Liz truss

The flooding in Cumbria is continuing to cause misery for thousands of people and as often happens in these situations, attention has turned onto whether the government has done enough to protect people. Liz Truss, the Environment Secretary, popped up on the Today programme to defend the government’s flood defence plans. She described what has happened in Cumbria as a ‘devastating situation’, which was the result of an ‘extreme event’: ‘The scale of this was absolutely extraordinary – to have half a metre more of water than we’ve seen before in any of these towns and cities in Cumbria was extraordinary’. Despite ‘an environment where overall the government budget is reducing’ Truss

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/thegreatfakewar/media.mp3″ title=”Fraser Nelson, James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman discussing the Autumn Statement and Spending Review” startat=870] Listen [/audioplayer]The Autumn Statement on 25 November had long been circled in Downing Street diaries as the season’s defining political moment. Its importance only grew after the Lords rejected the government’s tax-credit changes and George Osborne announced that he would present his revised proposals in this statement. But now it is not even seen as the defining political moment of this week, pushed down the news agenda by the terrorist threat in Europe and David Cameron’s decision to make the case to the Commons for Britain extending its anti-Islamic State bombing into Syria.

It’s no surprise that Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet appointments have rattled a few cages – and the choice of Kerry McCarthy as shadow Defra secretary is just one of many. The MP for Bristol East (a city that Anthony Whitehead described a few weeks ago as employing a ‘totalitarian brand of environmental idealism’) has made her views on both meat eating and rural pursuits clear in the past, and has a fair few critics already. It has already been pointed out elsewhere that putting a vegan in charge of representing the farming industry is slightly odd – but then again, vegetarian Hilary Benn was Defra secretary for three years. But that

Those on the left tend to think that British Conservatism is a derivative of US Republicanism. But environmental policy shows that it’s a far more pragmatic mix. The latest Conservative manifesto encompasses George W Bush’s marine conservation ambition and Obama’s selective interventions to raise the pace of clean technology innovation.  This partly reflects the fact that the environment is still a largely non-partisan issue in British politics, but also that Cameron has protected discreet space for Conservative modernisers to bring forward new green ideas. As one of them I’m pleased with the progress we’ve been able to make. The manifesto commits our party to making ‘almost every car a zero

Ten years ago today, Tony Blair’s ban on hunting with dogs came into force. Rural communities had marched, Otis Ferry had stormed the Commons, but none of it made any difference, and anti-hunt campaigners rejoiced when hunting became a banned sport. But though the law has been in place for a decade, the fight for hunting still goes on. Many hunts, especially those based in more urban areas, are still plagued by hunt saboteurs, as was demonstrated just last month when Mike Lane, a Master of the Tedworth Hunt in Wiltshire, was attacked so savagely by saboteurs wielding iron bars that he was knocked out. The Countryside Alliance are now calling for

If you’re going to sell out to the establishment, you might as well do so on an industrial scale. As the PM told the Guido Fawkes blog’s ten -ear anniversary party at the Institute of Directors last night, via video link, ‘what better way’ to celebrate ‘rejecting’ the cosy political classes than a posh dinner of caviar and champagne in the heart of Westminster. Guy Fawkes would have been turning in his grave, as cabinet ministers including Francis Maude and Liz Truss, and mysterious billionaires such as Michael Hintze and Lord Ashcroft, along with 200 of Westminster’s finest, came to pay homage to a decade of sniping from waspish troublemakers.

Two of the brightest rising stars in the Conservative party, Sajid Javid and Liz Truss, addressed the Tory conference. After an angry day yesterday where Grant Shapps and the PM furiously attacked Ukip and their backbench colleagues piled in to savage Mark Reckless, the pair needed to use their slow to re-focus party minds on fighting Labour in the general election. They are both well-equipped for such a task: Javid started his speech with a passage on his values as a British Tory, then moved onto attacking the snobbery he encountered from the Labour Party when he was appointed Culture Secretary, and Ken Livingstone’s comments that he saw Javid as

Much has been made of the political debate at the 2014 CLA Game Fair at Blenheim Palace. The attendance of the new Environment Secretary Liz Truss, Ukip leader Nigel Farage and former Environment Secretary Owen Paterson (less than a week after the government reshuffle) has given rise to a general debate about where the rural constituency, or countryside vote, currently sits on the political map. The CLA is studiously apolitical. It is a membership organisation with more than 33,000 members who together own and manage more than half the rural land in England and Wales and represent over 300 types of rural businesses. Our priority is to represent our members’

Much has been made of the reception that greeted Nigel Farage at the CLA Game Fair on Friday. The punters were far more interested in Nigel Farage than George Eustice, the incumbent Farming Minister, though perhaps things might have been different had Liz Truss turned up instead. When Farage referred to the much-loved Owen Paterson as ‘having been sacked and made a scapegoat for a failed EU policy [on flooding] which led to the flooding in Somerset’, cheers erupted from the tent. Despite the rumpus that Farage’s presence created at the Game Fair, it’s still debatable whether Britain’s presence in the EU is a good thing for the countryside and rural communities. Ross

During Owen Paterson’s vocal conversation with David Cameron in defence of his record as Environment Minister after learning he was being sacked, Paterson reportedly said: ‘this will be a kick in the teeth to 12 million countryside voters… you are making a big mistake’. There is already mounting evidence to suggest Paterson could be right. Judging by the two standing ovations that Paterson went on to receive last Friday at the Game Fair at Blenheim Palace (at the mere mention of his name), Charles Moore commented that ‘you could almost see the disaffected Tory voters fleeing to Ukip across the tent’. Never one to miss an open goal, Farage (mobbed

Today’s reshuffle has been largely about cosmetic improvements to the Conservative party — not just through the promotion of female MPs, but also by neutralising certain policy areas such as education and planning reform that had antagonised some groups. But an important element in any changing of the guard is party management, and not just managing cross sacked ministers. So how has the Conservative party reacted to today’s events? Naturally, all Tory MPs are as startled as everyone else by Michael Gove’s departure. But it does make sense to them. Ministerial colleagues had grown increasingly frustrated that Gove, who polls very badly with the general public, was having fights and