Ending sheep farming in the Lake District is not our aim
None of the farmers I've spoken to could name a single benefit of being in a world heritage site. Most people won't be aware of the downsides, but for those of us working in conservation, they are obvious. The designation is influencing decisions by the national park authority, which views every element of the park's management through a world heritage lens and puts sheep farming first, often at the expense of rural livelihoods and nature.
We are not attacking farming or anybody's culture, and it's a pity that this is how Stocker and many others, including the MP Tim Farron, have interpreted it. For farmers and conservationists to be at loggerheads is madness. Once the dust settles, I hope we will be able to sit down and have some sensible discussion about these issues and how to resolve them.
As Mr Stocker attests, farming has played a key role in the history of the Lake District, and it will have a vital role to play in its future, but only if it is allowed to adapt. Removing the world heritage site designation, or amending it to reflect the urgency of the climate crisis, will help that transition to take place.Lee SchofieldBampton, Cumbria
Have an opinion on anything you've read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Labour vows small-boat arrivals 'will get one shot at asylum' as Yvette Cooper doubles down on controversial migrants return deal
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper is planning to double down on Labour 's controversial migrants return deal by banning repeat offenders from claiming asylum. Home Office sources said that any boat migrant who has been returned to France and then made a crossing again would not be able to apply for asylum. Their identities would also be stored on a biometric database. A source said: 'At about £3,000 a crossing it would be a total waste of money for them to try again.' Ms Cooper has refused to say how many of the thousands arriving in Britain by dinghy will actually be removed under the 'one in, one out' scheme. Human-rights campaigners have said they will support court challenges brought by small-boat arrivals, while the EU says it is assessing whether the scheme complies with the 'spirit and the letter of the law'. Ms Cooper is also facing calls to extend the biometric testing into an effective revival of Sir Tony Blair 's abandoned ID card plans, to stop migrants working illegally. In May, the Home Office's immigration white paper promised to roll out 'digital identity for all overseas citizens' to improve border management and 'enforcement against illegal working and misuse'. But there are increasing signs that ID cards could now be introduced for all citizens – not just migrants. However on the day the deal was agreed, more dinghies full of migrants were seen attempting to cross the Channel Last month, Downing Street was said to be looking 'very closely' at a so-called 'BritCard' that could be used to check on an individual's right to live and work in this country. And yesterday, Labour MPs told the Mail on Sunday that on the back of the 'one in, one out' deal with France, now was the time to revive a modern version of those plans. Bury North MP James Firth said: 'There is considerable merit in revisiting digital ID now, given how far technology and public confidence in digitisation have come since this was last considered in our politics. 'From online banking to NHS apps, people are increasingly comfortable with secure digital services.' He added: 'In light of the new returns deal with France and efforts to strengthen the integrity of our asylum system, a carefully-designed digital ID could help protect access to public services, prevent abuse, and ensure faster, fairer support for those who need it.' East Thanet MP Polly Billington said: 'Digital ID cards are completely normal in most countries and go a long way to prevent migrants without legal status from accessing public services or working in the illicit economy, where they undercut the wages of legal workers.' Ms Billington added: 'That's why I'm supporting this call from Labour MPs for the government to make this pragmatic change, so that we can secure our borders and disincentivise people from making these dangerous journeys across the Channel.' Last night, Labour peer Maurice Glasman – founder of the 'Blue Labour' movement – also gave the idea his backing. Only last week, Sir Alex Younger – former chief of MI6 – said he backed the creation of a British ID card. He told BBC Newsnight: 'It's absolutely obvious to me that people should have a digital identity. 'And in that context, the grey labour force won't exist and we've removed a pull factor.' And John Vine, former chief inspector of borders and immigration, said the decision by the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition government to abandon ID card plans drawn up under the Blair government 'in hindsight, was a big mistake'.
