This afternoon at 2pm I am the token leftie on a panel at the CLA Game Fair – it’s very nice of them to invite me. In theory, we are discussing whether landowners are friends or foes of wildlife. I suspect we might get on to grouse shooting at some stage. I wish Henry were…
Tag: CLA
Henry visits the CLA
Belgrave Square has rarely, if ever, seen a six-foot Hen Harrier before, but last week we visited the London HQ of the Country Land and Business Association. Henry said that it all looked very posh – much posher than the Scottish Land and Estates little office block. Henry gave his plumage a special preen to…
Lions’ den? Four weeks today 2.
I’ve been asked to take part in a Game Fair ‘debate’ a month today – and I’ve said yes. I am clearly the token leftie on the panel whose other members are Owen Paterson MP (the former Secretary of State at Defra), Philip Merricks (Chair of the Hawk and Owl Trust) and Ian Coghill (Chair…
Inglorious
Inglorious: conflict in the uplands will be available for Hen Harrier Day (9 August), the Inglorious 12th and thereafter. Published by Bloomsbury in late July – but you can order it now on World Book Day.
Game Fair 6: this blog, ‘overheards’ and en passant
‘Oh we all read your blog – don’t you worry‘ – a senior staff member of a pro-shooting organisation. Trimbush – was that you entering Churchills’s tent at around lunchtime on Saturday? ‘Ian Coghill out-Faraged Nigel Farage‘ – a back-handed compliment, if a compliment at all. ‘Nigerian Garage‘ – how the GWCT’s Chair was reported…
Game Fair 3 – in photos
This must be about my 20th Game Fair, so I realised that when it said that it opened at 9am this was just nonsense – soon after 8am I had parked, got a lift on a trailer from the car park to the entrance, paid to enter and then started walking down the hill where…
Everyone loves the Hen Harrier – don’t they?
The science suggests that there should be a lot more Hen Harriers in the UK uplands than there are at the moment. Let’s just take Scotland for the moment. The science says there should be c1650 pairs (I have taken the central point of an estimate and then rounded it) in Scotland on the basis…
That CAPs the year off nicely – not!
The decision of the coalition government to reject the Secretary of State for the Environment’s recommendation of a full 15% rate of modulation for the CAP (and go for 12% instead) caps off an awful year for wildlife in England; – glacially slow and inadequate progress on MCZs – UK opposition to a neonic ban…
That was a heck of an e-action
Well done to the RSPB, and the Wildlife Trusts, for launching an impressive e-action over the weekend to persuade the Prime Minister to back his Secretary of State and go ahead with a 15% transfer of funds from one part of the CAP (the rather useless part) to another part of the CAP (the rather…
Where will your £400 go?
As I was driving home from Cheltenham races yesterday I was switching through the radio channels and heard the Deputy President of the NFU and my former colleague Gareth Morgan on PM (click here – after 20 mins). Meurig Raymond clearly hasn’t been paying much attention to the silver-tongued Peter Kendall as his answers weren’t…