Letter to my MP

Dear Mr Pursglove Thank you for your response to my earlier letters, and I have just received the response from Chris Skidmore MP, Cabinet Office, on the Lobbying Act. But before I comment briefly on those responses, and return to another issue, may I congratulate you on your appointment as PPS to Dr Liam Fox…

Farming subsidy debate gets moving…

We’ll have to see what ‘Green Brexit’ Gove actually says today, and then watch like hawks (harriers, eagles, kites and falcons) what he actually does.  But there is clearly something afoot when the Today programme stirs itself on the subject of agricultural payments (click here and two bits – at 08:10 and 08:55). The first…

Brexit – so that’s all very clear then?

If the general election is about Brexit then we should by now have a clear idea of what will happen to environmental protection and agricultural policy after Brexit.  In particular, we should have a clear idea from the Conservative Party, although Labour (the only realistic alternative government (even though, in places other parties’ candidates may…

Election comment 6 – reports

There was a bit of a fuss last week when the government, it was revealed, stopped the publication of NHS budget data – expected to be shockingly bad news – because Whitehall is in ‘electoral purdah‘. Now, as I recall, the purdah rules are really there to stop government putting out lots of good news…

Election comment 3 – compare and contrast

Here is an exam question for a politics course – and some notes to help you answer it. Q: compare and contrast the winter fuel payments to pensioners with CAP payments to farmers. Some notes to help your revision: similar annual sums of money are involved – around £2bn per annum all pensioners are eligible…