Yesterday I travelled into London for the launch of a couple of documents by Wildlife and Countryside Link (of which more later). As I walked up the steps of Westminster tube station I felt slightly nostalgic for the days when I used to spend a lot more time in this habitat and as I emerged,…
Tag: Caroline Spelman
Time to decide – a voter’s guide
It’s a fascinating general election which has been preceded by a tedious and shallow election campaign. None of the political parties, certainly not the ‘Big Two’, come out of the campaign with much credit. It’s been a ‘heads down’ rather than an ‘eyes up’ campaign, with little analysis, little laying out of political philosophy and…
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…
Just a thought for Caroline Spelman
The political life is a somewhat harsh one. One moment you can be at the top of the tree and the next you are almost nowhere. If you lose your ministerial job then suddenly your views don’t count and your successor’s ears are the ones into which everyone seeks to whisper. I always used to…
Raptor round up
It would be perfectly possible to write about birds of prey, how wonderful they are and their troubled and shortened lives, every day on this blog. I try not to do that because there are other sites that do it so well (raptor politics and raptor persecution Scotland) and because there are other big issues…
Plastic environmentalism
The Conference speech by the new Defra Secretary of State, Owen Paterson, will have been like discordant music to the ears of the environment movement. It would be very difficult to find many working in the environment who think that the EU is perfect but it would be almost impossible to find people who think…
Reshuffling the cards
Let us start by wishing Caroline Spelman well and thanking her for being a champion of biodiversity during her time at Defra. The outgoing Secretary of State did a good job on international biodiversity protection – and was notable for her own personal successes at the Nagoya meeting. Spelman lacked charisma and had the air…
Shuffle
The Bird Fair was great – and will have provided much inspiration for future blogs. I’ll come back to it soon but let’s change tack to politics. David Cameron, and everyone else, deserves a holiday, but the PM’s mind may be spinning over a rumoured reshuffle. Let me first say that I think that it…
Where was the bulldog spirit on 19 December Mrs Spelman?
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We used to talk about joined up government, but I haven’t heard the phrase used so often these days. Maybe that’s just as well when the Defra Secretary of State regards biodiversity as the spice of life and the Chancellor regards it as the kiss of death for the economy. But we would have to…
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…