{"id":5930,"date":"2014-03-12T08:22:44","date_gmt":"2014-03-12T08:22:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=5930"},"modified":"2014-03-12T08:22:44","modified_gmt":"2014-03-12T08:22:44","slug":"when-quality-meets-the-common-woman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2014\/03\/12\/when-quality-meets-the-common-woman\/","title":{"rendered":"When Quality meets the common (wo)man"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two great stories this week about Quality meeting representatives of the common (wo)man.<\/p>\n

One such was the Federation of Cumbria Commoners<\/a> which was holding its\u00a0AGM<\/a> at Newton Rigg agricultural college near Penrith, where they encountered environmentalist George Monbiot (Stowe, Brasenose Oxford & The Guardian), who tried to explain his re-wilding, anti-sheep policies that would return the Lake District to what he claims is nature.\u00a0 Unsurprisingly, GM got short shrift, as the Independent<\/a> (and Spectator blog) entertainingly recounted.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, another representative of Quality fared somewhat better. \u00a0After his difficult January visit to Somerset to see the flooding, Defra Secretary of State Owen Patterson (Radley, Corpus Christi Cambridge & Freeman of the City of London) got a much more positive reception from the representatives of ordinary folk (and a few county landowners) this time<\/a> around.\u00a0 This was unsurprising as he went clutching taxpayer subsidies designed to show how much the government cares. \u00a0Always a winning strategy, of course \u2013 even if it involves dredging, which not everyone (including GM) thinks is<\/em> much of a strategy.<\/p>\n

If only GM could persuade the tax-payer (and sheep-farmer) to get wild about re-wilding. \u00a0Unlikely, I'd say. \u00a0A few years back it nearly happened when foot and mouth disease in Cumbria almost reached the high fell sheep. \u00a0Had it done so, and the animals' hefted<\/em> nature been lost, then re-wilding might have been the cheapest (though surely not the best-value) option. \u00a0The problem with re-wilding in the Lakes is that it favours bracken (and rank grasses), as this extract from the Cumberland & Westmoreland Herald<\/em> (31st March 2001)\u00a0explains:<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the long term, a lot of rarer grassland plants require grazing to survive.\u00a0 Without it, some heather would come back but there would also be things you don\u2019t want like rank grass and bracken.\u00a0 The spread of bracken would be unstoppable because it\u2019s very hard to get rid of it.\u00a0 It\u2019s all a question of balance and the loss of the Herdwicks would not help this.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

Just so. \u00a0In this vein, the onset of foot and mouth had\u00a0prompted a once in a thousand years burst of optimism from the Rank Grass and Bracken Times<\/em> ( Gaiayear 632.41.a9 ) ...<\/p>\n

Encouraging News from the Provinces<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Our special correspondent reports from North-west Sector 9.\u00a0 Thanks to steadfastness of viral allies, and human greed and folly, a thousand years of occupation look set to end.\u00a0 Readers with long memories will recall that our high fell country has, this past millennium, been colonised and much perturbed; all its harmonies lie distorted by industriousness.\u00a0 These occupied lands lie ravaged by Herdwick and Rough Fell sheep.\u00a0 Incomers.\u00a0 These alien species, inured to sun and frost, impervious to ticks, stoic in the face of gale and sleet, they select our youngest and most tender shoots on which to feast.\u00a0 Worse, their hefted nature ensures they return, unerringly, to subdue all traces of stout and valiant resistance.\u00a0 With good luck, however, and continued human recklessness, they will succumb, and the high fells revert to pre-human days when we, the rank grasses and bracken, were all at one with God.\"<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well, the rank grass and bracken gods went AWOL when needed most, and the Herdwicks remain \u2013 as does the common (wo)man. \u00a0Meanwhile, GM dreams on \u2013 though not, of course, about 'GM'.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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