Clean as Ever

One of the many constants over the few dozen Conservative administrations since 2015 has been their attitude to green crap, and the appointment of the ludicrous Thérèse Coffey as environment secretary has resoundingly continued the trend. Coffey, whose most memorable intervention as minister for NHS privatisation was to recommend that patients start up a free market in antibiotics, has crashed in with style at the only department the Conservatives take less seriously than public health. Virtually her first announcement was that the Government once again intends breaking its own law, by not publishing targets for clean water and biodiversity by the end of this month. Even though Coffey was thick-headed enough to boast about her own part in drawing up those very same targets, this might from a certain point of view be considered progress. The National Johnson and his chums would no more have hesitated to rah-rah their world-beating ambitions than they would have failed to forget them by the next news cycle. By contrast, the position today is sufficiently awkward that both Fishy Rishi and King Charles the Pentulant have bravely resolved, in the interests of the national dignity, to spare themselves the sniggering of the lesser breeds at the forthcoming climate summit in Egypt.