If Defra were a school it would be judged inadequate, would be served a notice to improve and be put in special measures. But it isn’t, so it jogs on as the government department near the bottom of the political pecking order and with few friends in government or in the real world. Defra sprung…
Tag: Caroline Spelman
So, why do you want to be Secretary of State for DEFRA?
The strong rumours are that we will see a new Secretary of State at DEFRA very soon after a ‘We’re pretending that we’ve done Brexit’ reshuffle. If so, we’ll never know what Theresa Villiers might have done because she hasn’t done much of note so far except make an awful speech at the Oxford Farming…
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…
Election watch (11) – leaving parliament
In the excitement over who might be elected or re-elected to the Westminster parliament on 12 December we should just note those former MPs who are not standing for re-election. There are quite a lot of them – 76 in all. This includes four former DEFRA ministers: Caroline Spelman (a good Secretary of State), Richard…
Defra – political purgatory?
I couldn’t help smile at Jeremy Paxman’s opinion of Therese Coffey in this article from last year. But it was Paxman’s remark that Defra was… … a place of political purgatory, where ambitious politicians suffer torments in hope of preferment somewhere else https://www.ft.com/content/17bedfec-da71-11e7-a039-c64b1c09b482 …that really caught my eye. We’ve had some shocking ministers in Defra…
Your species champions at Westminster
Westminster MPs have stepped forward to become champions for different endangered species (and a similar scheme exists in Scotland). There is an interesting article about this in the current BBC Wildlife Magazine written by James Fair. I’m quoted in the article and my point is whether these MPs will speak out for their species on…
Gove the environmentalist?
The speech by Michael Gove today is just fantastic – but is it fantastical? I don’t really care whether he believes what he says or not, I just care whether he implements his quite detailed words of today during his time as Secretary of State for the Environment. Since 2010 we have had one pretty…
Truss’s troubles
Schadenfreude is an unworthy feeling, but the fact that the Germans have a word for it and we do not is entirely to their credit, for it is a common human emotion. I thought we had seen the end of mentions of the hopeless Liz Truss on this blog as she exited to the Ministry…
Why are MPs having a long holiday?
The Parliamentary recess at Westminster is from 21 July until 5 September – that’s a long time and was partly, a long time ago, so that MPs and peers could rush off to their grouse moors for some ‘sport’. This period, no doubt, won’t be one long holiday for MPs, just as it isn’t…
Best and worst at Defra – what you think
There have been six secretaries of state at Defra since it came into existence in the wake of the foot and mouth disease outbreak in 2001. Defra was born out of the thought that MAFF was too inward-looking and that farming wasn’t that important really but was a bit of a problem. Prime Ministers also…