The Changing Politics of British Landscapes

Posted on October 17, 2014 by Miles King

Blood_Hill_wind_farm_1313727678

 

 

 

 

 

It’s fair to say that UKIP’s environmental policies, especially those involving any deep thought or reflection, are hard to find anything other than a little bit silly. And this sense isn’t helped by the antics of their environmental spokesman Dr Earth aka Andrew Charalambous. At least he has now apparently withdrawn the claim that he is a professor of environmental science. I guess this blog does have some influence after all!

One of the more bizarre claims from UKIP is that wind farms are actually going to lead to the total loss of biodiversity and eventually the whole plant will be ripped to shreds by their evil blades. This is what they say:

Apart from devastating the view of serenity and breathtaking scenery of our countryside the rotating blades kill and maim countless of innocent birds even from protected species. Moreover, wind farms emit grotesquely disturbing noise pollution which petrifies so many small animals causing them to abandon their historical habitat. In addition, the various oils and greases used by the turbines contribute to the imbalance of our ecosystems.

Now aside from the fact that this appears to have been translated by google translator, the idea that the turbine oils and greases are a significant threat to our ecosystems, compared to say, fracking, or indeed pretty anything else, what it does indicate is that UKIP do really care about Landscapes. Time and again they talk about our precious countryside, breathtaking scenery, marvellous views and so on. Charalambous again:

The environment is and should be sacred. That is why we need to protect our countryside, the most breathtaking on mother Earth not only from development but wind farms too.

This can also be seen in UKIP’s preference for brownfield development, and protection of the green belt at all costs. I am not convinced all within UKIP understand the difference between greenfield and greenbelt, at least not at the lofty level of UK spokesman. But there are plenty within UKIP who do understand this difference and some are in influential places.

Stephen Crowther is chairman of UKIP. Some say he is the real power behind the Farage puppet with his arm stuck up it pulling the strings. I think I did hear Farage say “gottle of geer gottle of geer” on the BBC one day last week.  Not much is known about his past other than he is from North Devon, went into PR and journalism and returned to Devon. Interestingly he was an active Lib Dem before going UKIP and was also active in the North Devon CPRE group, where he came to prominence helping to run an anti wind farm campaign. He rose out of nowhere to become UKIP chair. As chair of UKIP he has been apparently ruthless in his actions,. This from Tom Pride

According to UKIP insiders, the real power behind UKIP is not Farage, but party chairman Steve Crowther.

Crowther’s a bit of a mystery. He appeared out of the blue in UKIP circles only around 5 years ago and rapidly rose to take a top position in UKIP.

What we do know is that he is a former journalist, political spin doctor, PR expert, and marketing executive – who has been described by UKIP insiders as a “svengali-like” figure and a “man of mystery”.

As a former journalist and PR executive, Crowther is unsurprisingly the mouthpiece for UKIP. He sends regular emails to UKIP representatives and candidates instructing them in great detail what they can and cannot say in public and to the press.

And anyone who doesn’t toe Crowther’s line is summarily disciplined or even sacked.

Crowther decides who becomes a candidate, who is allowed to become a member and who remains a member of the party – a power he is not afraid to ruthlessly wield.

Oh and before he took over UKIP, Crowther used to be an activist in the Liberal Democrats.

I wonder if Douglas Carswell knows he’s now become the underling of a ruthless and autocratic former Lib Dem?

Crowther is standing as the UKIP candidate against the Lib Dem incumbent for North Devon in the General Election. He could win.

It just happens that CPRE are running a campaign called “waste of  space” asking members of the public to tell them about unused brownfield sites where houses can be built. And this is just what UKIP are also calling for, through a UK Brownfield Agency. Brownfield is shorthand for previously developed land, which can include land that was previously used for industry. Of course it depends how far you go back, but some of the “pristine landscapes” beloved of CPRE and UKIPPERS are of course, post industrial landscapes. The Dartmoor upland landscape has been fundamentally shaped by the milliennia old Tin Industry for example.

Another landscape where UKIP are already having a great influence is the Peak District. The Chair of the Peak District National Park Authority is a key role, highly influential and especially at this time as they are recruiting their new Chief Executive. Chair of the PDNPA is Lesley Roberts, who has been on the NPA for a number of years. I believe she first joined as a Lib Dem district councillor (most NPA members are drawn from the local councils). Although her seat on the NPA is now via her Parish Council, she recently stood as a UKIP candidate in a local council election. the PDNPA is, to my knowledge, the first major statutory body chaired by a UKIP person.