The Sun
an hour ago
- The Sun
Britain faces war with Putin's Russia within next five years, warns ex head of British Army
BRITAIN faces war with Russia within the next five years, the previous head of the British Army has warned. Former Chief of the General Staff General Sir Patrick Sanders, 59, said the UK must accept that armed conflict with Vladimir Putin by 2030 is a "realistic possibility". 2 Gen Sir Patrick, who retired from the military last year, cautioned that the Army is currently too small to survive more than the first few months of such a war. And he added that he did not know how many more "signals" ministers needed to realise it must strengthen the nation's defences. He said: 'If Russia stops fighting in Ukraine, you get to a position where within a matter of months they will have the capability to conduct a limited attack on a Nato member that we will be responsible for supporting, and that happens by 2030. 'I don't know what more signals we need for us to realise that if we don't act now and we don't act in the next five years to increase our resilience … I don't know what more is needed." The former rifleman fell out of favour with the Government while leading the Army for being seen as too outspoken against troop cuts. It was announced under the previous government that the Army would be reduced from just over 80,000 personnel as of October 2020 to 72,500 by 2025. Gen Sir Patrick said: 'At the moment, the British Army is too small to survive more than the first few months of an intensive engagement, and we're going to need more. 'Now the first place you go to are the reserves, but the reserves are also too small. "Thirty thousand reserves still only takes you to an army of 100,000. "You know, I joined an Army in the Cold War that was about 140,000 regulars, and on top of that, a much larger reserve.' Nato jets scrambled as Putin launches one of war's biggest attacks in Ukraine Gen Sir Patrick said he was disappointed the Strategic Defence Review published last month 'didn't touch on this at all'. Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves last month committed to the defence budget rising to 2.6 per cent of the UK's GDP by April 2027. And PM Sir Keir Starmer pledged the UK would spend 5 per cent of GDP on national security within 10 years, with 3.5 per cent of that amount going to core defence matters. But Sir Gen Patrick said that during his time at the head of the Army there had been unsuccessful 'conversations' with the government about building bomb shelters for civilians and underground command centres for the military to prepare for an attack. He said: 'It always came down to a conversation of it being too costly and not a high enough priority and the threat didn't feel sufficiently imminent or serious to make it worth it. 'Finland has bomb shelters for 4.5 million people. It can survive as a government and as a society under direct missile and air attacks from Russia. We don't have that." Despite the biggest threat coming from Russia, Gen Sir Patrick also warned that Iran could act through proxies 'to attack British interests in the UK'. 2
Times
an hour ago
- Times
MBE for man who led Muslim police boycott over grooming scandal
A man who led a Muslim community boycott of South Yorkshire police after the Rotherham grooming scandal has been awarded an MBE for 'services to integration' and 'cohesion'. Muhbeen Hussain called on Muslims to sever ties with the force and 'take all the necessary action to protect ourselves' in October 2015, the year after the force's failure to investigate thousands of allegations of abuse and rape had been exposed. His campaign group warned: 'Any Muslim groups or institutions in Rotherham that do not adhere to this policy of disengagement will also be boycotted by the Muslim community.' Asked what motivated him, he told the BBC it was 'first and foremost' the police's 'pernicious lie' that it had failed to act on grooming allegations 'because of fears of being called racist'. He argued that this amounted to an attempt to 'scapegoat' Muslims. Hussain also said police had failed to protect the community from the far right. The boycott came shortly after the racially aggravated murder of a local Muslim man. Less than a year earlier, the government had said 'institutionalised political correctness' had contributed to the scandal. Theresa May, then the home secretary, made the statement in response to an inquiry by Alexis Jay, which found that within social services, 'there was a widespread perception that messages conveyed by some senior people in the council and also the police, were to 'downplay' the ethnic dimensions of [child sexual exploitation]'. • How the child sex grooming gangs scandal unfolded over 20 years Hussain has repeatedly defended the boycott in the years since. In 2017, the leader of Rotherham council refused to meet him on the grounds of his 'divisive recklessness'. He responded by writing a public