The December issue of British Wildlife came through my letter box yesterday but others must have got theirs earlier as I had a few emails and messages on social media about my column.
Here’s a taster:
‘On the ground, local NE staff may well be doing their best, and will be doing some good, but this is despite the leadership from the top and not because of it. The likes of Derek Ratcliffe, Barbara Young and Martin Doughty were lions compared with the current fold of sheep. Alexander the Great said he feared more an army of sheep led by a lion than an army of lions led by a sheep. The foot soldiers of Natural England are a motley bunch of animals, some are sheepish but many have a good roar left in them if only they were led.’.
You’ll have to subscribe, borrow a friend’s copy or head for a well-stocked library to get the rest…
But there is plenty else to enjoy too – quite possibly much more than my column!
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Yes, Mark, I agree with it. However, much as I admire the great Dererk Ratcliffe, he would be utterly powerless in the post-truth world of today. Either he would have to kowtow or he would be ignominiously dismissed. Derek Ratcliffe worked by having such a reputation, such powerful arguments, that even though he enraged his Tory political masters, they dare not sack him. Instead just days after he retired, the then Environment Secretary Nicholas Ridley neutered the NCC by splitting it up. Derek Ratcliffe, probably the greatest ecologist of the last 60 years then died without a single national honour. What these powerful vested interests sought to ensure is never again would our statutory conservation body be able to stand up to the government and vested interests.
The reason the politicians didn’t dare tried to silence Derek Ratcliffe in those times was because then truth, reason, logic, science and evidence meant something. No politician dare overtly behave in such an irrational or dishonest way in public for fear it would destroy their reputation forever. This is why they had to keep their spite covert, by snubbing Derek Ratcliffe for honours after he retired.
Whereas now in this post-truth era politicians can be publicly revealed as liars and they are bare-faced in their refusal to resign. This government can implement an anti-scientific Badger cull, and in an unprecedented way be condemned by every scientific authority on the subject, and they just plough ahead with it anyway. It’s the same with their shameful brood meddling dishonesty, licences to kill Common Buzzards, Benyon’s plans to destroy Buzzard nests on pheasant shoots, and all the rest of this shameless behaviour. They are shameless now, and that is the problem. There is no honour left in politics and public life. Shameless actions and behaviour is now the new norm. The only time the politicians act is if it looks like their might be a public backlash, and it may threaten their hold on power. But then they have the compliant media to do news management to avert this problem.
It’s not that the politicians of yesteryear were any more honest or honourable. It was that they had to keep up the appearance of honesty and honourable behaviour. In the old days public and overt scandals and scandalous behaviour meant they had to resign. But not now, they just tough it out.
What I was trying to say before Mark is not that it is acceptable that Natural England is so obviously compromised by political pressure and vested interests. You only have to look how other government departments, the NHS, the DWP and all the rest have been similarly corrupted. There is a complete lack of principled leadership in any public body now, and they dare not stand up to this interference which causes them to compromise their principles.
To solve a problem you first need to be brutally honest about the nature of the problem. As every single public body is being corrupted and is compromising their principles, it tells us that different leaders of NE, or a new organization would be similarly compromised. This is why we need to address the true problem, How dishonesty, anti-science, denial of the truth, denial of the evidence has been normalized as vested interests corrupt our society with their puppet politicians. We need true accountability and transparency to deal with this.
Indeed all very true and all the politicians needed to do was to appoint like minded folk to head those organisations. They in turn appoint like minded deputies and the job is done.
I have never voted Tory ( I’m nearly 67) but sadly there are quite a number of politicians in other parties who are now just as bad principles are now, it seems, easily compromised.