Tag: politics

Unemployed will have to do community work under Tories, says Cameron

All 18- to 21-year-olds who have failed to find a job or a place in training would no longer be able to claim jobseeker’s allowance under a Tory government, but would instead be forced to undertake community work, says David Cameron

Every single time I’ve been working during a change of government of any party, the idea of “putting the unemployed to work” in the countryside or parks has come along. And almost every time it has gone wrong. There are two reasons why, and they are always the same:

1) Politicians assume that work in the countryside or parks is unskilled and generic and so anyone can do it. They can’t. Most outdoor work requires a certain level of skill and ability. So when wholly unskilled people turn up to do such work, they soon run out of things they can usefully do. This is the case with quite a lot of other types of job, too.

2) To deliver this kind of project in any sector requires lots of input from people who actually know what they are doing; e.g. trainers, supervisors and managers. If you don’t provide them, the workers – who in this scenario might not even want to be there – won’t do anything useful, or might even cause more harm than good. You can’t just roll up in a van and work will magically appear in front of you. Someone has to plan it, get tools, and make sure it’s safe; before explaining what to do and making sure it’s done right.

Unfortunately many of the very people who could organise and supervise this kind of work in the outdoor industries – the rangers, the park keepers and the youth workers have either been laid off or contracted out. So I guess that work will be going to private firms. So if this does go ahead, maybe we should take the money that would be paid to those firms, and pay it to local councils to support the work with their existing staff. That’s another way to keep people away from unemployment!

The end of the Natural England website

Way back in 1995, when Naturenet began  – yes fact fans, that was nearly twenty years ago – there were very few official government websites about anything – certainly not conservation and countryside. Naturenet blazed a trail that made it one of the biggest and most popular conservation websites in the UK. This wasn’t actually that hard, as there was little else. So when the government’s nature conservation agency, English Nature, first created a website in 2001, Naturenet had been publicising the same things for over five years.

Time has moved on, and lots of government websites came along publishing huge amounts of useful information and making Naturenet just one of many small websites. English Nature became Natural England, but then when the current government came to power that in turn was absorbed within DEFRA, no longer an independent government agency charged with “championing the cause of wildlife and natural features throughout England”. Instead, just another arm of government with no separate voice or policy. Maybe a part of the government’s campaign to reduce what  Chancellor George Osborne described as the “ridiculous costs on British businesses” that complying with environmental laws brings. Continue reading The end of the Natural England website

Government set to create massive new heritage charity to compete with National Trust, Wildlife Trusts

Today’s the day Chancellor George Osborne revealed the latest government spending cuts.

George Osborne (c) M. Holland
George Osborne

As usual, we were softened up by horror stories, and as it turned out, they were not far wrong. Others will have their say on whether, say, the loss of a further 144,000 public sector jobs is a good way to stimulate economic growth at this juncture. The news that made me sit up concerned English Heritage, the government body which manages the historic built environment of England.

The BBC reports today that “English Heritage has been given £80m in the government’s Spending Review”. Maria Miller, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, said: “The new £80 million investment for English Heritage is fantastic news and recognises the vital importance of the historic environment to our national life.” Who can argue with that? Well, watch me try. This windfall is in fact a part of a process to transfer English Heritage to the charitable sector, and I have some big problems with that.

There’s a bit more detail available, although it’s all pretty new stuff. English Heritage is to become a charity by 2015. The new charity will manage the National Heritage Collection, which includes Osborne House, Stonehenge, and many other monuments and artefacts: as English Heritage does now.  Statutory English Heritage responsibilities such as listing buildings will remain government funded – it’s hard to see how they couldn’t be. The new English Heritage charity will have, in the words of the official EH statement: “more freedom to generate greater commercial and philanthropic income”. And the ultimate purpose of all this? The government currently contributes £22m annually towards this work. Government funding for the new “National Heritage Protection Service” will be be reduced after 2015, eventually to nothing.

Continue reading Government set to create massive new heritage charity to compete with National Trust, Wildlife Trusts

Environmental infrastructure: what it could really cost

Drains, water, sewage works, landfill sites… usually best left to somebody else to sort out. Well, maybe once this was true. In south-east England nothing could be further from the truth today. It’s not always perceived as an obvious connection with countryside management but maybe it should be. The Ranger has always had a bit of an interest in sewage works, (see some photos of one of his recent visits to such an establishment) and is presently involved in advising his employer on drainage issues at a proposed large residential development site. So he read with enthusiasm the Environment Agency‘s 2007 report “Hidden infrastructure: the pressures on environmental infrastructure” because, let’s face it, you didn’t, did you? It’s a short report which is obviously designed to get some pretty stark messages home. It looks at how the environment is coming under pressure in densely populated areas, such as SE England, and argues that adequate environmental infrastructure is essential if development is to go ahead within the environment’s capacity to absorb the additional impacts. As well as looking at possible ways to reduce or mitigate these impacts, the report is bold enough to indicate the scale of the problem in simple terms:

Environmental infrastructure

 

Above is a figure from the report – it shows the calculated average environmental infrastructure cost, per house, in south-east England. The total is over £20,000 per house built.

Continue reading Environmental infrastructure: what it could really cost

Should we pay £375,000 to poke buzzards out of their nests?

