The news that Amanda Anderson is leaving the Moorland Association after 10 years as Director doesn’t come as a great surprise. Ten years of batting on a very sticky wicket would be enough for most people. Also, Amanda has not been very high profile for a few years and the Moorland Association’s Twitter feed is close to moribund. From the time that Amanda was quoted in The Sunday Times as saying:

‘If we let the hen harrier in, we will soon have nothing else. That is why we need this brood management plan’

… the writing was on the wall. Amanda has never said that she was misquoted so she probably wasn’t, and she committed a cardinal sin for spin doctors – she revealed the true motives behind the cranky brood meddling scheme and admitted that Hen Harriers were not being ‘let in’ at the moment. It was a gaff (we’ve all got them) but a bunch of landed grouse shooting gentry or, indeed, aristocrats, weren’t likely to be very forgiving.  I’m surprised she has lasted as long as she has.

But Amanda has been good at her job. When one looks back to her predecessor, Martin Gillibrand, who had the title of Secretary rather than Director as I recall, the Moorland Association’s public relations game stepped up very significantly.  It wasn’t just that Amanda was a communications professional but that she was (and is) good at the job. Having said that, I repeat, she hasn’t had a great deal to go with except obfuscation and denial when grouse shooting has so many manifest faults from being a bloodsport to being underpinned by wildlife crime, from depending on widescale legal control of native predators to increasing flood risks for homes and businesses, from increasing greenhouse gas emissions to being a massive block to rewilding of the uplands. As they say, sotto voce, in public relations, ‘You can’t polish sh*t’.

I wish Amanda well and hope she lands a good job working for a valuable organisation – maybe the RSPB could find something for her to do – Amanda could teach them a few things – and with her ornithological background in birds of prey she’d be an instant success.  My tip for the New Year Honours list – an OBE for the departing Director of the Moorland Association.

So we are left wondering who might take over Amanda’s role. Seeing out the last years of driven grouse shooting may not appeal to many. Andrew Gilruth might be interested but he seems to have thrown in his lot with the nasty end of grouse shooting. Andrew was being particularly bitter around the Inglorious 12th I thought – maybe he knew there was a job coming up. Maybe he’s already doing it. There seems little difference really between what the Moorland  Association says and what the C4PMC says – just in the way that they say it. Whereas Amanda had a good TV persona – she looked confident and smiled a lot (even when talking rubbish) – I always think that Andrew looks like he is trying to come up with a convincing lie even when he is telling the truth. As they say ‘Sincerity is all, when you can fake that you’re made’.

I wish Amanda well. I’d happily buy her a decent lunch if there are any things she’d like to get off her chest.

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