Govt Depts/NFU/Chris Packham.
- Thread starter Pilatus
- Start date
- Location
- South Wales UK
Defra and its agencies are populated by otherwise unemployable eco-greenies. The political boss of Defra may know what a fish looks like but he knows nothing else and has been completely overwhelmed by the EU backed Defra employees who are laughing all the way to the hedge. They cannot be got rid off unless farming is moved to the Business and Trade Ministry. The only Minister who stood up to them re the Somerset flooding a few years ago was Owen Paterson and he was moved on. No one will ever stand up for farming so get a thick skin and claim for every eco-greenie pound you can - and do as little as possible for it!
Of course Gov Depts personnel perhaps know as little about how the countryside,nature and agriculture work in reality,as Packham,so not really surprising they take notice of him , more than the NFU who so say represent uk farmers.Sounds right?
That might be how it seems.
The General Licences were illegal for the following reason: Under the Wildlife Directive, a general licence is fine but there must be an annual review based on surveys. When Labour split MAFF into DEFRA and Natural England they left no provision for the surveys, therefore the licence was technically illegal because the rules weren't being followed. Wild Justice saw this missing part & used it to force the judicial review. We now have one general licence for carrion crows reissued with more to follow imminently. https://naturalengland.blog.gov.uk/2019/04/28/general-licences-update-and-the-next-steps/
I've been keeping an eye on Facebook & Twitter since this whole thing blew up & frankly there seem to be more Packham fans than NFU ones, not that social media chatter should be taken as a gospel indicator of mass public sentiment. A government does need to be aware of popular culture because this kind of emotion alters the way swing voters, er, swing. There's a great deal of pandering to the crowd going on here. That's just modern politics. You've also got to look in depth at where party political donations come from - single issue pressure groups spend a lot of time and resources on lobbying. Look at the accounts for the RSPB and see that the Common Agricultural Policy is their next biggest source of income after membership fees and legacies. They are sing for their supper too. The NFU doesn't want to play that game & getting ahead in the corrupt "free lunch" game for government services would not be endorsed by the electorate and members IMO. I'm not sure the NFU is given sufficient credit for the work they do in NOT participating in this p*ssing contest but quietly working away in the background to ensure our voice IS heard. Tony Juniper will have a more productive conversation with Minette Batters than he will with Mark Avery, even if he has more in common with Avery & Packham.
On the flip side of this, Westminster do not always follow public opinion - they all seem to know better than the mandate from the masses on a certain process that has been dominating the headlines recently...
Tin hat firmly on!
The General Licences were illegal for the following reason: Under the Wildlife Directive, a general licence is fine but there must be an annual review based on surveys. When Labour split MAFF into DEFRA and Natural England they left no provision for the surveys, therefore the licence was technically illegal because the rules weren't being followed. Wild Justice saw this missing part & used it to force the judicial review. We now have one general licence for carrion crows reissued with more to follow imminently. https://naturalengland.blog.gov.uk/2019/04/28/general-licences-update-and-the-next-steps/
I've been keeping an eye on Facebook & Twitter since this whole thing blew up & frankly there seem to be more Packham fans than NFU ones, not that social media chatter should be taken as a gospel indicator of mass public sentiment. A government does need to be aware of popular culture because this kind of emotion alters the way swing voters, er, swing. There's a great deal of pandering to the crowd going on here. That's just modern politics. You've also got to look in depth at where party political donations come from - single issue pressure groups spend a lot of time and resources on lobbying. Look at the accounts for the RSPB and see that the Common Agricultural Policy is their next biggest source of income after membership fees and legacies. They are sing for their supper too. The NFU doesn't want to play that game & getting ahead in the corrupt "free lunch" game for government services would not be endorsed by the electorate and members IMO. I'm not sure the NFU is given sufficient credit for the work they do in NOT participating in this p*ssing contest but quietly working away in the background to ensure our voice IS heard. Tony Juniper will have a more productive conversation with Minette Batters than he will with Mark Avery, even if he has more in common with Avery & Packham.
