Over several surreal days in late September, as the ill-fated Kwasi Kwarteng launched his short-lived mini-budget, the government announced a bewildering range of measures to reach its holy grail of economic growth. These appeared to be aimed squarely at trashing the environment. Ministers proposed to remove all environmental laws inherited from the EU; review (ie, weaken) post-Brexit farm subsidies that were designed to improve soils, alleviate flooding and boost biodiversity; create investment zones with minimal planning regulations; remove rules about river pollution; start fracking, and drill for more oil and gas in the North Sea.
We have since witnessed a series of U-turns and political obituaries but, so far, the government has not performed a handbrake turn on what outraged wildlife charities call an “attack on nature”. Planetary health appears bottom of the government’s overwhelming to-do list. When green-minded Conservatives tell me they have been shedding “tears of rage” at Liz Truss’s proposed bonfire of environmental regulations, you know something’s afoot.
