Gove Gets Flapping

Such is the Britishness of Britain's national parks that wildlife is often safer outside them. According to the head of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the meddlesome foreigners at the UN may soon withdraw the parks' protected status: an outcome doubtless dearly wished for by Tumbledown Tessie's joke Secretary of State for the Environment, the jabbering homunculus Michael Gove. As one would expect, Gove's tenure has been largely for the birds, with continuing encouragement for the use of poisonous farming methods whose effects apparently lack the courtesy to stop spreading just because Her Majesty's Government has declared a few places off-limits. The Conservative Party's traditional concern for the countryside has also made itself felt with efficiency savings of one-fifth to the national park authorities' budgets, despite which only a third of parks are now in "good condition" according to the Government's presumably rigorous criteria. However, a grateful and famously sporting nation will be gladdened at the joyous tidings that conditions for grouse shooting remain favourable.