An Ill-Fitted Truss

Well, here's a thing: the environment secretary in the greenest government ever has been saying the thing that was not about solar panels. The Government holds no data on English land covered by solar panels, does not know what the effect will be on agricultural subsidies, and has no evidence that solar power harms food production; but Elizabeth Truss, who once co-authored a tract claiming British workers were among the worst idlers in the world, apparently cannot be bothered to keep up with her own department's documents. "I am committed to food production in this country and it makes my heart sink to see row upon row of solar panels where once there was a field of wheat or grassland for livestock to graze," she babbled last October, apparently in a bid to out-oaf her predecessor, the well-known climate-change sceptic and patron of Lake Paterson in Sussex. A great believer in hard work for the lesser people, Truss is also known for her stint as childcare minister, which the Bullingdon Club no doubt considered a suitable post for a woman. Truss earned her demotion to Defra by attempting to deregulate the market in toddling resources and force minders to take care of larger numbers of young children: a policy of such blatant Gove-standard brilliance that even the Deputy Conservatives somehow found the courage to veto it.