Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has called for the Dartmoor ponies to be saved from a mass cull at the hands of civil servants. Is it silly season already?
Unaccountable quango Natural England says that livestock grazing on the moor have to be cut by 75% to protect ‘biodiversity.’ Farmers will not be culling their own livestock…
The Dartmoor ponies – semi-wild today – have been present in the area since 3500 BC until coming against Natural England. Nine in ten of them would have to be culled according to the quango’s demands. The ponies also provide crucial grazing and combat invasive species of flora…
Natural England says it’s up to the landowners to carry out its arbitrary demands. Badenoch said this morning:
“This is total madness from another unaccountable quango. The government must overrule Natural England and stop it immediately.
Keir Starmer is on his way to making his last acts in office the shameful underfunding of our military and the mass slaughter of Dartmoor ponies.”
Cull the quangos…
Krishnan Guru-Murthy asked John Healey: “Just finally, I mean Andy Burnham has been very clear he wants Britain back in the European Union in his lifetime. Do you?”
The Chancellor replied: “I’m older than Andy Burnham. I don’t expect to see that.”