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BLOG POSTS
Weak on crime, weak on the causes of crime
17 December: Andy Sawford (Shadow Minister (Communities and Local Government); Corby, Labour): To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if she will publish a consultation on a licensing scheme for commercial game shooting. George Eustice (The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Camborne and Redruth, Conservative): Landowners…
A recap on e-petitions
Let’s just have a recap: Ban driven grouse shooting Number of signatures: 20,073 Open for signature until 30/3/15 Introduction of offence of vicarious liability for raptor persecution in England Number of signatures: 10,908 Closed 17/11/2012 Licencing of upland grouse moors and gamekeepers Number of signatures: 10,429 Closed 27/02/2014 You’d think, wouldn’t you, that…
Shifting baselines
I was in the library at The Lodge the other day, reading for writing. It’s inevitable that I bump into quite a few people I know, and have a few conversations about life, the universe and everything. They are mostly conversations about birds and nature conservation. Two of them illustrate the scale of change in…
Labour MPs’ take on the Rally for Nature
Here are three examples of responses from Labout MPs to their constituents on the issues raised by the Rally for Nature last week. You can see that each response is clearly a personal one and that’s why I haven’t revealed the identities of the MPs or their constituents. I’d be interested in any further responses…
20,000!
I woke a little while ago to find that our e-petition, calling for a ban on driven grouse shooting (in England), passed a major milestone during the night. 20,000 signatures! Thank you to all who have signed and thank you to those people, mostly individuals rather than organisations, who have promoted this e-petition since it…
Milestones
The mile is a fairly strange thing, but I grew up with it. Being a distance of 1760 yards, with a yard being 3 feet (each of 12 inches) the somewhat arbitrary nature of this imperial measure was obvious. But in their way, all milestones are arbitrary. On the literal road, the pace that takes…
The price of everything and the value of nothing?
What they say when there is a general election only five months away, and when their constituent is clearly interested in wildlife conservation, 15 December 2014: ‘Like you I value the Wild Birds and Habitats Directives, and in my view the best way to defend them is to ensure that the obligations they apply are…
B(l)ooming great!
There are more Bitterns breeding in the UK than at any time in living memory. In fact, there are about 13 times as many bitterns now as there were in 1997, as there are over 140 booming males compared with 11 then. That’s one hell of a recovery – in fact, one heaven of a…
Shooting. Stars.
I usually wake up early. Today I was working at 4am (after five hours’ sleep) – and got quite a lot done, too. Several people may be surprised to see the time of day on the emails from me when they wake up. But at around 6am, while Tweet of the Day is on Radio…