Standing up for Nature
Two Cambridge colleges, at either end of The Backs, have recently announced their new ‘Masters’. At the up-town end of the waterway, and said to be the richest per student capita college of all, St John’s, the new Master will be Heather Hancock. Mrs Hancock has featured in this blog now and again over the…
This is the text of Theresa Villiers’s speech to the Oxford Farming Conference yesterday with comments from me. A vision for future farming as we tackle the challenges of climate change and nature recovery Leading Defra to put farming at the heart of tackling the twin climate and nature crisis Thank you … I am…
Labour has, this week, and four weeks after Sue Hayman lost her seat as Workington woman, appointed Luke Pollard, MP for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport, as the Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Mr Pollard is the seventh Shadow SoS since the 2010 general election and, without wanting to be unkind…
It is possible, but very unlikely, that Dominic Cummings was reading my latest column in British Wildlife which points out that we need some more experts in Westminster and Whitehall when he wrote his latest blog post. Cummings called for misfits and weirdos to bolster government’s ability to know what it is doing. He has…
I have to admit that I smiled when I saw Dave Goulson’s tweet as the same words had been ringing round this house for the same reasons. We should soon expect Ian Boyd to be campaigning against the Badger cull, in favour of fixing grouse shooting and criticising the use of insect-killing pesticides I guess….
So Zac Goldsmith, after losing his seat to Sarah Olney, keeps his job in DEFRA by way of the House of Lords. How do we feel about that? I feel a bit torn because this method of filling posts looks rather open to croneyism of the worst kind – and what is Nicky Morgan doing…
The wildlife NGOs prevailed upon a few dozen MPs to act as champions for threatened species in the Westminster parliament (a similar system exists in Holyrood, and quite honestly, seems rather more active there). A list of the Westminster Species Champions can be found here. Several species champions stood down at the general election: Richard…
So, what should we expect from Johnson’s Conservative government? I don’t really know. The trouble with winning an election with a slogan and with a wafer-thin manifesto, and not engaging with any issue except getting Brexit done, is that there is other work to do. I don’t even know what sort of Brexit the PM…
Jacob Rees-Mogg may soon be allowed out of hiding and let loose on us all again. Interesting that he has been kept well out of the way while Matt Hancock and Robert Buckland present a more acceptable face of Conservatism and Boris Johnson undermines that image every day. It couldn’t be that Diane Abbott and…
A guy called Boris Johnson is the Conservative candidate for Uxbridge and South Ruislip. Recent history: 2010 General election Won by John Randall, Conservative Majority 11,216 votes 2015 General election Won by Boris Johnson, Conservative Majority 10,695 votes 2017 General election Won by Boris Johnson, Conservative Majority 5,034 votes A guy called Jeremy Corbyn is…