On the flip side of this, Westminster do not always follow public opinion - they all seem to know better than the mandate from the masses on a certain process that has been dominating the headlines recently...
Tin hat firmly on!
- Location
- Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
If you go on Facebook, there's a majority of uneducated "animal loving" idiots who think it's clever to teach their little pooch to prance about on it's hind legs and / or feed tit bits until it is clinically obese. The popularity of such things does not make it any more right
Thanks for taking me up on the word “seem”, and well balanced reply.
Hypothetical question, would the general public interfere with how farmers should run the countryside ,so much, if agriculture was not subsidised from the “public purse”.??
Exfarmer
Member
- Location
- Bury St Edmunds
There are probably 500,000 farming, pro countryside voters.Government Departments, seem to be listening to Chris Packhams views on countryside matters MORE than they listen to the NFU, or am I missing something???
There are probably 5,000,000 animal lover and those feeling guilty about green issues.
Do the maths!
The public will still want to interfere. That's just human nature. I think the side issue is how they will control us. Legislation is time consuming to draft & pass into law. Prosecuting breaches is also time consuming and expensive. It has always been easier to remove some of the carrot of subsidy without any real need for peer vote mechanism (a jury or tribunal) to prove guilt. I'd say that to keep us towing the party line they will need this easy way of offering us cash then removing it for not [cross] complying with the rules attached to receiving it. The public seem happy to pay something towards how the countryside is kept so IMO they will stick to this model of give and take back.
Ultimately, if the risk of fines exceeds the perceived benefit farmers will just not bother applying for the subsidies in the first place. Look at the current uptake of Countryside Stewardship - we've gone from 66% of England in ELS or HLS to less than 16% under CS though much of that is due to the bar being raised so much of what we got a few quid under ELS for is now embedded in Cross Compliance for BPS, mainly Greening and EFAs. The current model of payment for "profit foregone" needs looking at. It's simply not enough compensation for the loss of production and hassle applying for it. We can all see what you originally posted about increasingly affecting our farming lives so the natural instinct is to pull up the drawbridge on our castles and give the "bird" to those who would dictate what we can & can't do.
Goweresque
Member
- Location
- North Wilts
Government Departments, seem to be listening to Chris Packhams views on countryside matters MORE than they listen to the NFU, or am I missing something???
There's no 'seem' about it. The people who infest government departments are people who have the same political and ethical views as CP, and are have opposing views to those of most farmers. Ergo when the NFU says something they largely ignore it, if they can, and if CP says something they try to implement it, if they can. Over the last 30 years the Right have been largely purged from State employment, certainly at any higher up level where decision making is involved, by a complimentary process of a) the Left employing people like them, and the Right increasingly staying out of State employ because they can make more money elsewhere and can't stand the politicking either.
Thus you end up with the head of Natural England being the former head of Friends of the Earth, and best buddies with Mark Avery (the other founder with CP of the eco group currently suing NE over the bird licences), and no one bats an eyelid at any conflicts of interests, because all the people who could raise the issue agree with them all.
But if a candidate for (say) the head of Environment Agency used to run Biffa and was best mates with all the heads of the other waste companies he would now be regulating, alarm bells would go off everywhere in the Civil Service and he'd never be allowed anywhere near the job.
Thats the way it works nowadays. There is an iron ceiling in the Civil Service above which you cannot rise unless your political views are suitably left leaning. The days of the CS being neutral politically are long gone.
I am sure that what you have all said in your posts is oh so true, I dread to think where it is all going to lead.
Are most other countries in the world in the same situation. Or is part of the problem we are so densely populated, so more people come to the countryside , what’s left of it, and then think it is going to be all like, they see on spring,winter, and autumn watch,all so fluffy bunny, a far cry from the harsh reality of nature.
