Hudson's crime? Well, to borrow a phrase, he told "an inconvenient truth" – that global warming has stopped.

In an article headlined "Whatever happened to global warming?" on the BBC website, Hudson noted that the warmest year of recent times wasn't 2007 or 2008, but 1998, and global temperatures have not increased at all in the intervening 11 years, despite increasing carbon emissions.

Ignore the provocative headline, for Hudson's piece was, in fact, scrupulously fair. In measured terms, he explored the theories of what could be behind the present period of global cooling, including the ideas of so-called "sceptics", who believe the sun's energy or the oceans' currents, and not man's activities, are primarily responsible for periods of cooling and warming.

But he also quoted scientists who reckon the dip in temperatures is just a temporary blip and that man-made global warming will return with a vengeance in the near future.

No one really knows. In climatic terms, a 10-year trend proves nothing –it, as many scientists argue, could be a mere variation on the graph showing an inexorable rise in average temperatures.

But interestingly, Hudson pointed out that none of the climate models beloved by meteorologists forecast the present temperature trend. It is sobering to note that environmentalists are demanding that we damage our economy and make the poor poorer on the back of climate models that have been proved, in the short term at least, to be wrong.

But even an ace forecaster like Hudson couldn't have predicted the reaction his article would provoke. It was picked up in the US by the influential Drudge Report website and from there to numerous climate sceptical blogs who gleefully reported on the BBC's U-turn on global warming.

This, in turn, caused a hysterical counterblast from those who see global warming as a matter of religious faith, rather than scientific debate.

Hudson was denounced as a denier and a heretic. The Guardian demanded to know why the BBC had allowed his article to be published, and the journal Nature was apoplectic with rage.

Hudson's mistake was to concede there were differing views on the climate, for we live in a society where, for the first time in modern history, we are told "the science is settled" and "there is no room for debate".

"Sceptic" has become a dirty word – yet the whole basis of modern science is built precisely on scepticism and inquiry by people brave enough to challenge entrenched views.

In contrast today, anyone who questions the quasi-religious scientific orthodoxy on global warming will be denounced as not just wrong, but positively evil.

Paul, keep your head down until this storm blows over.



The flip side

At the height of the expenses crisis, Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, was accused of "flipping" the designation of his second home four times in as many years, allowing him to claim tens of thousands of pounds from the taxpayer in his parliamentary expenses.

A canny chap, indeed. But now it is reported that Sir Thomas Legg, the auditor appointed by the Government to sort out the expenses mess, is casting his beady eye on the thousands pocketed as a result of "flipping", and may demand that MPs repay the cash.

Meanwhile, I can't help thinking that if the Chancellor had looked after the nation's finances as assiduously as he has been accused of looking after his own, perhaps the country wouldn't be in its present mess.