HAVING just returned from hearing David Milliband projecting his thoughts about the future management of the countryside, I’m naturally disappointed that he rates the option of creating a coastal access corridor around the whole country more important than maintaining an adequate farming industry to provide at least some of our future food requirements.
But things might be different in Wales following the result of the recent Assembly election.
At first it seemed a foregone conclusion that things would carry on much as before. But when the Labour party was unable to forge a coalition with either Plaid Cymru or the Liberal Democrats, things began to look different.
I think that after 10 years of Tony Blair many farmers had become resigned to the slow but remorseless move towards land nationalisation.
No longer are farmers allowed to manage land in the manner which they think is best, but now they have to be subservient to the whims of some petty bureaucrat.
The prospect of a “rainbow alliance” of political parties seems to offer many attractions to any country-minded person.
It must be a firm fact that all the other parties have a much superior knowledge of countryside matters and rural affairs than the previous Labour administration.
It is probably a fact that there were many occasions when the Labour government was groping around in the dark when anything went wrong in the countryside, such as foot-and-mouth disease.
Let us hope for the moment that the alternative “rainbow alliance” will be given the opportunity to form the next government in the Assembly.
After a decade of continuous set-backs it will certainly make a change to have a government made up of politicians who have more respect and understanding of the countryside.