Something’s gone badly wrong at the Greenest Government Ever. To say I’ve been profoundly disappointed at the environmental performance of the Coalition – in comparison to its glowing promises – is only the start of it. But at least, up until now, it has only been the traditional environmentalist’s bogeyman the Chancellor of the Exchequer who has been the boo-hiss villain happy to deride current protection of wildlife and landscapes as a “ridiculous cost” on business.

Buzzard (c) Lisa Lawley

Now the foes of our native biodiversity are expanding their reach. They are optimistic enough to be openly at work through DEFRA – traditionally the department that is responsible for nature reserves, protected landscapes, biodiversity, and protected species as well as farming, food and fishing. A modest DEFRA proposal for a research project on birds of prey has caused an extraordinary backlash of criticism from a wide range of respected voices throughout the conservation field. Having read it, I can understand why. The project is not large, but the implications are. And as far as I can see there are two possible explanations, neither of which give me any comfort. Either those who proposed this idea have an alarmingly poor understanding of the role and relative importance of native species versus introduced ones; or they don’t, but are confident enough to believe that any resistance to the proposal can be safely disregarded. Continue reading Should we pay £375,000 to poke buzzards out of their nests?

The Nature of Harming ‘award’

Guest blog by Mark Avery I have a feeling that nature conservationists are too nice. Well, I’m trying hard not to be too nice. Some say I’m succeeding.

(c) Tamara van Molken

Wildlife is under great and increasing pressure in the fields and woods around us, and in the rainforests and oceans on this planet. We aren’t doing a great job in conserving nature. Should we beat ourselves up, all of us, in a mass bout of self-flagellation, for we are surely all to blame? We are all to blame just as we are all to blame for everything that happens on the planet. But some are more to blame than others. Continue reading The Nature of Harming ‘award’

Falmouth maerl – the canary in George Osborne’s coal mine

Maerl. What’s that then? Chances are, you don’t know what maerl is, or why anyone else might care. Unless you live in Falmouth – in which case you have probably found out quite a lot about maerl recently. It’s a rare marine habitat which, like many other such habitats, is protected in the UK by European designations. And it was the Falmouth maerl which Chancellor George Osborne was referring to when he said last year “We will make sure that gold-plating of EU rules on things like habitats aren’t placing ridiculous costs on British businesses.”

Maerl beds © Keith Hiscock

The maerl beds in Falmouth are internationally important for biodiversity and locally valued for their benefits to the fishing industry, but their fate is particularly interesting nationally because European protected habitats like these are very much in George Osborne’s crosshairs at the moment. Is he right to decide that economic benefits trump environmental sustainability? Is the economic imperative strong enough to make such fundamental changes, or is Osborne simply indulging in quixotic anti-European political posturing? Continue reading Falmouth maerl – the canary in George Osborne’s coal mine

A challenge worth rising to

The Red Tape Challenge! Wow, this has got to be good! The government is asking us all to get together and sweep away all the burdensome red tape that “hurts business, doing real damage to our economy”. What a great idea. Isn’t it? Well, isn’t it? Actually, no, it isn’t. And I’m going to tell you why not.

Red tape

Firstly, the good news – it’s actually not a bad idea to have a review of legislation. Like any legal system, we have a load of repetitive, poorly-drafted, ambiguous laws and regulations. That’s just the way laws work. And reviewing and changing them is not sexy, quick or exciting so it tends not to ever get done. Governments find it easier just to make nice new shiny laws and hope that everyone just forgets the old ones – and often we do. Continue reading A challenge worth rising to

Book review: The retreat of reason (Anthony Browne, 2006)

A friend lent The Ranger a book for his entertainment; “The Retreat of Reason: Political Correctness and the Corruption of Public Debate in Modern Britain”. This provocatively-titled pamphlet was written in 2006 by Anthony Browne; a former journalist and now Policy Director for the Mayor of London. The pamphlet has had considerable influence and has been praised by many commentators. The journalist Melanie Phillips called it “a tremendously important pamphlet about political correctness… which explains just why Britain has apparently lost its senses“. AC Grayling, in the New Statesman, praised Browne’s “eloquent voice“.

The Retreat of Reason: Political Correctness and the Corruption of Public Debate in Modern Britain

Much has been written about this publication, especially about the views on immigration and race contained within it: either critical of the author’s attitude (Julian Petley, Fifth-Estate-Online; Dave Hill, The Guardian), or supportive (AC Grayling, New Statesman; Stormfront). It’s probably worth pointing out that although the British National Party do sell the book online, as is often mentioned, they seem to be rather critical of it, ironically complaining that “Browne goes all PC again by taking another swipe at the BNP“. I found the substance of ‘The Retreat of Reason’ disappointing: poorly argued, more of an exhortation to the uncritical than any attempt to form a rational position to persuade others. I didn’t think it a racist book, nor is the author a racist. But what was startling and unexpected to this Ranger was the remarkable section that Browne, a former environment editor of the Times, wrote about environmentalism, and on biodiversity in particular. Do biodiversity, pollution, protected species and habitats have a bearing on political correctness? Surprisingly, Browne thinks they do, and makes some striking assertions whilst explaining how. Continue reading Book review: The retreat of reason (Anthony Browne, 2006)