So here we have another ex Lib Dem activist, moving to UKIP, who is very concerned and clearly very well versed in landscape protection.

Bill Cash was one of those Eurosceptic MPs who made life hell for that nice Mr Major during the early 90s. Now his son, William Cash, has become UKIP’s heritage spokesman. Cash Minor lives in the family pile in Shropshire. Cash has done very well running a magazine for the uber wealthy called Spear’s. I guess now he wants to get into politics. Cash’s all for protecting our precious heritage, countryside the green belt and so on. Or he is self interested in promoting the heritage industry, as would appear to be the case from his website , where you can “buy in” to the aristocratic lifestyle, if you’re wealthy enough. Only for the weekend mind.

Finally, one of the key funders of UKIP is a swiss banker ( I kid you not) called Henry Angest. Again, not much is known about him, but he owns a Bank, which owns a business which makes a lot of money out of lending unsecured loans to people in financial trouble. It’s not Wonga. It’s called Everyday Loans. He also has influence, and recently was embroiled in a bit of a story about Esther McVey accepting a donation from him, when she was Minister for cutting benefits. Just the sort of people who might have to go to nice Mr Angest for a loan, at 80% interest.

Mr Angest is also interested in the landscape, especially the Scottish landscape, of which I understand he owns quite a large chunk. But I suspect he is more interested in less regulation and lower taxes for businesses. Andy Wightman’s piece on Angest is well worth reading in full, here. Angest has given over £7M to the Tory party before starting to fund UKIP.

What can we conclude from all this anecdote, heresay, and hard evidence?

UKIP are most certainly interested in landscape and protecting it from allcomers – and I expect there will be quite a few CPRE members around the country who will be voting UKIP next May. While many people will be thinking UKIP speaks for them, in truth, far from being the People’s Army, UKIP are a clique of the mega wealthy, the landed gentry, and political opportunists who have jumped ship from the Lib Dems and Tories.

Do we really want them to impose on us what landscapes, or any other “British” values, that they cherish?

Remember, this has all happened before: read Simon Sharma’s Landscape and Memory ,to understand how a sense of identity, linked to values of landscape, can be corrupted.

 

 

Windfarm photo by Jon Blathwayt (Winterton Wind Turbines) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

Posted in brownfield, landscape, the far right, UKIP, wind farms | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Owen Paterson calls for the use of nuclear submarines to power the UK

Posted on October 11, 2014 by Miles King

1280px-Valiant_class_submarine_1986

 

 

 

 

Owen Paterson wants the UK to run on electricity from Nuclear Submarines

Owen Paterson is a bit of a submarine himself these days. He goes under, for weeks at a time, then pops up, fires off a few choice quotes (mostly climate change denial, Green Blob paranoia or anti-Europe) and disappears again.

He’s just surfaced and fired a torpedo.

No surprises that the Telegraph gets the juicy titbits from Owen Paterson’s forthcoming speech to the Global Warming Policy Lobbying Outfit, or whatever they have decided to call themselves now they have split the “charitable” activities out from the all-out Fossil fuel funded lobbying that Lord Lawson and his cronies have been up to for the past 7 years. Except perhaps the Mail would have been a more attractive prospect to place the story, given its much larger readership. Never mind.

No surprises that Paterson is using the speech to call for the Climate Change Act to be suspended or scrapped, if everyone else doesn’t also do what the UK has committed to doing through the Act, reducing our Carbon emissions by 80% by 2050.

No surprises that Paterson is scaremongering like billyo about it, warning the lights will be going out if we don’t abandon our commitments to act on climate change. And no surprises that he is advocating a new Dash for Gas – Shale Gas.

These are givens, all the things we come to expect from OPatz. The man who refused to take a brief from his chief scientist, instead preferring cosy fireside (coal fire I imagine) chats with his Brother in Law the Irrational Optimist Viscount Matt Ridley.

But there are a few surprises in the leaked items from his speech to the denialist faithful. Paterson is going, apparently, to advocate using small nuclear power plants, akin to the ones used to power nuclear submarines, dotted about all over the country. Where would Paterson put all these reactors? Since so many high security military bases where the reactors could have been stored safely, have been sold off, I’m not sure having loads of small nuclear power stations dotted about the country is such a good idea; terrorists may feel they are being encouraged to take advantage.

If I have read the article correctly, these nuclear reactors, or the heat from them, will be used to heat Combined Heat and Power systems…but heat can only travel short distances economically. So I guess Paterson is suggesting all these small nuclear reactors are placed within our large towns and cities. I’m not sure this has been entirely thought through.

