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…
Tag: George Osborne
In a days – I mean a daze.
Sunday’s was the 600th Standing up for Nature blog since I started writing them 571 days ago. The day passed almost without me noticing the landmark. In those 571 days this blog has grown from an audience of zero to well over 7000 unique visitors a month according to the statistics provided by Google analytics….
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…
Prof Sir John Lawton says…
…that the Chancellor, George Gideon Oliver Osborne, is a ‘bloody idiot’ on the subject of wildlife protection. Sir John, or actually, I see, John Hartley Lawton, is a Vice President of the RSPB, a Fellow of the Royal Society, a good birdwatcher, was the last chair of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution (deceased), is…
Too nice?
You have one week to go before you can see the final results of the Nature of Harming ‘award’. Cast your vote now and ask your friends (you do have friends?) to cast their’s too, please. Nearly 1000 people have voted. Here, at this late stage – is some rationale to go behind it: We…
The home straight
You only have two weeks to join over 700 others in voting in the Nature of Harming ‘award’ – the results will be announced on April Fools’ Day. Although there is a clear leader, one candidate made a strong bid for your vote this week and it seems that another is planning to get your…
Well done Zac!
Did you see Zac Goldsmith on Newsnight on Tuesday evening? If not, have a look (about 16 minutes in) because he was very good. As Jeremy Paxman sat in front of an image of green countryside Allegra Stratton spilled the beans on what the Treasury is thinking on the planning the system (read it here)….
Wake up and do it George!
This is funny – I’ve played it several times for the chuckle it brings to my lips. Play it, have a laugh and then email the Chancellor so that he might wake up to the importance of wildlife in our lives. I’d be interested to know whether you get a respsonse from your MP like…
Tesco shares crashed on link-up with RSPB – every little helps
Last week the RSPB and Tesco re-announced their link up on rainforests – you’ll find a description of the link-up in the most recent Birds magazine which arrived in mid-January (pages 22-23). That link-up has already had an amazing impact on Tesco: looking at its 3-month share value you will find it peaked at 411p…