Liz Truss is the Secretary of State at Defra and the MP for Southwest Norfolk. Her Twitter handle is @trussliz. She has 21,500 Twitter followers (including me) and follows 940 Twitter accounts (not including me). Ms Truss’s Twitter account gives little evidence that she is interested in the environment at all. She follows no national…
Category: THE POLITICS: Ministers, MPs, government policy
Who do they follow? Rory Stewart
Rory Stewart is the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at Defra and the MP for Penrith and the Borders. His Twitter handle is @RoryStewartUK. He has 24,500 Twitter followers (including me) and follows 590 Twitter accounts (not including me). It’s sometimes amusing to stroll through someone’s Twitter follows. They are usually a varied bunch and…
Environmentalists for Europe E4E
This looks good: a new website and group called Environmentalists for Europe. The website is rather slow – perhaps it is being inundated with people joining? Follow on Twitter at @Env4Eur Like on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/EnvironmentalistsForEurope/ It’s good to see cross-party support from the likes of Lord Deben, Baroness Young, Caroline Lucas MP, Richard Benyon…
Natalie Bennett calls again for ban on grouse shooting
Comments Off on Natalie Bennett calls again for ban on grouse shooting
After visiting Walshaw Moor and the flood-hit town of Hebden Bridge, Green Party leader, Natalie Bennett, reiterated her party’s call for a ban on grouse shooting. Bennett was reported in the Daily Telegraph as saying that intensive grouse moor management is ‘incompatible with 21st-century needs of flood prevention‘ and called it a ‘conservation disaster‘. She…
They work for you – and the Countryside Alliance
Simon Hart MP is the former Chief Exec of the Countryside Alliance. To be fair, he was probably the best CEO they ever had, or are ever likely to have, but that doesn’t mean he is in my ‘Top 10 blokes of 2015’. In an organ that I rarely even see, let alone read, it…
What nonsense from Defra
‘Bovine TB eradication strategy delivering results‘ was the headline of a press release issued by Defra on Thursday last week. Defra went on ‘The comprehensive strategy to eradicate bovine TB in England is delivering results with more than half the country on track to be officially free of the disease by the end of this…
A volunteer isn’t worth ten pressed men
The RSPB (authors Donal McCarthy and Paul Morling) has done a piece of analysis that is rather novel and very interesting. It also conforms to my beliefs of how the world works, so I like it. Using regulation as a last resort? Assessing the performance of voluntary approaches does just that. It examines UK, EU…
Liz Truss – where is your signature?
The environment ministers of Croatia, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Poland, Romania, Slovenia and Spain have written to the EU Environment Commissioner, M Vella, who hails himself from Malta, calling for the Birds Directive and Habitat Directive to be maintained, un-merged and better implemented. These countries represent well over half, and close to two thirds, of…
What is the UK government up to in the EU?
I was in Cley last night so I didn’t see the Channel 4 news. This interesting piece (wildlife protection to be watered down?), with Stanley Johnson (sire of Boris etc, and author of the Habitats Directive (see p88 of Fighting for Birds)), is worrying. It may be simply a language thing, although the Dutch are…
Partnership
I feel a bit Goring-like when I hear the word ‘partnership’. I’m all for partnership but only as a ‘means’ and not as an ‘end’. All too often these days, those in nature conservation talk of partnership as if it’s the only way to get things done but it clearly isn’t. I’m all for…