The RSPB posted this on Twitter yesterday:
The thread of which this was the lead post repeated the claim time and again that the government had lied about its environmental policy.
It is something I agree about.
The latest issue is the reversal on permitting pollution in rivers from new-build housing but the RSPB has made many other accusations.
Having had a reputation as a timid campaigner, the RSPB has suddenly found its mojo.
I welcome that. As a member, I am also quite sure that the RSPB is safe in making its claim: the government has lied on this issue in the way that the RSPB suggests. The government's own watchdog confirms the fact that this is a policy reversal.
So, this is a step forward, and it is now middle England versus the government.
Or rather, middle England vs. whatever government might be in office because I note that Labour has been remarkably quiet about this, as ever.
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The RSPB mention that there had been no previous weakening of environmental protections for decades. Whoever authored the thread clearly made a mistake as I can think of half a dozen
Sadly they stepped right back again by withdrawing the liars comment. I don’t understand why they should be afraid of telling the truth.
It was still there this morning….
Hook up charges have been in use in the USA for a long time and clearly encourage the construction of energy and water efficient buildings
I suggest that we expand them to include energy and surface drainage
The environment is just one aspect of the economy.
Where is the media in all of this, calling out the government?
Dawn Butler, the black woman MP, told the truth when she called Johnson a liar. To speak that truth in the House of Commons is forbidden, so she had to withdraw from the House. Ian Blackford MP, the white male Scot, was told he had to withdraw from the House after he repeatedly syted the truth that Johnson was “misleading” (=lying to) the House. Now the the RSPB states the truth that Sunak, Gove and Coffey are liars. Pontius Pilate mused “What is truth?” before he condemned the troublemaker before him to torture and death. Older readers of this blog will remember the use of the phrase “economical with the truth” in the spycatcher case, and also that when Alan Clark was questioned over the Arms to Iraq case, he substituted avoided the word “truth” with “actualite”*. I suppose the truth is that we cannot speak truth to power and must expect to be told to withdraw the word liar; instead, perhaps we should call our leaders “economists with the actualite”*
(*Sorry, the truth is that I can’t do an accent on the e. Can someone help?)
Mike G:
Typed actualité on my French keyboard so not much help to you I guess. But curious to see if it passes correctly here …
On an iPad keyboard, touch and hold the “e” key to get a choice of modifiers, including “é”.
Eéêë etc
An easy way with diacriticals is to write your response as a Word document and simply click “Insert”, then “Symbols” then click the required diacritical. Once happy with piece simply copy it and paste into this site’s “Reply” function. It works for me.
I googled it and found there is a full list of codes to produce the French and German letter accents. Pressing ‘Alt’ and numeric pad ‘0233’ produces ‘e’ with an accent on a Windows machine. Each letter accent combination has it’s own ‘Alt’ code. I’m not sure how to do it using an Android tablet.
Despite relentless lying being a fundamental characteristic of all authoritarian dictatorships, whether they are ideological, theological or purely criminal, in recent years as lying has become an ever more dominant factor in Western democracies our media has not only totally failed to deal with this existential threat to Democracy but in many cases has been complicit in promoting it.
If somebody time after time repeats lies that by every means available have been shown to be deliberate falsehoods then why report them? Except perhaps to say: Day 231 Trump/Johnson still lying.
Instead we end up with the ridiculous situation where anybody who dares to call a person telling deliberate untruths a liar is accused of uncivilised discourse and forced to recant,
The case of the egregious liar Johnson being a classic example.
Now the RSPB.
I despise this lot and I agree with the RSPB.
But the real truth of the matter though is that environmental controls have been sacrificed on the altar of BREXIT, Truss’s government, high interest rates, inflation, lack of investment and already too meagre regulation.
The RSPB has backed down saying this was inappriopriate on their part
A trustee said so
He is, I note, linked to Tory organisations
RSPB England have said:
“We are in a nature and climate emergency and that demands urgent action. The RSPB is deeply frustrated by the government’s reneging on its environmental promises. But that frustration led us to attack the people not the policy.
This falls below the standard we set ourselves and for that we apologise. We will continue to campaign vigorously on behalf of nature but we will always do so in a polite and considered manner.”
People made the policy
And I think this withdrawal is all due to Tory pressure amongst its trustees
But I am guessing…
So who made the statements about the government policy if it wasn’t Sunak, Gove and Coffey? So who is responsible for lying about their previous commitments to water quality and the environment if it wasn’t those three?
I like the RSPB comment
“We are in a nature and climate emergency and that demands urgent action. The RSPB is deeply frustrated by the government’s reneging on its environmental promises. But that frustration led us to attack the people not the policy. pic.twitter.com/OBnI2IQo4f ”
Is that really apologising? Being clever with words, I think. Those who know what the government is trying to do will understand. I wish somebody really would attack the people.
Policy is created by people, so attacking a policy is by implication attacking the people who created it. Hence the RSPB’s stance hasn’t actually changed – good on them!
Good on the RSPB. I hope they will be brave enough to continue to call out the government.
The lie begins in the legislation when they refer to waste matter as “nutrients” the average person (on the mile end omnibus) would associate “nutrient” with something good for us or the environment.
A brazen example of regulatory framework being twisted for corrupt purposes.
About ten years ago I started to assume that anything said by the tories was a lie. I have now come to the conclusion that when they say something they mean the exact opposite.
I’m an RSPB member and I salute them. Tories policies are a disaster for nature
Good article here.
https://leftfootforward.org/2023/08/michael-gove-gets-rinsed-over-claim-britains-waters-are-cleaner-under-tories/
Government shouldn’t get away with criticising the RSPB, although I notice that some tory MPs want their charitable status to be taken away. If the RSPB can’t be a charity, how can they justify public schools being charities?
Anyone be fitting from charitable status should not be making political comment.
That is not what U.K. law says.
U.K. law specifically permits those with charitable status to make political comment.
The government guidelines say that “Charities can take part in political activity that supports their purpose and is in their best interests.” https://www.gov.uk/guidance/political-activity-and-campaigning-by-charities
That’s interesting. Perhaps those MPs who want charitable status to be taken away from the RSPB should have read their own guidelines before commenting.
I can think of a long list of charities that they would think should lose their status before the RSPB, starting with care4calais and Greenpeace.