I like the Upper Calder Valley Plain Speaker – have a look at what they write about the DEFRA Secretary of State’s (now former Secretary of State’s) visit to flood-stricken Hebden Bridge – click here
Tag: Defra
Shuffling
Well, well, well. Off goes the Chancellor saying that no self-respecting minister would allow the PM to dictate who his aids should be, which must make Rishi Sunak lacking in self respect. It is very broad-minded of Johnson to replace an alumnus of Downend Comprehensive with a Wykhamist though. Rishi Sunak, as MP for Richmond,…
Licensed killing of birds
When Wild Justice challenged the general licences issued by Natural England last year all hell broke loose. A year later we are seeing new licences being issued by public bodies in Scotland and Wales, and are awaiting the new DEFRA licensing regime for England. There’s a lot going on on this subject and, as one…
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…
Theresa Villiers’s speech at Oxford Farming Conference yesterday.
This is the text of Theresa Villiers’s speech to the Oxford Farming Conference yesterday with comments from me. A vision for future farming as we tackle the challenges of climate change and nature recovery Leading Defra to put farming at the heart of tackling the twin climate and nature crisis Thank you … I am…
Lord Zac
So Zac Goldsmith, after losing his seat to Sarah Olney, keeps his job in DEFRA by way of the House of Lords. How do we feel about that? I feel a bit torn because this method of filling posts looks rather open to croneyism of the worst kind – and what is Nicky Morgan doing…
Several cups of tea later… (1)
So, what should we expect from Johnson’s Conservative government? I don’t really know. The trouble with winning an election with a slogan and with a wafer-thin manifesto, and not engaging with any issue except getting Brexit done, is that there is other work to do. I don’t even know what sort of Brexit the PM…
Election watch (14) – A Labour plan for nature
At last! A serious and detailed plan for nature from a political party; 46 pages on how government can, and a Labour government would, save nature. Here are some quotes, rather a lot of quotes, from the document followed by my analysis of whether it is any good or not. I am pretty sure that…
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…
Election watch (4) – the Number 65 bus
The journey from home to Kingston Academy is not one I’ve made before, nor probably ever will again but, for the record, the bit from Wellingborough station involves the tube to Richmond and the 65 bus from outside the station to the school (2.5 hours each way on a good day). But why? Yesterday evening…