The continuation of the first 100 days.

Allira

^That depends how you value food over butterflies^

🤔

Without pollinators there will be no crops.
Or they will have to be hand-pollinated which is labour-intensive.

Family and friends are farming, gradually loosing moral because everything is about environment not food growing.

A balance has to be found.

However, we will continue to import food, just as we export food too.

Quite, Allira 😆

Or they will have to be hand-pollinated which is labour-intensive

I can't see a field of rape being hand pollinated.

That depends how you value food over butterflies

🤔

Without pollinators there will be no crops.
Or they will have to be hand-pollinated which is labour-intensive.

Family and friends are farming, gradually loosing moral because everything is about environment not food growing.

A balance has to be found.

However, we will continue to import food, just as we export food too.

Well put David.

Oreo

Mollygo I try to see the good and the bad ideas/ policies in the Labour Party, so many see four legs good and two legs bad IYKWIM.I’ll continue to either applaud or criticise what the government do.

Seen no good points yet

That depends how you value food over butterflies, as I said whatever we don’t produce here is imported with less environmental safeguards. There is always an activist that can find a justification for any change, we have destroyed our industry, now they want to destroy food production, make no mistake activists do want to destroy food production in the UK.

All the animal production will have to go, because of welfare then crops will have to be grown without chemicals. The only production will be organic, which is fine, Grandad farmed that way in the 1930s it’s not farmers that will suffer they can do other things, food production would drop to 25% of demand.

Every pound spent on nature does not produce a return on the investment, the money that is going to be spent on water quality is just going to cost consumers. There is no public health risk currently, only fools that go swimming in rivers are at risk. The health advice is don’t swim in rivers, they choose to ignore that advice, their risk.

Guardian readers do need to know and accept that every acre of land that goes into an environmental scheme means that much food less being produced. Every pound spent “protecting” nature is a pound that is not being spent on the economy, this is cash coming out of your pocket, you are already digging deep.

Well, David, I'm not a farmer but when you look back at agricultural practices over the decades attempts to increase yields have not always been good for the environment and biodiversity.

I recall farmers in Essex grubbing out hedges to make their fields large enough for the use of agricultural machinery as well as to increase productive acreage. Result? Essex having light sandy soil the topsoil blew away...
Of course, loss of hedges also meant loss of habitats for hundreds of species of wildlife, some beneficial to agriculture, such as insect pollinators. Without pollinators yields of crops dependent on them will diminish.

Use of heavy agricultural machinery causes soil compaction, making it harder for crop roots to penetrate and obtain nutrients.

Intensive use of artificial fertilizers instead of organic matter depletes soil quality. they also increase the danger of run off into watercourses with damaging effects on aquatic plants and the species which they support.

Then there is the use of pesticides...

So while I appreciate that we must aim to produce as much of our own food as possible, destroying the environment in an attempt to maximise production has adverse effects. Environmental schemes don't necessarily mean taking land out of production, they can exist alongside agriculture and have positive benefits for it.

If we ignore the environment in favour of intensive food production it seems to me that it would be self defeating, we would end up with an arid wasteland of failing crops and greatly reduced biodiversity (insect numbers are vastly depleted already, it could get much worse...)

The last government, to give it its due, did make some attempt at incorporating environmental improvements in agriculture. This blog is interesting :

defrafarming.blog.gov.uk/2023/03/08/the-science-behind-the-sustainable-farming-incentive/

As to 'every pound spent 'protecting nature' is a pound that is not being spent on the economy', that's just totally illogical. Every pound spent ends up somewhere in the economy. They don't just disappear into a big black hole... All spending contributes to GDP and some sort of economic growth...

The U.K. is one of the most depleted countries in the world as far as biodiversity is concerned.

This lack of biodiversity in the U.K. is now seen as a natural emergency, and without this biodiversity, food production cannot possibly thrive as it should.

There is room for both food production and biodiversity. Intensive farming with the destruction of hedgerows and the degradation of the soil, poor animal welfare and water pollution has been a disaster to our ecosystem in the U.K.

We need a stable and strong ecosystem in order to face what lies ahead. Farmers must learn to adapt, just as the rest of the country is learning to do in the face of such an emergency.

Allira

ronib

David49 there’s a definite preference to save badgers over grannies too ….

The jury is still out over badgers.

Are you a farmer, David49
Many farmers care for the environment, more than most people in fact, of keeping a balance between farming and nature and the need to make farming environmentally sustainable.

Family and friends are farming, gradually loosing moral because everything is about environment not food growing.

Allira the jury seems to be showing its preferences against grannies?

ronib

David49 there’s a definite preference to save badgers over grannies too ….

The jury is still out over badgers.

Are you a farmer, David49
Many farmers care for the environment, more than most people in fact, of keeping a balance between farming and nature and the need to make farming environmentally sustainable.

David49 there’s a definite preference to save badgers over grannies too ….