letter questioning the leader's fitness for office and claiming his position brought the local authority into disrepute. Today, he runs the all-party parliamentary group on British Muslims and holds a House of Commons pass sponsored by Naz Shah, the Bradford West MP. His MBE for 'political services to integration cohesion and to British society' was announced in the King's birthday honours list last month. Sir John Jenkins, a senior fellow at the Policy Exchange think tank who served as UK ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Syria, called for the honour to be reviewed, saying the boycott was inconsistent with the principle of community cohesion. He said: 'Mr Hussain's pending award of the MBE brings the system into discredit. 'The government should review the system of due diligence applied to those being awarded honours to understand how Mr Hussain's prior activity in boycotting the police was overlooked and to implement steps to avoid such awards in future.' It is not known who nominated Hussain for the honour. Applications can be submitted by any member of the public before being vetted by a committee supported by civil servants in the Cabinet Office. • Gangs raped 'lost' girls because no one cared Hussain has previously said he has long acknowledged the scale of the grooming scandal perpetrated by British Pakistani males, noting that British Muslim Youth, the group he co-founded, organised one of the first demonstrations against 'these criminals that were claiming to be from our community'. He has said, by dint of their criminality, those connected to Rotherham were not Muslims but that he had marched to condemn them anyway. Hussain announced his boycott more than a year after Jay's report on sexual exploitation in Rotherham found that at least 1,400 girls, some as young as 11, were abused between 1997 and 2013 in the town. Jay cited internal police reviews in 2003 and 2006 that found it was 'believed by a number of workers that one of the difficulties that prevent [child sexual abuse] being dealt with effectively is the ethnicity of the main perpetrators'. She referenced evidence which found: 'Young people in Rotherham believed at that time that the police dared not act against Asian youths for fear of allegations of racism.' In October2015, British Muslim Youth, the group Hussain led, published its statement saying the Muslim community had been 'under perpetual attack and demonisation' since the Jay report. It read: 'During this whole period the Muslim community have been made prisoners in their own homes. South Yorkshire police have piggybacked on this hostile environment towards the Muslim community by deflecting the attention of their own failures by scapegoating us. They have peddled a pernicious lie that: historically they failed to act of allegations of [child sexual exploitation], because they were afraid of being branded 'racist'.' On this basis, it said, Muslims had agreed to 'cut all lines of engagement and communication with South Yorkshire police'. It said: 'If South Yorkshire police cannot adequately protect and serve the Muslim residents of Rotherham then moving forward we will take all the necessary action to protect ourselves within the confines of the law, while maintaining a process of disengagement and non-communication with South Yorkshire police.' • How the child sex grooming gangs scandal unfolded over 20 years The boycott was rescinded in less than a week in response to a public outcry and after negotiations with Sarah Champion, the MP for Rotherham. She defused the dispute by agreeing to meet Hussain in parliament and vowing to write to May. Hussain defended his actions, telling the Rotherham Advertiser: 'It wasn't a publicity stunt, but we want people to listen. Like any trade union would call a strike, we had to have this boycott.' Hussain repeatedly claimed the police had argued it had not acted on allegations because of a fear of being 'branded racist'. This, he said, helped them to shift blame away from themselves and towards Muslims, in the process of avoiding accountability for their own incompetence, corruption and failure to believe working-class victims. Hussain also said he believed the force had failed to protect Muslims from far-right demonstrations and violence. On Saturday night he said in a statement: 'My record in countering extremism and terrorism from the age of 14, which has included speaking out unequivocally against grooming gangs including those of Pakistani origin, leading the first demonstration against such criminals and working to break barriers between intrafaith and interfaith communities, speaks for itself. 'I have a distinguished track record in building bridges for communities and I was delighted and honoured to be offered an MBE in the forthcoming King's birthday honours in recognition of this work. I look forward to continuing to work on community cohesion and interfaith understanding going forward.'
