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….
Category: THE POLITICS: Ministers, MPs, government policy
Lord Zac
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…
Species in need of a champion
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…
Several cups of tea later… (1)
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…
Election Watch (22)
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…
Election watch (21) – take two leaders
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…
Election watch (20) – Vote Labour for the Environment
If you want to support the environment with your vote then my ranking of the political parties is as follows: Labour (best by quite a long way: the greatest ambition coupled with the greatest detail) Greens and LibDems (good) Conservatives and Brexit Party (very poor; let’s ignore the Brexit Party but the Conservatives have said…
Election watch (19)
Here’s another of those quizzes that make you choose between the parties’ policies (without them being labelled by party) and then tells you what you are! Here is the link and here are my results; According to Vote for Policies I am a LibDem but I’ll be voting for the Labour candidate, Beth Miller, in…
Election watch (18) – the People-Power Index
I was sent this link by a reader of this blog (Thank you, Paul!). The People-Power Index aims to assess an MP’s openness and responsiveness to constituents. I would regard it as much as an interesting first attempt rather than a definitive study but, interesting it certainly is. Of 650 MPs my own lies at…
Election watch (16)
Betting confidence in a Tory majority on 13 December is waning. A week ago the Betfair odds on a Conservative majority were around 4/6 whereas now they are a tad below Even money. That still means that it looks (to the market) as though it’s a coin-toss between a Conservative majority and a hung parliament…