Dear Defra
You may have noticed, though I wouldn’t bet on it, that there is an e-petition relevant to you rapidly gathering signatures.
Once it reaches 10,000 signatures, you will have to reply to it. I point this out to you so that you might, with all this warning, make a better fist of it than you did to the last e-petition on this very subject which passed the 10,000 signature mark. Your response then was, quite frankly, appalling in missing the point almost entirely. Please do better next time around – maybe start thinking of something to say now?
As you know, I have asked you, so far with no reply, whether ministers signed off the awful response to John Armitage’s e-petition. I’ll be interested to know whether, in due course, ministers will sign off the reply to my e-petition.
My additional question now, under FoI, which I asked of Natural England, but they said I should ask you directly (joined up government?) is as follows:
What interests, financial or otherwise, do Defra Ministers have personally (including through close family) in grouse shooting in the UK?
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I expect you came across George Monbiot’s comments on DEFRA- he said it stood for:”Delivering Everything Farmers’s Representatives Ask”. I particularly liked Minister Eustace’s comment when the recent Nature magazine article came out saying badgers were only a small part of the problem. He said DEFRA’s scientists new better. Do civil servants regularly contradict their Minister?
Philip – Dire, Egregious, Failing, Risible and Adrift https://markavery.info/2011/11/21/defra-dire-egregious-failing-risible-adrift/