Starting a crowd funding campaign is a little like throwing a party – when you start, you imagine what great fun it will be and how everyone will want to come. Then as the time approaches you begin to wonder whether it is going to be such a success and as the hour draws near…
Category: BAN DRIVEN GROUSE SHOOTING
#justice4henharriers
Last week I met two barristers and a couple of solicitors and was advised that there is a good legal case on which we can challenge the ridiculous plan by Michael Gove’s Department of the Environment (Defra) to remove eggs or chicks of Hen Harriers from grouse moors – a scheme they call brood management…
Small steps
1. Early Day Motion 915 praising brood-meddling has not gathered any further support! In fact it is worse than that for its proposers, a Labour MP added his name and then removed it! So we see an EDM on the actions of NE and Defra whose only supporters are four DUP MPs and one SNP…
An eagle called Fred
Press release: Golden eagle persecution 7 miles from Scotland’s Parliament? A young satellite-tagged golden eagle has disappeared in highly suspicious circumstances in the Pentland Hills, just seven miles from the Scottish Parliament building in Edinburgh. The eagle had hatched at a nest site in the Scottish Borders in 2017 and last June, in cooperation…
Boris sneers at environmental protection
It was an interesting decision to choose Boris Johnson, one of the most distrusted politicians in a distrusted government, to ‘reach out’ to us all over Brexit in a divisive speech entitled ‘Uniting for a Great Brexit‘. Did it work for you? Here is one passsage: ‘We can simplify planning, and speed up public procurement,…
Brood meddling – a potential legal challenge (or two)
Anyone seeking to mount a judicial review of NE’s decision to issue a licence for brood managment on Hen Harriers this year (see here and here) has a couple of months to get it sorted. We, that’s me and some mates, have been exploring this option seriously, and still are. I should be meeting a…
Gove questioned over Hen Harriers – and spectacularly doesn’t answer!
In a bit of a coup, Rob Yorke got an exclusive interview with Michael Gove – I’m almost jealous. There are some interesting things in the interview – all words dropping out of the mouths of senior politicians are somewhat interesting, as much in what they don’t say as what they do. But Rob Yorke…
Dear Mr Gove! Wake up to this mess!
Dear Mr Gove You have a mess on your hands and despite the fact that you inherited much of it, you have let Natural England dig you into an even deeper hole. But in any case, it’s now your mess because you are sitting at the desk at which the buck stops. Why would you…
EDM 915
This is interesting. Early Day Motions are a bit like e-petitions for MPs! They have no necessary influence on anything and yet can raise the profile of an issue. And there is one entitled Action Plan for Hen Harriers which has the following text; ‘That this House welcomes the DEFRA plan for brood management trials…
YFTB attacks the RSPB again
Presumably as a result of the RSPB’s strong criticism of Natural England’s decision to license a trial of brood meddling and the RSPB’s support for Ed Hutchings’s e-petition in favour of licensing of driven grouse shooting (other e-petitions are available) YFTB has dusted off its attacks on the RSPB. In a press release issued by…