Apologies for the uneven appearance of sub-headers in this and recent posts, a WordPress issue which they are currently trying to resolve.
Development
“Bats or great crested newts?” “Neither because I want growth.” This was Rachel Reeves in an interview not so long ago. She may as well have said “money” instead of “growth”. Starmer has it in for spiders, compounding these lies with his latest, claiming that in Kent the “dream of home ownership for thousands of families” had been “held back by arachnids.” Later the same day he said that “jumping spiders” had stopped “an entire new town”, adding, “I’ve not made that example up, it’s where we’ve got to.” But in fact he had made it up. It’s a bare-faced lie. The nature versus growth contrapunction argument needs to stop right now. These are complex matters (only some of the proposed homes were affected, 1,300 in fact – set for building on SSSIs – which is not thousands, nor is any number under 2,000, and a small proportion of the 15,000 homes planned), but nature and growth are not mutually exclusive and it is appalling that our government sees fit to pretend to us that they are. In any case, the housing crisis is, in my opinion, a concoction, in the sense that there are over a quarter of a million long-term empty homes in the UK and 102 million square feet of office space or, to put it another way from another source, 617,527 empty buildings, 445,310 residential dwellings and 172,217 commercial buildings. Either way, it’s a lot. Throw the wicked practice of land banking into the mix, and it is obvious that we are being duped. Even the building industry has said that 1.5m homes in by 2029 is an impossible fantasy.
Yesterday evening I attended the Binfield Badger Group AGM. There was a truly excellent talk by David Hammant, wildlife photographer par excellence. See http://www.djhimages.co.uk. He is currently specialising in low light and night time work, but he has been heavily involved in conservation in Africa in particular and the UK, and also runs training workshops. I like to think he has become a friend. Frequently outspoken and provocative, he is an interesting character with a parachute regiment background. He’s a very good speaker and he balanced the talk beautifully between sections on tech and (diminishing) career opportunities for photographers, his work in Africa and his observations on the many badgers and their setts which he has photographed. As he said, badgers do not always read the right textbooks and he suspects there is much behaviour we have assumed to be universal which is actually location specific. Nobody really knows what goes on underground, except by using artificial setts which can hardly be conducive to natural behaviour. He had mentioned what he sees as what can be the pointless ringing and tagging of wildlife and I spoke to him about it afterwards. Why ring a Barn Owl, a nocturnal and non-migratory species? This has long been a concern of mine and although these were somewhat allayed at the British Trust for Ornithology Conference, see here:
Dave spoke of the damage and blood he had seen when birds were caught in seine nets for ringing purposes. Of course much of the information we glean from the data is important, particularly I think on migration patterns, but he contends that there can be an unpleasant element of competition amongst the ringers and sometimes a real lack of care. He also spoke to me about radio collars on big cats, which if left on for too long, as they often are, can lead to serious skin and parasite problems on the animals’ necks. If the animals are harmed, or their behaviour is in any way affected, there can be no justification for it, any more than there can be if animals are disturbed merely for the purposes of a photograph.
He has kindly given me permission to show three of his stunning photographs here, which are of course subject to copyright.
Following a mercifully quick raffle (I hate them, they almost always go on for far too long), the AGM proceeded apace: finances, membership statistics, committee members, the year’s achievements and surveys and so on.
Then came a massive shock, as detailed by the Badger Trust. The government is planning to go many steps further in its desire to eliminate badgers and other wildlife with what would be insanely dreadful new legislation:
Badgers Under Threat: Why the New Planning Bill Spells Disaster for Wildlife
I thought this government was going to strengthen environmental protections, isn’t that what they said, rather than doing away with them altogether? The idea is that badgers and other wildlife are preventing or at least hindering development (of houses we don’t need) and so the bill proposes Environmental Delivery Plans (EDPs) and the establishment of a Nature Restoration Fund. All developers would have to do is pay a Nature Restoration Levy, to be set by Natural England (that emasculated, ineffective, understaffed and massively underfunded body) and a licence to do whatever they want will be “treated as having been granted”. There remains a lack of clarity about this, but in theory it could normalise the killing of badgers and sett interference – and it is not as though enough of this does not go on already, whether under license or illegally in advance of planning applications (if the wildlife has already been obliterated, no number of subsequent ecological surveys is going to make a difference). It really goes without saying that it is not possible to destroy nature in one place and then ‘restore’ it somewhere else, for very many obvious reasons. Are the badgers supposed to wait? But they will get it all wrong anyway. Look at the HS2 fiasco and constant stream of lies and mismanagement.
