Guest Blog – ‘Muzzled Watchdog’ to ‘Toothless Terrier’? by Helen Kirk

Helen Kirk has been described as ‘an indefatigable and tenacious environmental campaigner and amateur naturalist’.  For more than 30 years she has championed and helped safeguard the Humberhead peatlands, and the special plants and creatures that depend on them. She is the executive secretary of the Thorne and Hatfield Moors Conservation Forum and has recently…

Food for thought

I expect you have eaten well over the break and are probably, like me, a bit podgier than a couple of weeks ago – or maybe not? If there is anything that might put you off your food it is the sound of the President of the NFU going on about the need for greater…

Bankrupt policies from Defra

Last week George (Gideon) Osborne had to do something different because it was clear that his economic policies weren’t working (he did the wrong thing, but he did have to do something) whereas there is no sign that Defra is going to do anything different even though their policies aren’t working either. The differences between…

It’s about TB

After the decision to delay the badger-cull pilot study it might be that badgers are breathing a sigh of relief.  Except they won’t be because we don’t have in place effective measures to limit the spread of bovine TB in badgers and cattle and from one to the other (both ways!). One huge problem with…

Benefits

‘Tory MPs press Osborne on benefits‘ was a headline on the FT website on Tuesday evening, referring to the wish of some Conservative MPs to cut benefits in order to reduce government spending. Apparently the linking of benefits to inflation could be changed to a link to earningsbut only over the Liberal Democrats’ bodies –…