Paterson then drops a real bombshell. We will have to get used to “demand management” where clever switches will turn off our freezers and other electrical stuff for a couple of hours a day. Demand management, from the arch neoliberal free marketeer? Really?

I am now wondering if someone has been masquerading as Paterson in some sort of satire. Perhaps it’s a friend of Banksy’s. Perhaps the whole thing is some sort of Banksy-esque performance art satire. We can but hope.

Of course we are only hearing the parts of the speech that Paterson and his denialist chums want us to hear at the moment. I expect when the speech has been made, and Nigel Farage et al are applauding him and beckoning him over into the UKIP camp, we will hear the parts of the speech that are more typical climate denial grandstanding we have come to expect from Paterson. We will hear that the fabled global warming pause is old enough to vote, etc etc.

With the Tory Party fraying at the seams in the run up to the election, having Paterson shooting from the lip stage right might annoy Cameron et al just enough for them to sack him, or start briefing against him.

There’s still time to do a Reckless Owen!

 

Photo from Wikimedia Commons (U.S. Defenseimagery.mil photo VIRIN: DN-SN-86-06573)

Posted in climate change, Denialists, Global Warming Policy Foundation, Matt Ridley, neoliberalism, Owen Paterson | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Thought Spending Cuts were to reduce Public Debt? Think again

Posted on October 10, 2014 by Miles King

Last week David Cameron told the Tory Conference that under the Coalition the country was “paying down its debt.” This, after all, we are told is the reason why we have had to endure:

The worst cuts in public services in many decades – £800M off the Defra budget between 2010 and 2016

and

Privatisations such as The Royal Mail, large parts of the NHS, and selling off publicly owned land for private profit

But hold on – what’s this?

debt letter

 

 

 

 

 

The Public Sector Net Debt increased by nearly 50% during this Parliament!

So if all these cuts and privatisations are not about reducing the public debt, then what are they about?

George Osborne made it very clear last week at a Question and Answer session at the Institute of Directors, when he made a brazen attack on Charities who he cast as “anti-business”and urged business leaders to  help him “win this argument for an enterprising, business, low-tax economy that delivers prosperity for the people and generations to come.”

Osborne, the son of a Baronet and personally worth well over £4 Million , is not in the slightest bit interest in delivering prosperity for “the people”, unless they are his “people”. The disparity between the richest and poorest has grown under this Government to its largest since the Second World War. The top 10% in the UK own nearly half all of its private wealth, while the top 1% own as much as the poorest 55% and are getting wealthier at an increasing rate.

Is there any real surprise then, that with politicians like this, voters are voting against politics by supporting populists like UKIP.

Thanks To @LabourEoin for publishing this on twitter.

 

Posted in David Cameron, public debt, spending cuts, Tory Party, UKIP | Tagged , | 3 Comments

Will “The Usual Suspects” fund Owen Paterson’s new Dummy Tank UK/2020?

Posted on October 6, 2014 by Miles King

dummy-tank

 

 

 

a dummy tank

Two and a half years ago I wrote about the Art of Deception, and Operation Fortitude, where inflatable tanks were used to fool the Germans into thinking that D-Day would be an invasion of the Pas de Calais, not Normandy. It is still one of the greatest acts of deception in Military history.

I suggested in that article that some Thinktanks might be as deceiving as the inflatable tank in the photo, because it is impossible to tell who funds them, and therefore who they represent. Recently more previously secret funders of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, have been revealed. This outfit set up specifically to challenge the science behind human-induced climate change, it turns out, is funded by Neil Record and Lord Nigel Vinson (who sounds strangely like Lord Nigel Lawson). These two characters are also funders and Trustees of the neoliberal thinktank the Institute for Economic Affairs, the IEA. The IEA represent Tobacco Industry interests and also campaigns against climate change action, so it’s not surprise that IEA trustees should be helping, in the deep background, support GWPF.  Another major donor to GWPF is billionaire hedge fund owner Michael Hintze, who is a massive Tory party donor – oh and a major donor to the IEA.

Now who do you think would set up a new neoliberal thinktank, to promote Britain leaving the EU, freeing itself from targets for action on climate change? Who would set up “a new research unit to develop a radical conservative vision for a prosperous, sovereign and socially just United Kingdom in 2020.”

Yes! Back from the wilderness! Turning the spotlight on the Tory Backwoods – it’s Opatz, the return!

