WILL the UN’s COP26 climate change conference be a true step towards a cooler, cleaner, greener planet – or an excuse for virtue-signalling big-shots to show off their fully recyclable halos?

The leaders of two of the world’s greatest polluters — Xi Jinping of China and Vladimir Putin of Russia — are not even bothering to come to the summit, which begins today in Glasgow, currently rat-infested and rubbish-strewn, thanks to the SNP.

That doesn’t make COP26 (the letters stand for “conference of the parties”) meaningless, but it puts our national debate into perspective.

Boris Johnson blusters about our glorious green future with an evangelical zeal.

But this country produces just one per cent of the world’s carbon emissions.

So even if Brits abolish our gas boilers for heat pumps, and ditch all our petrol and diesel cars for electric vehicles, mother earth is unlikely to notice.

True change will only come if the world acts as one.

The UK has vowed to reach “net zero” carbon emissions by 2050 — whatever the damage to our economy, comfort and way of life.

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But why does going net zero — currently costed at £97billion per year in green funding and lost taxes — need to be enshrined in law?

And will we proceed even if the world’s greatest polluters ­continue to puke their poisons into the world, while chuckling at our hopelessly naive idealism?

This feels like a unilateral act of self-harm.

Already there has been a call — ironically enough, in Boris Johnson’s old paper, the Daily Telegraph — for a ­referendum on net zero.

For there is a big green elephant in the room when the Government preaches about finishing with our gas boilers, our cars, our international travel and our wicked, meat-eating ways.

Nobody voted for this new green religion. Nobody voted to be colder and poorer. Nobody voted for rampant energy bills.

This is a democracy deficit too gigantic to ignore.

So, if our politicians insist on policies that entail the greatest upheavals to our lives since the Industrial Revolution, they need to take the people with them.

They need our consent. And if they can’t do that, then the inevitable backlash will do nothing but harm to the clean green cause they seek to promote.

FORCE FED GROOVY GREEN RHETORIC

Already you see it with Insulate Britain, who desecrate and demean an undeniably brilliant idea — better insulation for Britain as a way of conserving energy — with their loony protests, glueing themselves to the fast lane of the M25.

The arrogance of saying that their ­protests are more important than anything — you going to work, you taking your child to school, you getting your sick parent to hospital — will never make this world a better place.

Boris needs to win hearts and minds and not make us feel as though we are being force fed all his groovy, green sub-Greta Thunberg rhetoric.

Because at the moment, this Government’s eco obsession is creating a world where owning a car and international travel and adequately heating your home will only be for the privileged few, including the Royal Family and former Prime Ministers.

My elderly diesel car — bought brand new when then Prime Minister Gordon Brown assured us all that diesel fumes were excellent for the environment — became a pariah this week, fined £12.50 every day for daring to exist within London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s sprawling Ultra Low Emission Zone.

But what about the white van man who can’t afford to pay your daily diesel tax, Mayor Khan?

And what about the single mother who can’t afford a shiny new Tesla electric?

There is a growing disconnect between ordinary working men and women and eco-preening politicians.

There will be protesters all over the litter-strewn streets of Glasgow this week.

But who is protesting in Tiananmen Square?

Harry's dome truths

PRINCE WILLIAM now has the aura of a young Yul Brynner circa The Magnificent Seven – bald as a billiard ball yet charismatic and fit as a butcher’s dog.

William seems to have made peace with losing his hair.

Prince Harry still seems in denial.

But one leading cosmetic surgeon reckons that since Harry relocated to California, the only thing growing faster than his bank balance is his bald spot.

Dr Asim Shahmalak says: “The baldness gene is not as strong in Harry, but he is still losing his hair quickly. At present most of Harry’s hair loss is around the crown area.

“Without treatment, the acceleration we have seen over the last 15 months will only increase over the next year. Harry will be almost as bald as his older brother at 50 if he does nothing.”

So if you bump into Harry – whatever you do, don’t mention The Crown.

Witless ­celebration of blood, death and sugar

AHH, Halloween. That special night of the year where ­children are encouraged to dress up as bloody corpses and knock on the doors of strangers and beg for sweeties.

