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Amazing, eh?

When Tony Juniper was interviewed for the job of Natural England chairman, he vowed to leave decades of eco-activism “in the past”.

The former Green Party candidate is now facing questions, however, over whether he may have broken that promise on his very first day.

MPs and campaigners have raised concerns over the timing of a controversial decision to ban the shooting of a number of birds widely acknowledged as pests, including pigeons and crows.

The announcement was made without warning last month only hours after Mr Juniper, the former head of Friends of the Earth and self-described “eco warrior”, took up his post.

Who could have guessed that Tony Juniper would do something stupid?

22 thoughts on “Amazing, eh?”

  1. He has power to effect such a ban?

    If so, there I go forgetting democracy has been pushed under a bus.

  2. I think the autistic bunny lovers brought a legal challenge against Natural England over pest shooting and Juniper chose not to fight it but rather to withdraw the licenses.

    Cowardice or collusion?

  3. The Tories really are fucking useless or complicit.

    When you take over government, you put YOUR PEOPLE in the institutions. You put them there to deliberately change policy in the direction you want it.

    Asking for promises? Are you 5?

  4. Blame Gove… Eco-warriors and climate change mafia to our left, Islamist nutters to our right, Corbyn and McDonnell impoverishment on the horizon. In the old days all we had to worry about was a cold war nuclear holocaust and the end of the world.

  5. Bernie G – you forgot global warming alarmism, starving polar bears … and therefore your post is too short by about 1000 lines!

  6. Bloke in North Dorset

    BoM4 – the people appointed to quangos etc in the past decade ARE their people.

    Indeed.. Hug a husky was a clue about the direction of travel.

  7. BoM4…When you take over…

    There were similar comments after Scrunton was thrown under the bus. Like as not, most every single institution remains under the control of Blair appointees. The Cameron/Clegg coalition weren’t exactly unsympathetic to Blairism so why mess, and May’s reign has been one of fighting fires. If Corbyn assumes power you may see a more aggressive infiltration of new faces, none of them to our liking.

  8. This is indeed a good indication of the complete capture and turning of the Tories.

    Remember how they appointed a former Labour minister – John Denham? – to head a quango? It was frankly astonishing they appointed Scruton to another, I never could see it lasting.

  9. Edward Lud said:
    “This is indeed a good indication of the complete capture and turning of the Tories.”

    Yup. Another example of why I’m never helping or voting for them again.

  10. It was Alan Milburn, rather than John Denham, but the effect was the same.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-42212270

    Still, the recent polls are looking good for the Tories!

    Westminster voting intention: LAB: 33% (-3)
    CON: 26% (-3)
    BREX: 17% (+17)
    LDEM: 6% (-2)
    CHUK: 4% (+4)
    GRN: 4% (-)
    UKIP: 4% (-7)
    via @OpiniumResearch, 21 – 23 Apr Chgs. w/ 12 Apr

  11. St Greta and another nail in the Tory coffin

    “…How often does one engage on social media with a Social ScientistNiV who, when you are foolish enough to disagree with him, merely directs you to the correct research paper on the right shelf in his particular Library of Truth as though that is the last axiomatic word on the matter and he can go home for his dinner

    Regrettably, we now see Gove, in his role as Environment Secretary, servilely apologising in public to the affectless, 16-year-old climate scold, Greta Thunberg, and her whole generation. On the surface it seems that he has swallowed her apocalyptic Kool Aid and that the ‘experts’ have got to him at last…”

    .
    Heather Mac Donald On How The Delusion of Diversity Destroys Our Common Humanity

  12. “He has power to effect such a ban?”

    He does.

    The UK Government signed up to the 1979 Wild Birds Directive from the (then) EEC. Having done so it then realised it had just committed itself to stopping all pest bird control within the UK. So in the legislation to implement the Directive it created so called ‘General Licences’ to shoot named pest species that were in universal operation, you didn’t need to apply to get one to shoot pigeons (say), you were covered by it regardless.

    These General Licences are what Packham has attacked via the courts, he’s claimed (probably correctly) that in England (in Wales and Scotland slightly different rules apply) the GLs do not take into account the general statutory requirement under the 1981 Wildlife and Countryside Act to protect all wild animals. And so Natural England (the body tasked with the relevant legislation) have withdrawn the GLs, which they are entitled to do.

    They say they plan to reissue them such that they are compliant with the W&CA, and have already done so for crows, so as to allow farmers to shoot crows attacking livestock. But all the others, including for crop protection, are still awaited. I suspect that they criteria for using the GLs in future will be considerably more onerous than they used to be.

    This is just another example of the way the EEC/EU has controlled our lives for the last 40 years.

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