Owen Paterson is setting up a new Dummy tank, UK/2020, to promote exactly the same things as the IEA, The Taxpayers Alliance, the Centre for Policy Studies and the Adam Smith Institute. Paterson recently said action on climate change “may actually be causing” more damage than climate change – yes he actually said that. It’s straight of the GWPF quote book.

Although he continues to deny any plans to defect to UKIP, he sees them as “natural allies”.

Indeed. UKIP’s combination of climate change denial, deregulation, support for big agriculture, hatred of windfarms and paranoia about the contamination of their “precious bodily fluids” would chime very well with Paterson’s view of the world.

Expect UK/2020 to advocate the NFU position, climate change denial, anti-environmentalism, dredging, deregulation, very small government, fracking, GMOs, mega industrial agriculture, wildlife killing (for fun or profit, or even better – both), biodiversity offsetting, and all the other things Paterson worked to promote during his time as Secretary of State against the Environment. As Arch Grand Masters of the Neoconoids, Paterson will probably be more politically influential heading up this dummy tank, no doubt branded as representing “the ordinary person in the street”, as he was at Defra.

Paterson is reported to have already raised several hundred thousand pounds of funding. From where, we do not know. But I can think of a few names who may well be happy to put a hundred k into a new pot to advocate against action on climate change. Record, Hintze, Vinson….

Posted in anti-environmental rhetoric, Astroturfing, corporate lobbying, deregulation, Neoconoids, neoliberalism, Owen Paterson, Think Tanks, UKIP | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Tory Constituency Candidates: of the people, by the people, for the people?

Posted on October 4, 2014 by Miles King

Here’s an interesting little insight into the inner workings of the Tory party, thanks to Conservative Home website.

Hertsmere constituency is one of the safest Tory seats in the Country. They need to choose a new Tory Candidate as James Clappison is standing down. The local conservative association has gone for a shortlist of four candidates:

1. Antonia Cox: A City of Westminster Council Councillor, former Banking Correspondent for the Telegraph, former Leader writer for the Standard, She has worked for the Neoliberal thinktank Centre for Policy Studies and is Director of a new Free School.

2. Oliver Dowden. Following a very similar line to Alex Deane, Dowden is currently 2nd in command in David Cameron’s personal team of advisors. Dowden worked in the Public Affairs industry, or Corporate Lobbyists as they are more commonly known.

3. Chris Hayward. Hayward is actually an active local politician, as deputy leader of Hertfordshire County Council, so he would know where his constituency was and what the issues were there. But he is also a Common Councilman of the Corporation of London (just like Deane) and runs a property investment firm. This vignette from the Corporation website tells us a little more about him:

“Chris is married to Alexandra. They have two young children and live in Sarratt, Hertfordshire and the City of London. He is Deputy Leader of Hertfordshire County Council.

 In the City Chris has been Churchwarden at St Margaret Pattens and the Chairman of the Trustees of the Friends of St Margaret Pattens. Currently Chris is Immediate Past Chairman of the Broad Street Ward Club, a member of the Candlewick and Farringdon Ward Clubs,  Life Member of the City Branch of the Royal Society of Saint George and a member of the Guild of Freemen.

 Chris is a member of the Carlton Club and Walbrook Clubs in London and a member of the Leander Club and Phyllis Court Clubs both in Henley-on-Thames. He is also currently Master of the Worshipful Company of Pattenmakers.”

Hayward was eligible to stand for election as a Common Councilman because he owns a flat in the city, and won the election with 82 votes out of 455 cast – 18% of the vote.

4. Rishi Sunak. Sunak worked for an activist hedge fund called the Childrens Investment Fund TCI, and other hedge funds. TCI was set up to channel profits from aggressive investments into charitable work in the developing world. Last year TCI didn’t give any of its £2.3Bn annual profits to charity.

Sunak now works for Catamaran Ventures, a family hedge fund.  He heads up neoliberal Thinktank Policy Exchange‘s Black and Minority Ethnic research unit. He has founded a free school. He is also the son in law of one of India’s richest men, Infosys founder Narayana Murthi.

Looking at this you could see a simple scoring system on a few criteria:

  • Set up a free school? score 2 points.
  • City of London Common Councillor? score 2 points.
  • Worked in the city? score 1 point.
  • Extremely wealthy: score 5 points.
  • Worked for a Neoliberal thinktank? score 3 points.
  • Member of the Carlton Club? score 1 point.
  • Worked for David Cameron’s personal team? score 1 point.
  • Worked in the tory press? score 1 point (leader writer score 2).
  • Worked as a corporate lobbyist? score 1 point.

