This book has little to do with wildlife and its conservation, just like two of its characters, Therese Coffey and her bestie, Liz Truss. However, unlike the late unlamented Secretaries of State for the Environment, Henry Morris, is a friend of wildlife and a friend of mine so I’ll happily plug his latest excellent book…
Tag: david cameron
Rishi Sunak and the grouse moors
Our new PM does seem like a welcome relief from Liz Truss but that is more a commentary on how dire things looked last week rather than how brilliant they look now. Remember, Mr Sunak is from a grouse-shooting constituency – Richmond in Yorkshire. And he is, according to Shooting Times (a not always reliable…
New government, new threats to wildlife
There’s a new government in the UK and an almost completely new team in Defra, but they’ve already made their mark by making statements which, taken at face value, look like an attack on the legal protections that apply to sites, habitats and species and also the greener policies that are being developed for farming…
Look what we’ve done now – revisited
This is a blog I posted soon after the result of the EU referendum in June 2016. I think it stands re-reading. How will it all play out now? I went to bed worried on Thursday night (or was it Friday morning?) having heard the first few referendum results, and woke to be devastated by…
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…
The PM’s environment speech – the text
It is wonderful to be here at the Wetland Centre – a true oasis in the heart of London. In our election manifesto last year we made an important pledge: to make ours the first generation to leave the natural environment in a better state than we found it. As we leave the European Union,…
Conservative party manifesto
The 2010 Conservative Party manifesto was quite good on the environment but the 2015 version was pretty awful. How does this one shape up? Here are my thoughts on likes and gripes (restricted to the environmental issues): Good things: it’s a nice blue colour ‘The United Kingdom will lead the world in environmental protection. As…
Live in Scotland? Then put pressure on the SNP.
The recent debacle in the Scottish legal and conservation system over the four-year delay in doing nothing (!) over the illegal alleged killing of a Hen Harrier is a matter for Scottish legal officers and Scottish nature conservationists to sort out with the help and support of Scottish politicians. The female Hen Harrier that…
Truss misleads over waterfowl science
There is a very good article in today’s Times by Ben Webster with the headline ‘Lead ammunition to stay despite poisoning danger‘. Liz Truss, perhaps as one of her last acts, and indeed one of her first (as the least effective Environment Secretary ever), announced that people shooting birds for fun would not be required…
#Remain people include…
Here is a list of #Remain supporters colour-coded by whether I normally feel warm or feel cool to their views (and, fair enough, sometimes I had to flip a coin to decide)(#Brexit list this evening): David Beckham Hilary Benn Natalie Bennett Tony Blair Helena Bonham Carter Billy Bragg Gordon Brown Andy Burnham David Cameron…