Are most other countries in the world in the same situation. Or is part of the problem we are so densely populated, so more people come to the countryside , what’s left of it, and then think it is going to be all like, they see on spring,winter, and autumn watch,all so fluffy bunny, a far cry from the harsh reality of nature.
Yesterday while rolling some grass seed in,I suddenly thought, what do “Packham, Monbiot,their followers,
Natural England,RSPB etc” really expect of the beautiful countryside?I asked my self that question as I saw pheasants, buzzards, red kite, pigeons ,crows a few hares, small birds in the hedgerow, some deer but no Badgers or Foxes as they are mainly nocturnal.Oh I was forgetting the hedgerows and trees that are all coming out into fresh leaf, very concerned about the ash though.
I expect all of you that go about your daily business/ job in the countryside find the same as I do , as above.Rather than a countryside that Packham /Monbiot etc portray as “lifeless and completely devoid of birds,wildlife,trees,hedgerows, hedgerow/ headland flowers and fauna”,surely the idiots should realise that Downland/ Woldland have never been small paddocks with water meandering through them. So I say again what do some people really imagine the countryside should be like??????
I forgot to say I have seen lapwings ,but they seem to like the bigger open fields to nest in, but I stand to be corrected.
We also do not have any Dykes or many drainage ditches,streams etc on top of Cotswolds so not very lightly to see Kingfishers etc
Natural England,RSPB etc” really expect of the beautiful countryside?I asked my self that question as I saw pheasants, buzzards, red kite, pigeons ,crows a few hares, small birds in the hedgerow, some deer but no Badgers or Foxes as they are mainly nocturnal.Oh I was forgetting the hedgerows and trees that are all coming out into fresh leaf, very concerned about the ash though.
I expect all of you that go about your daily business/ job in the countryside find the same as I do , as above.Rather than a countryside that Packham /Monbiot etc portray as “lifeless and completely devoid of birds,wildlife,trees,hedgerows, hedgerow/ headland flowers and fauna”,surely the idiots should realise that Downland/ Woldland have never been small paddocks with water meandering through them. So I say again what do some people really imagine the countryside should be like??????
I forgot to say I have seen lapwings ,but they seem to like the bigger open fields to nest in, but I stand to be corrected.
We also do not have any Dykes or many drainage ditches,streams etc on top of Cotswolds so not very lightly to see Kingfishers etc
Last edited:
- Location
- Welshpool Powys
Could someone please explain what these do gooders have done for the countryside?
Other than roaming about with dogs and binoculars?
Farmers and landowners do a multitude of conservation and tree planting plus beetle banks and bird covers.
Where are the NFU and CLA that they don’t release a statement to counter Chris packchoi and his band of the great unwashed.
Other than roaming about with dogs and binoculars?
Farmers and landowners do a multitude of conservation and tree planting plus beetle banks and bird covers.
Where are the NFU and CLA that they don’t release a statement to counter Chris packchoi and his band of the great unwashed.
- Location
- East Sussex
Pay you for doing it?
The trouble, is that if ones livelihood is dependant on creating propaganda about how the countryside is being mismanaged, one is not going to stop creating that propaganda any time soon. Now Chris Packham ( Chris Packham Ltd) ,as registered at companies house, www.chrispackham.co.uk. has got his audience/ followers well and truly hooked line and sinker he needs to keep winding them in with his propaganda bait,to feed him/his business with lovely money.
Can’t see him going away any time soon, like all the others that are feeding on the propaganda of how we are SUPPOSEDLY mismanaging the countryside.
Last edited:
Shep
Member
- Location
- The Orchard County
- Location
- Sedgefield
- Location
- Scottish Highlands
- Location
- Welshpool Powys
Farmers need to fight back with facts and pictures of all the good work they do with conservation and re educate the public.
Once these lot gain more footholds it be shooting & fishing next until they start on something else.
Once these lot gain more footholds it be shooting & fishing next until they start on something else.