I wonder whether this approach could be applied to any other Tory candidate selection processes.

 

Posted in General Election 2015, politics, Tory Party | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

De Mauley’s maturity shows up former boss Paterson

Posted on October 3, 2014 by Miles King

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Prince Charles speaks at the Reversing The Trend Conference on meadows (c) Miles King

Earlier in the Summer I helped organise a conference on the plight of wildlife-rich grasslands, especially wildflower meadows. Plantlife, Rare Breeds Survival Trust and the Wildlife Trusts came together and Prince Charles gave the keynote speech, which was a heartfelt and compelling call for society to value these treasures and not lose any more.

Lord De Mauley (looking intently at the Prince in the photo above) spoke for the Government. He spoke mostly about the National Pollinator Strategy and how important it was for us all to look after the bees and other pollinators, which is absolutely right. He didnt talk much about meadows, and gave standard Government responses to questions about agri-environment schemes, regulation, greening and other topics.

I thought he handled the answers well, didn’t give anything away, but did so with the easy charm and affability of someone from the aristocracy, much like his predecessor Richard Benyon (though he is not technically an aristo). I did get the impression that De Mauley was listening to all the points being made in the discussion.

So I was pleased to see him very overtly distance himself from his former boss Owen Paterson, at the Tory Party Conference. Asked what he thought of Owen Paterson’s deranged attack on The Green Blob after his sacking, De Mauley said

“I am not Owen Paterson,” he said. “Owen is an honest guy who says what he thinks but we shouldn’t be afraid of constructive challenge. If it wasn’t for constructive challenge we would make the wrong decisions.

“I think members of what I like to call the green lobby do us a service and they have shown us what is possible with lobbying. There are lessons some of us – on all sides – could learn lessons from that.”

This shows to me that De Mauley is a mature politician, who listens to sensible advocacy even if it does not chime with either his own personal views, or is at odds with his Defra briefings. It doesn’t mean he will necessarily do anything different as a result of course, but at least it is worth trying, whereas it was abundantly clear from his first day in office that it was pointless trying to influence Paterson, as he already knew all the answers.

 

Posted in bees, Defra, Friends of the Earth, Lord de Mauley, meadows, Neoconoids, Owen Paterson, Prince Charles, Richard Benyon | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Clacton blank Banksy and parody themselves in the process

Posted on October 2, 2014 by Miles King

Banksy

It is a great story. Banksy paints this image of plucky British (English) pigeons protesting against an exotic looking migratory bird – a swallow perhaps. Are the pigeons feral?

Tendring Council, in the Clacton constituency which will be voting in the first UKIP MP in a week’s time, receive a complaint from the public that there was offensive graffiti on the town’s boathouse. Was it a UKIP voter unhappy at the metaphor of UKIP Pigeons  – or was it a complaint from the English Indigenous Bird Defence League?

Not realising they had a real life Banksy which would be “worth a lot of money”, they sent in an operative to remove it. It’s been painted over, destroyed. Perhaps Banksy is pleased. The art existed, arguably still exists, even though it has been destroyed.

Once the council realised they have just lost their town huge Banksy-kudos, not to mention half a million pounds, then invited Banksy back, but only on condition he paints something “appropriate”.

Nigel Brown, Tendring’s Comms manager said “We would obviously welcome an appropriate Banksy original on any of our seafronts and would be delighted if he returned in the future.” Do Comms managers have their sense of satire removed before being allowed into job? What would an appropriate Banksy look like and wouldn’t that destroy the whole idea of Banksy.

There are so many layers of irony running through this story that it would be shame to dissect them. But the combination of mindless political correctness, satirical political art, the obsession with commodifying everything and the febrile political debate around national identity, is a very heady one.

Parallels are sometimes drawn between conservationists’ attitudes towards alien invasive species, and xenophobic attitudes towards foreign people. Gardeners Question Time was recently criticised for being a hot bed of repressed nationalism, even fascism.

I think if Banksy had drawn that parallel, ie put a Ring-neck Parakeet on the wire, for example, instead of a swallow, that might have made a lot of people, including conservationists, feel rather uncomfortable.

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I went for walk the other day along the Frome Valley, on the edge of Dorchester. There are number of streams and this one had masses of Himalayan balsam along the bank. It often gets pulled up as an invasive alien, even though there is no evidence that it has a deleterious effect on native wildlife. This stand had survived and was still flowering prodigiously, with the fantastic weather we have had. It was absolutely covered in bumble and honey bees.

