The Conservative party won a crucial general election with a slogan, and a manifesto woefully short of environmental policy. This was because the electorate vote with their hearts not their heads and Labour had not given enough people an emotional reason to vote for change. But the slogan will prove to be false and the lack of environmental thinking will prove to be a massive flaw in this government’s reign. Our government is nowhere near as blind to climate change as recent Australian governments, and our capital city is unlikely to be threatened with bush fires, but floods may well become a growing issue within the lifetime of this government. The lack of environmental interest within the government was signalled by the need to elevate Zac Goldsmith to the Upper House so that there might be a knowledgable environmentalist in DEFRA.
Labour, for the first time for ages and ages, had a coherent environmental view but no chance of bringing this to fruition. Damn!
The long-awaited Werritty review really was not worth the wait. It was a poor report, whether you agreed with it or not; a poor work of scholarship which touched on only some of the issues surrounding driven grouse shooting and did so in an inadequate and unhelpful fashion. Let’s hope that the SNP government in Scotland has lost patience with unsustainable grouse shooting underpinned by wildlife crime and doesn’t need any more evidence before it acts. We’ll find out in 2020.
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Agree with all you say Mark. Labour certainly had all the best environmental and wildlife policies by a long way. However their approach on other matters was hardly viable and their leader was unelectable. The Tory manifesto on wildlife and the environment was a disgrace but then of course many of them dislike our wildlife intensely as it gets in their way of many of their vested and privileged interests.
Well that does not sound anything like the reasonably equitable person who runs this blog. If we all vote with our hearts and not our heads then that has to include staunch Labour voters not just all the others.
Oh yes we voted with our heads and I believe there is massive excuse it was all about brexit which is just being used a a big excuse by top Labour politicians.
What made the difference I believe was there was no way lots of us could see Corbyn as PM and there was no way any country could afford all he promised. It meant there was really no choice.
Staunch Labour supporters really have a responsibility to have in place a person those of us who are neither staunch Labour or Tory are acceptable people and policies that are affordable.
I just know these staunch Labour people will condemn me by saying Boris is no good which just shows really how bad the alternatives were.
Interesting statistics on the election from the Evening Standard which shows the great division in this country between young and old. If only voters aged between 18 and 24 had voted then Labour would have won 544 seats and the Tories 4 . If only voters aged between 25 and 49 had voted Labour would have gained 310 seats and would have been the largest party. If only voters aged 50 and over had voted the Tories would have gained a majority of 192.
Seeing these figures and considering what a very long term effect leaving the EU will have on this country it makes one feel that the Tories have absolutely no right at all to take this country out of the EU without at the very least holding a second referendum.