Did you see Zac Goldsmith on Newsnight on Tuesday evening? If not, have a look (about 16 minutes in) because he was very good. As Jeremy Paxman sat in front of an image of green countryside Allegra Stratton spilled the beans on what the Treasury is thinking on the planning the system (read it here)….
Category: THE POLITICS: Ministers, MPs, government policy
NIAs again
Nature is everywhere, it’s all around us and it is in trouble in many places around us. When government was looking for areas to qualify as Nature Improvement Areas it had plenty of places from which to choose – 76 proposals came forward for the £7.5m funding that was available for just 12 sites. Those…
Letter from Defra
I am grateful to Defra Minister Richard Benyon for this reply to a letter which my MP, Louise Mensch, sent to him on 15 December concerning implementation of the EU Birds Directive. The letter asked about farmland birds, hen harriers and marine protected areas. The Minister’s civil servants have written him quite a detailed reply…
Osborne says…
Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne issued a heart-felt cry for help when he warned against allowing his “anti-environment culture” to take hold in Britain. “There are those of us who are trying to create an anti-environment culture in Britain – and we have to be stopped. At stake are not pay packages for a…
Is this what the Lib Dems are for….?
The news that the government is to consult on the possibility of a major hub airport in the Thames Estuary comes as no surprise following the Chancellor’s autumn statement but does open up a new environmental battle. I’m still waiting to hear from The Treasury, via my MP Louise Mensch, on why they think that…
Blue, green and Goldsmith.
Zac Goldsmith, describes (in yesterday’s Guardian) the view of some in the government, that ‘addressing the environmental crisis can only happen at the expense of the economy‘ as being ‘a flawed position‘. He goes on to attack the ‘hugely controversial proposals to reform planning‘ as being based on a weak argument since ‘With some 250,000…
Osborne has a go at environment again
George Osborne doesn’t get the environment and he doesn’t seem to like it. These are the most relevant parts of the Coalition Government’s (yes, the LibDems are in there too) thoughts on the Habitats Directive (which was largely written by that ultra-leftie, Stanley Johnson (yes, Boris’s sire)). This passage comes from that part of the…
Nature Improvement Areas – nature conservation’s ‘Strictly’
A few days ago Natural England put the list of 20 short-listed areas that have been proposed as Nature Improvement Areas onto their website and apparently didn’t tell anyone. And Defra didn’t tell anyone either it seems. How odd? It’s like not mentioning the penultimate episode of Strictly Come Dancing. Perhaps it’s because this is…
Francis Maude – misquoted
Francis Maude is widely regarded as the hard man of the Cabinet Office – if you look at the photographs of Cabinet Office Ministers he can’t even manage a proper smile, more of a ‘I’m coming to get your quangos‘ leer. Having said that, Oliver Letwin, who is a cultured gent and so tends to…
The environmental content of David Cameron’s Conference speech
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