 

Posted in alien invasive species, UKIP | Tagged , | 12 Comments

Boris Calls for CAP to be scrapped: Farmers warn this will cause the sun to explode

Posted on October 1, 2014 by Miles King

From Farmers Weekly:

“Boris Johnson calls for CAP to be scrapped

Philip Case
Tuesday 30 September 2014 09:00
Boris Johnson

London Mayor Boris Johnson has called for the CAP to be scrapped.

In a letter to the Daily Telegraph, Mr Johnson said he agreed with Ukip there was a “need to scrap the Common Agricultural Policy, which costs every family £400/year in extra food costs”.

Mr Johnson included the controversial plan in a wishlist of reforms he would like to see if the UK were to continue its membership within the European Union.

See also: Read more news on: CAP reform

He set out his proposals for EU reform in a speech dubbed the “Boris Rally” at a fringe meeting at the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham on Monday (29 September).

Mr Johnson said it would be “easy” for the UK to leave the EU and sign up to a free-trade agreement.

He told delegates: “In an ideal situation, I would like to see a reformed EU where we remain squarely at the heart.”

But he said if the UK were to leave the EU, it would be “very easy to set up a free-trade, tariff-free zone”.

In an interview with the BBC last November, Mr Johnson attacked the CAP, labelling it as an “anomaly” and an “anachronism”.

Mr Johnson has been selected as the Conservative candidate in the safe Tory seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip at next year’s general election. He has already said he will not seek a third term as London Mayor in 2016.

His selection as prospective MP has added fuel to speculation that his goal is to replace David Cameron as Conservative Party leader.

In 2013, European farmers received a total of £49bn in farm payments provided by the CAP – roughly 43% of the total EU budget of £104bn.

France received the largest share of the budget (about 17%) and the UK netted 7%.”

Naturally Farmers have warned that scrapping the CAP will cause food riots, cause millions of children in Africa to starve, and generally lead to a breakdown in civilisation and the end of life on earth. Alright, maybe I exaggerate a little.

This is hardly new news of course. Johnson has been calling for the CAP to be scrapped for some time, including back in February in the same august organ, the Telegraph.

Posted in agriculture, Boris Johnson, Common Agricultural Policy, NFU | Tagged , | Leave a comment

The strange case of Dr Earth and the UKIP environment policies

Posted on September 30, 2014 by Miles King

Dr._Strangelove jpeg

Dr Strangelove

Curious to discover whether UKIP could justify new(ish) recruit Mark Reckless’ position on the protection of Lodge Hill (he is currently for its protection), I went in search of their environmental policies. I had already subjected myself to “ordeal by UKIP agriculture policy“, and the scars having nearly healed, I braced myself to read what they had to say about nature, wildife and so on.

It doesnt start well. The Environment in UKIP land is a subset of Housing. I suppose the thinking behind this is that farmland is for farming, and everything else is for housing, so the environment is where houses are built. Perhaps I’m overinterpreting here.

I was also intrigued by the UKIP slogan “vote purple keep The UK (represented by the Union flag) green.” Are UKIP now trying to grab the “greenest government ever” trophy from the LibCon coalition.

Their housing and environment spokesman is Andrew Charalambous, who is, variously, a Barrister, a Colonel to the Governor of Kentucky, a trooper in the Territorial Light Cavalry, and a Knight Grand Commander of the Byzantine Order of Holy Sepulchre.  He claims to be descended from Roman Emperors, Norman Kings and the Doges of Venice, styled himself Doctor Earth, and set up an Eco Club, which entailed clubbers flying to Ibiza for their green club experience. Friends of the Earth got very cross when Charalambous tried to associate their name and logo with his antics.

You can read all about Dr Earth’s beliefs here on his facebook page. It is quite strange. He says he has completed one of the profoundest spiritual journeys in history. I find it a bit odd that someone who is as enlightened as Jesus or Buddha would end up as UKIP’s housing spokesman, but I understand the path to enlightenment is full of temptations, dead ends and traps.

Charalambous is also a property developer and private landlord, owning over a thousand properties. So he should know something about housing and the private rented sector in particular. He has profited greatly from it, earning over £750,000 from housing benefit paid via tenants to his properties in Haringey, North London, many of them immigrants.

But he is also, according to this wikipedia page, a Professor of Environmental Sciences at the Universitas Sancti Cyrillus, which also  bestowed upon him a Doctorate of Divinity. This University is based in Valletta, Malta, and is closely linked to the Byzantine Order of Holy Sepulchre, in which Charalambous is a Knight Grand Commander.

