Dear minister
I sent you a copy of my book, Inglorious – conflict in the uplands, over a month ago and haven’t yet received an acknowledgement. That’s very rude of you and Defra isn’t it?
By the way, your predecessor was equally rude.
Since I sent you that book, which has had rave reviews, and which is the case for banning driven grouse shooting, more than 55,000 more people have signed the e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting bringing the total today to over 117,000. Therefore it is highly likely that there will be a Westminster Hall debate on the subject and I believe that it is likely that you will need to close that debate. Please make sure that you are well briefed and please make sure that you do not mislead the public with whatever you say. You do have my book to hand, don’t you?
Your own constituents have been signing my e-petition with enthusiasm – over 350 to date which puts Suffolk Coastal in the top 10% of constituencies. And I know that several of your constituents have written to you on this subject and are awaiting your response which they will read extremely carefully.
best wishes
Dr Mark Avery
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I would be very surprised if Mrs Coffey was a rude person. She is probably away on a looooooong break. Or perhaps she is still reading your book. Also the post in East Anglia has its moments as we have discovered to our great annoyance in the last few months.
Anne – we’ll see. It was sent to Defra and there are quite a few staff there (even after Tory cuts). If something similar had been sent to the CEO of the RSPB or similar there would have been at least a ‘thank you for your letter’ sent out.
I fear you might be onto a lost cause Mark.
Ms.Coffey actually voted to sell off chunks of our forests including her own area.
But on 26th July she said this about shooting
“Nature protection and management is a devolved issue, so I can only answer with respect to England. When carried out in accordance with the law, shooting is a legitimate and humane activity. In addition to its significant economic contribution, providing jobs and investment in some of our most remote areas, the Government recognises that shooting offers important benefits for wildlife and habitat conservation and can be a useful wildlife management measure.
The Government’s position is that people should be free to undertake lawful activities if they wish to do so and shooting is a permitted method of control in legislation protecting wildlife.”
Setting aside Defra etiquette for the moment.
Has anyone noticed the paid advert [GWCT] for ‘ban grouse shooting’ which obviously appears at the top of google when you try for ‘ban DRIVEN grouse shooting’.
A recent shooting times article accuses ‘us’ of misleading the public. Where is it publicised that Dr Mark Avery’s petition seeks to ban grouse shooting? I suppose the plan is that they’ll get all shooters on their side if their spin bowler peddles twaddle again? The next four lines are taken directly from google search
Ban Grouse Shoots? – Have you read all the evidence yet?
Ad http://www.gwct.org.uk/Ban-Grouse-Shoots
Get your Free Guide here.
Red grouse: Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust
Shooters – the aim of the petition is to “Ban DRIVEN grouse shooting”. Wonder if the ASA would be interested, after all it is yet another inaccurate piece of ‘publicity’?
just tried this and all responses are kosher – this blog is #4, 2 and 3 are the petition on the parliament site, #1 is a HighlandCommunities blog advocating a ban. GWCT not on 1st page of results
With Googl i get 2 ads: #1 Highland Titles #2 G[WCT].
Ecosia has no ads.
The way I think Google ads work is for the advertiser to pay per click through… snippet below is from the Google Adwords website.
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No visit, no fee
Signing up for Google AdWords is free. You only pay when someone clicks your ad to visit your website, or calls you. In other words, when your advertising is working.
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Not wishing to drive people to their site, it would be useful to see what they are saying, via a search on google of course?
colin McP – and because the Gunning Wildlife, Conserving Tadpoles outfit is a charity it gets top-billing.
Knowing Dr Coffrey professionally a bit, I repeat my past advice – she doesn’t care about or know about wildlife, but she can be (sometimes!) swayed by arguments based on economics and community interest esp when we’re asking for something that doesn’t cost the government more money.
Above all she’s a party loyalist so if contacting her about DGS avoid any party political/class based comments. There’s nothing more likely to make her refuse to listen to us.
What’s with the dislikes? If you know her better than I do, please share your insights – we do want to win after all! If you don’t then… well are you more interested in ending DGS or do you have some agenda you consider more important?
Unless of course you were disliking the fact that the Govt has put someone with her views in charge of biodiversity policy, in which case I can but agree completely. But she is who we’ve got, so we need to work out how to get what we want out of her. If she was a well informed, wildlife loving person of immense practical experience and commitment we wouldn’t have needed the petition in the first place.
I e-mailed Therese Coffey re the licencing of Buzzard killing and received an automated reply (as expected ). Apparently “Dr Coffey is away from Parliament until Monday 5 September and she will deal with policy matters on her return.”
