I think I might have been too kind to Conservative MPs over their standard responses to our letters about the People’s Walk for Wildlife (I know, it is a bad failing, but I admit it).
I see from this example sent to me by a reader of this blog…
…that almost the same letter was being used as a response to very different letters about the environment well over a year ago (at least back in July 2017 in this example).
It appears that when a Conservative MP sees the word ‘environment’ or the word ‘wildlife’ then they send out a version of this letter. It’s hardly being responsive to the views of constituents is it?
But no doubt you might hope that now Defra will provide much more tailored, detailed and perceptive responses to MPs to pass on to their constituents. So far, I have only seen one of these from Therese Coffey and it is as follows…
It is a terse, unresponsive and inadequate response to the type of letters that I know have been sent to Defra. Dr Coffey shows no interest whatsoever in her brief. She should go. Although if she stays, it cannot be long before she is offered the tempting post of Brexit Secretary.
On which subject – what a mess! At the time of writing it is rumoured that Dr Coffey’s boss, Michael Gove has been offered the poison chalice of Brexit Secretary, and refused. It is also rumoured that Mr Gove is about to resign.
I may quickly be proved completely wrong, but I would have thought that the odds are that Gove will remain at Defra during this period of near-chaos. If a Tory vote of confidence in their leader is triggered then he doesn’t have to do anything except sit around looking vaguely loyal for a while to see which way the wind is blowing. I guess a vote of confidence in May of Tory MPs will not topple her, and again under those circumstances Gove’s best bet is to have remained looking vaguely loyal. But when the Brexit deal is rejected by Parliament all bets will be off. Time will tell, and that time may come very quickly.
We are living in self inflicted interesting times, and yes, I will at last write to my Conservative MP, if only to prove that even if I tell him what his likely response will be, he might not notice, and send me the standard response anyway.
A shockingly shoddy response typical of politicians who have lost their grasp of the democratic process because if nothing else it shows a contempt for the views of their constituents. This all too frequently happens in safe seats where they know they are unlikely to loose tenure. Answer Vote for somebody else, tell them you are doing so and why.
Mark, your three strand analysis on Gove’s stratagem for that ultimate power grab seems to be spot on. Yes, it’s win-win-win.
Ref: http://www.vaguelyloyal.gove.uk
I wrote to my Tory MP on Oct. 17th and got this by return: “This is a very important issue for me and I will take a look at the manifesto when I get a free moment.”
Still waiting. Thought I’d send a reminder after a month.
Being so damned useless she should be the first casualty of any body holding the Government to account. But if you start low…
You’re surely right that Gove won’t be resigning any time soon – whilst on the face of it Defra is a trivial job for a politician of Gove’s stature at the moment it is perfect – he has virtually no official hand in the hard business of Brexit and is free to meddle and influence from the sidelines with low risk of mud sticking to him – power without responsibility.
And may’s position is actually far more secure than it might look – she may not be able to unite anything much, but the alternatives are far worse – any of the suggested alternatives would almost certainly split the Conservative party for a generation and we already know that the Moggies haven’t the faintest clue what to do had they the reins of power in their hands – yes, they might crash the UK out of Europe but they know that would presage their own political demise by months if not weeks.
If Gove had resigned it would probably have been the domino that brought the government down. He didn’t, the ERG clearly decided it was now or never and as a result are looking increasingly exposed (and very nastily) rattled. That’s got to be good in itself.
By the way, Coffey’s letter renames the Department for Education. A small point perhaps but it shows how little she cares.