I was curious to find out more about the University of St Cyril, but there was little information, other than its own promotional websites. Until I found it listed here and here with other degree mills and bogus universities. Could this really be true?

Anyway, enough about UKIP’s colourful environment spokesman: what of their policies?

Well on climate, we know about UKIP – but they are keen to stop banging on about carbon and start tackling other issues, like the culling of the Amazon Rainforest. Is that like Badger Culling, but hotter?

They will bring in Clean Streets inspectors, with powers to fine councils who fail to keep their streets clean. And ensure at least one dustbin per every 3 residents; presumably this will help all Dr Earth’s tenants to clean up their front gardens.

UKIP love trees – just as the BNP and other Fascist organisations do, especially Oaks. UKIP wants to reforest Britain, so I guess they support George Monbiot’s re-wilding campaign. George will be delighted to receive such high profile support, especially from Dr Earth. According to UKIP deforestation causes lung cancer, not smoking. I wonder if they got confused with the pro-smoking astroturf outfit called FOREST. Its a complicated business and there must be so little time available for Dr Earth to study all this, in between running his housing empire, raking in housing benefit, being a Professor in Malta and a Colonel in Kentucky.

UKIP would ban all tree-felling and provide a 100% grant for tree planting, including labour AND make it tax-deductible (eh?) for individuals and businesses. Trees according to UKIP make the soil less acid and more calcium rich (it’s magic) “causing more prolific carbon sink”.

UKIP want cleaner rivers, and to achieve this they will create a “Marine Environment Corps” which will go round collecting rubbish.  Tougher fines from polluters will fund the corps. UKIP will also insist on shampoo bottles having labels warning consumers of the nasty chemicals inside.

On our declining wildlife habitats UKIP is clear what the problems are, unclean water and rubbish.

“Our priority is to preserve the wildlife habitat of endangered species, particularly by replenishing sources of clean drinking water required for their survival.”

Finally – the missing piece of the jigsaw. Our wildlife is disappearing because it doesnt have access to clean drinking water. Even the plants. It reminds me of Dr Strangelove and the paranoia that the Ruskies were intent on poisoning “our precious bodily fluids“.

UKIPs Wildlife Rangers (paramilitary?) will scour the country collecting “inappropriate refuse” which can trap or injure birds of animals. UKIP are worried about wild plants and would commission an investigation into which ones are threatened – which is something we could really do with. And already have. They also mention amending Section 13B of the Wildlife and Countryside Act, which doesn’t exist.

On greenbelt, UKIP is immovable. The Green belt is “effectively the lungs of Great Britain“. The green belt shall never be surrendered. Dr Earth is worried

“We breach the green belt. We start with the shrub lands. Where do we draw the line? Who makes the assessment as to what is to be kept green and what is to be concreted”

Who could resist the call to stand shoulder to shoulder with Dr Earth if the green belt was breached and the shrub lands were lost? Not I.

UKIP have probably the strongest brownfield first policy of all the parties, and here stand shoulder to shoulder with CPRE. That must make their Chief Exec Labour man Shaun Spiers very uncomfortable.

I will leave you to explore the remoter corners of Mr Charalambous’ website, in search of nuggets of green inspiration.

What can we tell from this rambling, shambolic hotchpotch of paranoia, fantasy and ignorance? Dr Earth’s take on the environment has a distinctively new-age tinge to it, combined with a barely hidden authoritarian urge to create quasi-military eco-squads, planting trees, fining litter bugs and preventing the contamination of the drinking water. This is coupled with the usual anti EU, anti immigrant and anti climate change positions that are well known, and a smattering of “the market knows best” neoliberalism.

I wonder if Mark Reckless has read this stuff – after all Dr Earth will soon be visiting Lodge Hill with him to expound on the virtues of building houses on Brownfield land.

 

 Photo of Dr Strangelove from the Film by Directed by Stanley Kubrick, distributed by Columbia Pictures [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
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Weird: UKIP is now the main political party defending Lodge Hill from development.

Posted on September 28, 2014 by Miles King

Who would have thought that Mark Reckless, MP for Rochester, including Lodge Hill SSSI, would have defected to UKIP? Well I certainly did, just a couple of weeks ago. He had been on the fence between the Tories and UKIP for quite a while, as I noted back in March.

