Author: Miles King

Miles King lives in Dorset and writes about the environment, people and politics

Dartmoor’s blanket bogs

Miles King

Reading Tony Whitehead’s piece in West Country Voices (‘Failing nature on Dartmoor‘ ) exploring some of the realities behind the outpouring of protest from the farming industry and lurid claims that Natural England has a secret (and no doubt cunning) plan to “rewild” Dartmoor, has enthused me sufficiently to write a blog. I don’t intend […]

National Meadows Day: a tale of two meadows

Miles King
meadow with orchids

Wildflower meadows have their day in the sun today, Saturday 3 July: National Meadows Day. National Meadows Day is a new thing, just a few years old, but it seems to have captured the public’s imagination, and rightly so. Because wildflower meadows encapsulate a beautiful coming-together of people and nature, creating something sublime which everyone […]

Farming after Brexit

Miles King

We left the EU in January 2020 and it’s now less than a month before the transition period ends.  Depending on how you look at it, we are once again a ‘sovereign state’ able to take back control and make our own decisions – as if we were not free to do so before. Or […]

Green industrial revolution or greenwash?

Miles King

Earlier this week I imagined, not altogether seriously, how Boris Johnson came to create his ten point plan for the climate, or the green industrial revolution, if you like. At the time, there was no detail other than the prime minister’s article in the Financial Times and a shortish press release. Now the government has […]

The (possibly) true story behind Johnson’s Green Industrial Revolution

Miles King

Miles King reimagines Boris Johnson’s latest week.  Imagine the scene. Our fearless prime minister is holed up in his flat above No.11 Downing Street, self-isolating. He’s fuming, having received a message from Dido’s fabulous test ‘n’ trace app that he has been exposed to Covid-19, again. The perpetrator of infection is none other than hard […]

Jenrick’s planning reforms have nothing to say about tax dodges

Miles King

It’s the last day for responses to the Government’s latest proposals to reform the planning system, to “level up” and solve the housing crisis, if you believe the spin. The proposals include zoning land (at a large scale) for development and could create a cash bonanza for landowners, as illustrated by this local story. A couple […]

Lambs to the slaughter

Miles King

As we wait for what feels like the final slow-motion spin of the car as it hurtles inexorably towards the cliff edge, wondering if our heroes are going to escape from this seemingly impossible situation … again … no, stop there. Enough with the Hollywood imagery, the tired old metaphors. They just aren’t funny anymore. […]

Poetry, nature and covid-19

Miles King

This year, of all years, people have become much more aware of their local surroundings; in particular, places they can visit to experience nature in their everyday lives – or at least those who were physically able to get out of their houses and weren’t stuck inside shielding. The Covid lockdown threw into sharp contrast […]

Where does this Vote Leave Government get its policies from?

Miles King

As I watched the A-level results fiasco unfold over the last week  – the latest in a long line of shambolic Government u-turns  – it got me thinking about how this Government actually decides on what policies it is going to apply. After all, what is a Government without policies? Policies – and specifically policy […]

Government plans to weaken nature protections

Miles King

I’m not much a Zoom enthusiast but the invitation to listen to Defra secretary of state George Eustice give a “major” speech on the environment, via Green Alliance, seemed like too good an opportunity to miss. So, having finally got zoom to work on my computer, I sat and listened to him talk for 15 […]

Forestry rethink needed after barbecue inferno.

Miles King

The ground was bone dry and everything was flowering early. I was up at Poundbury (near Dorchester), checking on an area of wildflower meadow that I’d arranged to have sown. After the incessant downpours of the Autumn and Winter, the rain stopped. Then we had just 60mm of rain across two months. It was yet […]