I have just (17:19) received this email: Dear Dr Mark Avery, Unfortunately we’ve had to bring forward the closing date of your petition Ban driven grouse shooting from 28 May 2015 to 30 March 2015 The dissolution of this Parliament has now been scheduled for 30 March 2015, and it’s not possible for petitions…
Category: THE POLITICS: Ministers, MPs, government policy
Eats, shoots and leaves – Owen Paterson
When the news of Owen Paterson’s sacking from the Cabinet was announced there was great cheering above and below ground by badgers and friends of badgers alike. It’s unseemly to take pleasure in another’s misfortune but… His term of office at Defra was short and undistinguished – 22 months dominated by floods (where he spoke…
Malta response from Foreign Office.
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I walked past the Foreign Office the other day when I was in London and it made me wonder when my excellent local MP, Andy Sawford, might get a reply to his letter to them about ‘Maltese spring slaughter’. I found a letter waiting for me on my return. The letter is almost identical to…
The colour purple
The UKIP surge has coloured in most of rural England as purple on the political map. It isn’t easy to find out what UKIP thinks about the CAP, badger culls, marine protected areas, climate change, grouse-shooting, neonicotinoids or other environmental matters from their website. The environment will be just one area of doubt over what…
What the Wildlife Trusts are saying about tomorrow’s EU elections
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The following is taken from a Wildlife Trusts’ press release: The UK will elect 73 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) tomorrow who will have significant influence over a range of important EU policy decisions. For people who care about the future of nature in the UK, these decisions are crucial. During the next…
General Licence response
If you wish to respond to the consultation on the General Licence (in England) then you have until the end of next Monday to do it. The General Licence does what it sounds like it does. Instead of having to apply for an individual licence to kill some wildlife, and justify it on a case…
Malta Massacre discussed in Parliament thanks to Sir John Randall
This blog is a fan of Sir John Randall, Conservative MP for Uxbridge. John is a birder and understands the environment better than most. He’s also a really nice guy. Last week, whilst I was away trying, without much success, to see some Hen Harriers, John organised a Westminster Hall debate on the terrible state…
EU elections here I come – voting Green
It’s two weeks until the EU elections take place in the UK (and in the rest of the EU over the next few days). Will you vote Lib Dem, Labour, Conservative, UKIP or the Greens? The EU manifestos are a bit of a laugh – clearly none of the political parties is taking us, the…
What did politicians offer?
I have a column in the current British Wildlife magazine about the relevance of the EU elections on 22 May, the Scottish independence vote in September and the next UK general election (just over a year away) to our wildlife. In it I also set out 20 policies that might get my vote in the…
UKIP muddle
Many readers of this blog have contacted their MEPs about the Malta Massacre. Thank you all! I will keep coming back to this subject over the next three weeks leading up to the EU elections (and quite probably, beyond). Roger Helmer is one of ‘my’ MEPs in the East Midlands, and I’ve been sent…