This article first appeared in the August 2025 Edition of Birdwatching Magazine
A ruling party MP was challenging proposed planning legislation, as has every conservation organisation in the UK. Another ruling party MP labelled him part of the ‘Hedgehog Hezbollah’. Intemperate language is often engendered when politicians defend the indefensible. Apparently, those of us opposed to sweeping away protection for wildlife are just barn owl bonkers. If we rail against government designating a flood plain awash with SSSI’s as perfect for housebuilding, we have bats in the belfry. If you think it wrong that infrastructure projects are not subject to the planning rules that you and I are, you get labelled a newt nutter and otter obsessed. Guess what? I am otterly opposed to blind single-mindedness. I’m a tree-hugging, woke, anti-hunting, harrier loving, vegetarian, eco-freak and proud to be ridiculed as such.
I see, now, how intellectually challenged I must have been to have voted for the current regime. I did so because I believed their manifesto commitment to social justice putting care homes and the NHS before big pharma and international conglomerates. I put my cross in the box for zero carbon emissions, not more North Sea gas exploitation. I voted for more room in the UK for wildlife. I don’t remember voting in favour of cutting winter fuel payments or making the disabled even worse off.
If I understand international politics, Hezbollah are enemies of the state who believe in violent overthrow of regimes. But I guess the person who coined the slur was after a self-publicising sound bite, not a sensible critique. I wonder if this particular insensitive user of terminological inexactitude remembers the last time someone was ridiculed for their love of newts… London Mayor Red Ken was slated by the party that this oik opposes. They might do well to remember he got a second term in office!
Of course, it all comes down to money. Why is government championing green-field house construction? Because it’s cheaper than sensible alternatives. We have a positive explosion of empty commercial property as the internet has become the new high street. Ironically, most of the distribution centres needed to house the likes of Amazon, also get built on previously farmed land. Converting old buildings costs more than putting up the sort of cardboard cupboards that pose as family homes these days. To get a foot on the housing ladder you have to have your boots wet in water meadows and be able to build furniture in situ, because no expensive space is wasted on wide stairwells.
After WW2 the blitzed UK badly needed more housing. Some ‘temporary’ solutions, like ticky-tacky prefabs were still in use fifty years later. However, during the 1950s and 1960s bomb sites were developed and later slums cleared and replaced with public housing. Sadly, much of that family silver was later sold off. The illusion that home ownership makes for wealth is easily countered by how much better off many European countries are where most people rent.
Most of the world builds up, rather than spreading out. The ills of high-rises are ameliorated by having concierges – a concept we Brits find alien. (Perfect employment for those unable to go out into the world.)
Another illusion fuels population growth. We legally import loads of people to look after our elderly as life extends. The debilitating diseases that stop us looking after ourselves into old age, are the least addressed. I guess there’s too much profit in treatment, to look instead for cures. Thankfully, ever more young people are baulking at having kids. Wherever we come from there are too many of us and we need to champion childlessness.
