivate people to act? How do we persuade them not to seek refuge in psychological defence mechanisms of the kind Leo Hickman chronicled in the Guardian last week?