Forest Dump

I actually signed the online petition to save England’s forests from being flogged off to the highest bidder. In common, it would seem with half a million or so others. The Tories and the mini-Tories got a nasty shock. Unfortunately for them, they ran smack into an organised articulate middle class protest fuelled by Twitter, Facebook and other online resources against a simple, easy-to-grasp and plainly gaga idea. They should think themselves lucky: if this was Egypt, they would now be on the next jet to Sharm El Sheikh.

As it stands, satisfying though it was to see Caroline Spelman having to eat a huge helping of Humble Pie garnished with a jus of manure at the despatch box, and Cameron trying to pretend all along that it was just some kind of extended consultation exercise, this is no time for false complacency. I signed the petition because, like Ewan MacColl’s “Manchester Rambler”, I believe that “no man has the right to own mountains, any more than the deep ocean bed”. But this doesn’t mean, as some people have suggested, that I prefer trees to people. I prefer some trees to some people. I signed because I could see that the government was making a complete horlicks of it, failing even to consult Dame Fiona Reynolds of the National Trust, for God’s sake, and it was an open goal which I was quite happy to help tap in.

But we shouldn’t forget, as I said in the mordant note I sent in reply to the self-congratulatory smug email I received from 38 Degrees, thanking me for my support, that although the trees may be a bit safer (for now) we still have to inflict similar pain on the ConDims over the NHS, benefits cuts, unemployment, the homeless, and the economy.

Then, and only then, there might be some room for congratulation. In the meantime, there is work to be done. Praise the Lord, and pass the ammunition.