What is really interesting to me, is that all the main parties in Rochester, at the Local Council level, voted in favour of destroying Lodge Hill for development. The Medway Planning Committee voted unanimously in favour of the development. The leader of the Medway Labour group, Vince Maple, has been perhaps the most vociferous supporter of the Lodge Hill development, arguing with RSPB’s Martin Harper on the Today programme only a few days ago. I have asked Labour shadow Defra team if they will commit to revoking the planning permission for Lodge Hill – silence from them. But they have committed to building up to 200,000 new homes per year by 2020.

Mark Reckless, who had previously railed against the SSSI notification, is now opposed to it. Mark Reckless is now the UKIP candidate for Rochester and Strood in the forthcoming byelection. Reckless has mentioned the Lodge Hill debacle in his reasons for leaving the Tories. He said, in front of the UKIP Conference yesterday:

“In particular we promised to do away with Labour’s top-down housing targets that forced us to concrete over our green fields.

Yet, now I find that, under government pressure, our Conservative council in Medway is increasing its housing target from the annual 815 we had under Labour, to at least 1,000 every year.

Despite the promised EU referendum, it is assumed that current rates of open door EU immigration will continue for at least twenty years.

In my constituency that means they are giving permission to build 5,000 houses in a bird sanctuary on the Hoo Peninsula, despite it having the highest level of environmental protection as a Site of Special Scientific Interest. If that goes ahead, where will it stop?

I promised to protect our rural Hoo Peninsula. I cannot keep that promise as a Conservative. I can keep it as UKIP.”

So there we have it. Apart from the Greens, UKIP is now the party who say they will protect Lodge Hill SSSI, while Labour, the Libdems and the Tories, have all voted to destroy it through housing development. Now that is a turn up for the books.

There was another slightly less bizarre twist in the saga earlier this week, when Eric Pickles, disqualified himself from deciding whether to call in the Lodge Hill planning permission, to be determined at a public inquiry. Why? because Pickles is an RSPB member, and RSPB is one of the organisations calling for the call in. This seems overly cautious to me, but perhaps DCLG are looking ahead to the possibility that any decision to call in the planning permission might be challenged by the developers Land Securities, through Judicial Review. Who knows.

What it means is that one of the other planning ministers will make the decision. I would put my money on the decision being made by Minister of State Brandon Lewis. What can we deduce from Lewis’ previous form?

Well one thing stands out, and it is that Lewis is front and centre of the Government’s deregulation agenda, removing “red tape” or regulatory protection of public benefits as it is also known. A recent consultation was slipped out on 31st July, with a response deadline of 26th September, neatly removing any opportunity for MPs to debate them. These include

An end to EU gold-plating

Today’s proposals would remove the unnecessary gold-plating an EU directive which slow down the process, by reducing the numbers of homes and other urban development proposals that would be screened unnecessarily for environmental impact assessments. This would reduce both the cost and time taken to get planning permission for these projects.

Now you can tell this consultation was really rushed out by the basic grammatical errors in it.

Far from protecting communities or giving them more say in how their local decides on new housing, the proposed amendments will do precisely the opposite.

At present, residential, urban or industrial development proposals which cover an area of more than 0.5ha requires the local planning authority to carry out a screening decision. This means that planners have to consider whether the development is likely to have a significant effect on the environment. The environment here means everything from traffic, emissions, light and noise through to nature and landscape impacts. If, having carried out this initial screening process, the Council decide they think the development might have a significant effect on the environment, they can require the developer to prepare an Environmental Impact Assessment. This is usually a large tome, produced by Environmental Consultants. They can be very expensive, and it has been joked that the cost is by weight of the documents, on account of some Consultants padding out their EIAs by copying out whole tranches of legislation, unnecessarily adding hundreds of pages and kilos of extra paper.

The current threshold for triggering a screening decision is 0.5ha, or about an acre. The Government propose to increase that by ten times, to 5ha.  This means that housing developments below 150 units would not require screening.

I would suggest that a 150 house housing development would be quite likely to have an environmental impact. The Government says only 20% of planning applications which led to an EIA found likely significant effect, and on this basis it is gold plating of the Directive. I would suggest that a 20% hit rate was remarkably high and a sign of success. But is that really the point? The EIA mechanism is there to help local communities identify the Impacts of Development on the Environment. If they no longer have the power to do that for areas below 5ha or 150 houses, it means that those impacts are more likely to be approved in ignorance.

Still, Lewis is aware that the National Planning Policy Framework places reasonably good protection on SSSIs like Lodge Hill, and will be aware that Medway Council rode roughshod through these policies to approve the planning application. Hopefully he will decide that he has no option but to call in the Lodge hill planning permission.

 

 

 

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