[2] The plaintiff sought to prevent the educational use of An Inconvenient Truth on the grounds that schools are legally required to provide a balanced presentation of political issues.
[4] Ross Finnie, the Environment Minister of the Scottish Executive, announced on 16 January 2007 that An Inconvenient Truth would be shown to all secondary school pupils in Scotland, with the costs being underwritten by the energy company ScottishPower.
In all three countries, the distribution of the film was accompanied by guidance notes and resources on how climate change fits into the context of the National Curriculum[7] and the Sustainable Schools Year of Action programme.
[8] The DVD was also accompanied in English schools by a multimedia CD produced by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs which included two short films about climate change and an animation about the carbon cycle.
[citation needed] The move was opposed by a group of parents in the New Forest region of Hampshire, who argued that the film was "inaccurate and politically motivated" and threatened to take legal action against the Government.
[9] The parents' spokesman, Conservative councillor Derek Tipp,[10] asserted that the circulation of the film by the Government amounted to political indoctrination and was in breach of the Education Act 2002.
[11] The case was brought in May 2007 in the name of Stewart Dimmock, a truck driver and governor at a school in Dover, Kent, who was also a member of the same small political party for which Monckton had written a manifesto.
Dimmock's counsel asserted that the film was "partisan, aimed at influencing rather than informing, and lacked balance", and that it contained "serious scientific inaccuracies, political propaganda and sentimental mush.
Given these amendments, the judge considered that the film was put in a context in which a balanced presentation of opposing views was offered and where it could be shown to students in compliance with the law.
The judge concluded "I have no doubt that Dr Stott, the Defendant's expert, is right when he says that: 'Al Gore's presentation of the causes and likely effects of climate change in the film was broadly accurate.'"
On the basis of testimony from Dr. Robert M. Carter and the arguments put forth by the claimant's lawyers, the judge also pointed to nine of the statements that Dimmock's counsel had described as "errors" as inaccuracies; i.e, that were not representative of the mainstream.
The party declares that "political opportunism and alarmism have combined in seizing [the IPCC's] conclusions to push forward an agenda of taxation and controls that may ultimately be ineffective in tackling climate change, but will certainly be damaging to our economy and society".
The chairman of the New Party, Robert Durward, has been described as "a long-time critic of environmentalists" who established a climate change denial group called the Scientific Alliance.
The alliance publicised Dimmock's case on its website and was also involved in advising Channel 4 on the controversial documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle,[10] which Viscount Monckton is distributing to schools as a riposte to An Inconvenient Truth.