It’s the usual formula – lobbying by vested interest groups and widescale corruption. And meanwhile the equally pointless badger cull goes on unabated. It is surely time for governments to be properly and legally held accountable for their manifesto promises. There will be no tax rises we were told. Then came the National Insurance contribution increases for employers (who do not actually work according to Starmer). John Major did the same thing, made the same promise, then whacked an extra 5% on VAT as soon as he came to power. It is all more than enough to make one weep with despair.
British Steel
The government also wants to wrest control of British Steel from Chinese company Jingwe, which seems to have no intention other than to let it fall to rack and ruin. It should never have been privatised in the first place in my view, but that’s Maggie Thatcher for you. I am not saying that this proposed takeover is a bad thing. Jingwe had been offered £500,000 of financial support but they demanded £1bn. Not a serious counter-offer.
British Steel currently employs 37,000 people and produces 5.6m tonnes a year, but that is only 0.3% of the global total – China produces 1bn tonnes, 45%. The Scunthorpe plant employs 2,700 people. Steel manufacturing officially began there in 1890. It seems clear that those workers have been extraordinarily dedicated and hard-working and that would be a lot of people out of jobs but Jingye paid just £50m for British Steel in March 2020. We would have to bail the company out to the tune of £700,000 per day just to cover the losses. I honestly don’t know what I think is the right course of action at this point, but isn’t it amazing that there is money available for this, but not a penny to renationalise the water companies? Or not to cut pensioners’ winter fuel bills?
Trump and his tariffs
Meanwhile, on an almost entirely self-interested note, the courier company DHL, with whom we have an account (they are many times better than their rivals) has sent an e-mail announcing that they are having to suspend shipments of any item worth more than $800 to the United States if it is being sold to a private individual:
“From Monday 21 April 2025, and until further notice, we will place a temporary suspension on business-to-consumer (B2C) shipments addressed to private individuals in the U.S. where the declared value exceeds USD 800. Shipments with a declarable customs value below USD 800 are not affected by the suspension.
Please note that business-to-business (B2B) shipments to U.S. companies with a declarable value above USD 800 are not affected by the suspension, though they may also face delays.
As a result, informal (simplified) clearance is no longer possible for these shipments. These shipments are now subject to import customs duties based on the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTSUS), which may include: General Duty Rate, Section 301 duties, and applicable IEEPA duties.
Each of these shipments must now undergo individual formal clearance. Additional information and/or supporting documentation may be required for processing. This could include proof of the goods’ country of origin. Furthermore, all formal entries must include the ultimate consignee’s Tax Identification Number (TIN), which can be either a Social Security Number (SSN) or an Employer Identification Number (EIN), along with supporting documents as needed.”
Trump strikes again. In fact I have noticed that for at least a couple of years any books or other items we have sent to the States over a certain but undefined value have been subject to delay and what has seemed like wilful obstructionism, but this latest means that I will simply not be able to send them to our private customers at all, at least for now. What to do? Invoice and send to a friendly local bookseller and have them sell it on? Or would that be construed as fraudulent? Would a university library or museum be classed as a business or a private concern? The Smithsonian is already under attack. This is not the worst of Trump by a long stretch. Even the first time around there were revelations in the run-up to his presidency that I thought would permanently alienate huge proportions of voters – his comments on women for example, or his mocking of the disabled with spastic hand movements at one of his rallies, or his complete failure as a businessman, even a completely crooked one. Even the tourism industry, which cannot be an insignificant source of national revenue, must surely be suffering hugely? I’ll quote a friend again: “we are witnessing the end of the democratic period in American history.”
We are truly going to hell in a handcart.
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