Envoy for nature and another for climate change

Guardian readers do need to know and accept that every acre of land that goes into an environmental scheme means that much food less being produced. Every pound spent “protecting” nature is a pound that is not being spent on the economy, this is cash coming out of your pocket, you are already digging deep.

The irony of it is that food we don’t grow here has to be imported at higher cost and any environmental impact is simply exported, there is no impact on global emissions. It may make us feel good, this feel good factor is very expensive. It’s exactly the same with consumer goods, we don’t manufacture much in the UK, it’s imported, where they use coal fired electricity, environmental controls hardly exist, workers rights barely exist, we have also exported industrial pollution.

Many who are asking for stronger environmental controls should tell us all how much it is costing the UK. To put those costs into perspective, to clean up the rivers to a higher standard the water industry has estimated that is going to cost us £100 billion. We could borrow it of course but add interest to that and it would probably double.

No I dont do kind. It's what I think.
The assisted dying bill will go through I think. I agree with the doubts expressed by some, it will have consequences for the most vulnerable.

Only a vocal minority are nimbys’

Fewer than one in five voters are “hard nimbys” who are opposed to local housebuilding under almost any circumstances, according to polling by YouGov that will give a boost to the government in its aim of building 1.5m homes this parliament.
An MRP model based on a 12,000-person survey shows between 15% and 20% of British voters would almost never support housing developments near them, with the rest willing to do so if certain conditions are met.
The findings bolster the government’s case for major planning reform, which the ministers argue is needed to override the objections of a vocal minority who have obstructed new housebuilding projects for years.

The MRP found that the one condition that made the biggest difference to local support for housebuilding was whether there would be sufficient provision of GPs and other health services.

Assisted Dying

A vote to introduce assisted dying across the UK could be imminent after Downing Street reiterated that it would not obstruct a private member’s bill on the issue and indicated it would support an MP in drafting it.

However, while polling shows that a majority of the public support legalising support for terminally ill people who wish to end their lives, the issue could cause serious divisions across parties, with opinion heavily divided.
Keir Starmer has previously said he supports a change in the law, but the justice secretary, Shabana Mahmood, has said she could not back a policy that she described as “a really dangerous position to be in”.
Similarly, while a Liberal Democrat MSP is leading efforts to change the law in Scotland with a private member’s bill on the subject, Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, is known to be among senior party members who have doubts about a law change.

The vote will be a free vote.

Envoy for nature and another for climate change

The UK government is planning to appoint a special envoy for nature for the first time, as the foreign secretary, David Lammy, seeks to put the UK at the centre of global efforts to tackle the world’s ecological crises.

Labour will also appoint a new climate envoy, after the Tories abolished the post over a year ago, a move that dismayed foreign governments and climate campaigners.
Lammy, who met Sir David Attenborough this month to talk about the global response to the climate and nature crises, will make a major intervention on the topic early this week.

The move to appoint two envoys has delighted campaigners, who were concerned by the last government’s downgrading of the UK’s role in international climate and nature talks.

Yes, and often it is journalists who create the zeitgeist in the first place.

Galaxy

He is another who has a good insight into what a lot of people think is important though. I like him for that, and dislike him for other reasons (mainly the quite weird Meghan behaviour).

I think you are being too kind to the worst kind of journalist, who has stopped at nothing to get a “story” .

At the very least he was aware of the phone hacking scandal for years before it was finally exposed, and never did a thing to stop it.

Most journalists are aware of the current zeitgeist but their integrity bars them from the sort of behaviour Morgan has displayed in the past.

He is another who has a good insight into what a lot of people think is important though. I like him for that, and dislike him for other reasons (mainly the quite weird Meghan behaviour).

I don't think we'll get change in US foreign policy on joint concerns until the elections ie know if the US will commit to a particular course, and certainly would have been completely out of order for Lammy to comment.

Morgan has done a complete U turn on Trump - and Harris. A bizarre, ego inflated commentator.

Cold War - heating up

I am finding it all a tad alarming though.

I do think that we have no alternative but to stand up to Putin, because I am sure he has expansionist plans quietly tucked away.

Doodledog, this is one comment by you that I am in complete agreement with. We cannot know what is going on behind the scenes so our take on events is only based on partial knowledge. You are so right.

I would also like to thank you WWM2 for this informed and rational thread.
I am finding the Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart podcasts The Rest is Politics incredibly helpful in keeping up with the geopolitical situation.

I have read loads of stuff and have answers from IPSA itself. If you ask the right questions you can get up to date answers.

Mollygo

MaisieD
They don’t call it a heating allowance, they claim under expenses.

These are decided by IPSA, members of which are selected by the Speaker of the House of Commons.

Don’t mention clash of interests.

I don't know where you are getting your information from, Mollygo but here is the schedule of the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009 which sets out the membership of IPSA and the method of appointing them.

In fact, this and the next few schedules tell you everything you could possibly wish to know about IPSA and how its proceedings should be carried out.

Perhaps you would like to read them and explain why you think the body is biased?

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2009/13/schedule/1