Perhaps that explains the delay. The reply also said
“Emails sent to Dr Coffey as a Defra Minister (and not from constituents) will not be processed. For DEFRA, email Dr Coffey via [email protected].”
So important to use the relevant e-mail ( or use both as a constituent to ones MP and the other to the Defra Minister?)
The e-mail included the following:
“Many people write to me who are not constituents. Parliamentary protocol is that I can only help my constituents. ”
“If you are asking me to sign an EDM, as a Minister, I do not sign these but will endeavour to find out about the issue before replying. This may take some time.”
“If you are asking me to attend or speak in a debate, as a Minister I do not participate in these debates but I will endeavour to find out about the issue and will wait till after the debate before replying, so that I can provide you information from what the Government Minister said in the debate.”
So because my MP happens to be a minister, she will not/cannot put my views forward in a debate. If other MPs only represent/help their constituents then it appears my views cannot be put forward? Hmmm!
“I try to reply to all queries within a fortnight, though this is prioritised. 38 degrees/campaign emails will be noted however a response may not be given.”
It seems that a personal e-mail/letter, as mine was, may stand more of a chance of being looked at than a “campaign e-mail”
Individual emails are always better than mass standardised campaign ones – clicking a 38 degrees etc takes too little effort or knowledge. In the old days of paper petitions the rule of thumb was that one petition = one letter regardless of the number of signatures. So personalising your emails, even if starting from a template, is always a good idea.
Nb she is Dr Coffey, not Ms. She has a PhD in Chemistry, so she has earned it.
GWCT pages have been changed, shouldn’t have publicised my observations?
See also http://www.gwct.org.uk/blogs/news/2016/august/standing-up-for-grouse-shooting-guest-blog-by-simon-lester/ at least he had the decency to admit we were a polite audience.
Read particularly his points 3 & 7.
Competition for public funds, of course. Why would the public fund private individuals? Particularly where illegal acts see loss of protected species – yawn, clearly rolling out selective spin again. See comment about floods in Hebden Bridge, a selective reporting – can we get the video on the web then we can evidence precisely what Natalie Bennett said not a edited edition. I had hoped for better from Lester, but hey one day perhaps I’ll see them for what they are?
I agree, they should be careful what they wish for, definitely. A full economic case with all associated costs assessed not just cherry-picked by grousers please?
Hello Mark I have written to my MP as requested by you, as below:
Dear Patrick McLoughlin,
I am told that there is a very good chance of a debate coming up in parliament re. driven grouse shooting, as a response to one of those e-petitions where you have to get 100K votes and sign over 1st born child etc.
I really hope you will be there, whatever your views, because it does look a bit grim when people work so hard and then there are only three or four lost souls dozing on the back benches.
Driven grouse shooting is obviously great fun and gets very rich people outside which is a good thing. Also we have to assume that the grouse (flying for their lives at up to 70mph towards the waiting guns) are killed instantly straight through the heart with no suffering. Afterwards I suppose hungry people eat them and that is good too. They must be hungry, I wouldn’t eat them, not for the lead shot content which I believe people make far too much fuss about (Chatsworth House contained several miles of lead piping until recently and with the low pH water we have here in your constituency, the Devonshires must have consumed more than their fair share of heavy metals and it didn’t hurt them. (Always supposing Dukes drink tap water, but I digress, waist deep in brackets.).) I wouldn’t eat grouse because of the parasite load of the average bird but there you go, I have never been hungry enough to bang away on a grouse moor, so what do I know?
However, the downside of all this excellent and healthy and perfectly justified fun is an upland monoculture of heather, persecution of raptors, trapping and slaughter of mammalian predators such as weasels, fox, stoat, even wild cats in Scotland which are thin on the ground as it is. Not to mention mass slaughter of mountain hares who may possibly transmit ticks etc. given the abnormally high concentration of grouse. Also the heather is controlled by burning, the moorland is drained, and the eco system is completely knocked out of synch. There is a side effect of very fast rain drainage from the upland moors cf. slow drainage from eg forestry commission land which results in flooding down stream. I live on a hill so perhaps I have no business commenting on that but still, worth a thought.
For the reasons above, on balance I believe that the hungry and bored grouse shooters must be fed and entertained in a more environmentally friendly manner. I would welcome your thoughts on the subject, and I would be very, very, very grateful if you would consider attending the coming debate. In the right circumstances, I would go so far as to say I would consider voting for you.
Yours sincerely,
Hilary McKay
Hilary – I’d love to see the reply.
All – I’m not going to post all your emails to your MPs here – there are too many and it would be a bit unmanageable. but this one really made me smile – I do hope it really, really was sent.
Superb!
Of course it was sent. Why not?
117,900 when I checked just now.