Why is this unhealthy American import meant to warm the cockles of our hearts?

Everything about Halloween stinks.

The witless ­celebration of blood, death and sugar.

The aggressive marketing.

The unfettered invasion of ­privacy when every hairy-armed yob in the neighbourhood knocks on your door for handouts.

And worst of all, the way that ­Halloween has now totally eclipsed Guy Fawkes night.

When I was knee high to a zombie, Halloween did not exist in this country.

Around about now, street waifs would be chirruping: “Penny for the Guy, guv’nor?” as we all stocked up on bangers, sparklers, Catherine wheels and Roman ­candles and eagerly looked forward to the bonfires of November 5.

How I miss those long-lost nights when we let children play with ­fireworks and, to cap off a great night, set fire to an effigy of an enemy of the state.

Now that’s what I call a healthy celebration.

Jodie is jewel of The Duel

YOU may have missed it but Jodie Comer is sensational in The Last Duel.

While the world was going to see James Bond in No Time To Die, The Last Duel was bombing at the box office. That’s a shame.

Directed by Ridley Scott, the movie is based on a true story – the last legally sanctioned duel to the death in medieval France.

Jodie plays a knight’s wife who risks being burned at the stake when she claims to have been raped.

The film is packed with A-list Tinseltown talent: Matt Damon, Ben Affleck and Adam Driver.

In a performance that warrants a Best Actress Oscar, Brit Jodie acts them all off the screen.

Iris did a Mick

PHILLIP SCHOFIELD’S eyebrows were raised and Holly Willoughby’s cheeks went all rosy when lovesick pensioner Iris Jones, 82, appeared on This Morning to confess her passion for her husband Mohamed Ibriham, 36, a fresh-faced Egyptian engineer she met on Facebook.

“Mohamed is my pharaoh,” sighed Iris, currently struggling to get a spousal visa to allow her young hubby into the UK.

“He’s pure Egyptian. He’s very, very sexy. He’s a wonderful man.”

The 46-year age gap between Iris and Mohamed is almost the same as the 44-year age gap between Mick Jagger, 78, and his most recent girlfriend, Melanie Hamrick, 34.

Iris and Mohamed make our jaws drop.

So why does nobody bat an eyelid at Melanie and Mick?

Since Fergie left…

IT’S an aphorism that somehow becomes truer as time goes by.

Prince Andrew, the Black Eyed Peas and Manchester United have all been crap since Fergie left.

Jest in peace for dad

TWO sisters attempted to scatter their father’s ashes in the Bristol Channel and ended up with dad’s dust blowing back in the faces.

Tyla Halls, 22, and Belle Henry, 28 were trying to give their late father Mark Halls a suitably solemn send-off when the wind made it all go horribly wrong.

Tyla and Belle did what most of us would do in those unexpected circumstances. They laughed like drains.

“He went in my mouth!” Tyla exclaims, caked in ashes in a video that has gone viral.

“The video sums him up, he was so funny,” says NHS worker Belle.

“It was an emotional day but the accident with the ashes lightened the mood.”

It reminded me of my own father’s funeral. The undertakers paused with Dad’s coffin at the entrance to the church but my mum, her head bowed by an all-consuming grief, did not notice and kept walking.

And nearly knocked herself out when her forehead collided with her husband’s coffin. On that blackest of days, we laughed until we wept.

Tyla and Belle’s dad Mark was just 47 when he died last year. They must have been devastated at losing him so young.

But you never need a good laugh more than when your heart is breaking.

Shame on BBC

DURING decades of sexual abuse, the BBC effectively held Jimmy Savile’s coat for him.

Our national broadcaster should know better than to make a drama out Savile’s appalling crimes.

But here comes Steve Coogan in a white-blonde wig desperate to show that there is more to his talent than Alan Partridge’s diminishing returns.

The BBC claims its Savile drama, The Reckoning, will be sensitive and respectful to the victims.

If the BBC was sensitive and respectful to the victims, they would not be making a drama about Jimmy Savile.

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