I’ve just voted for Jeremy Corbyn to be Labour Party leader

Which makes my vote one of the 650,000 that will be cast in this election.  The Conservative Party membership currently stands at 150,000.

An apple a day

by Graham

 It looks like it’s going to be an excellent year for my apples. I got the trees pruned hard last year – for the first time in decades – and the results are astonishing.

The trees are now smaller, allowing more light into the garden and making it much easier to reach the weeds and cut the grass underneath. And yet already the branches are groaning under the weight of Lord Hindlip’s finest.

You might not have heard of Lord Hindlip. He was a Conservative politician of the Victorian era, from Worcestershire, who gave his name to a very fine desert apple.

I’m biased, of course, but I do think the Lord Hindlip apple is one of the tastiest fruits you can grow in Britain. You can also use it for cooking; this year I think I will have to make industrial quantities of juice, if the apples are not to go to waste.

Many years ago, when the orchard in the top field was part of a working farm, part of the labourers’ wages would have been paid in cider. It is interesting to see how the revival of Cornwall’s craft cider industry is boosting the rural economy.

Hardly a day passes now without someone starting a new micro-cider farm somewhere in Cornwall. Most will have started their cider-making as a hobby. Many now work at it full-time and some even employ one or two people to help.

In all the fuss over the Brexit debate recently, one of the facts that tended to be overlooked was that the UK government had successfully resisted the siren calls of Brussels to levy a tax on small-scale cider producers.

The European Commission had wanted British cider brought into line with the rest of the EU. The exemption, worth about £2,700 a year since 1976, had been under threat. But former Chancellor George Osborne listened to the advice from the Campaign for Real Ale and maintained the tax break for those cider makers who produce less than 12,000 pints per year – which is 80 per cent of the domestic cider market.

As we head towards Philip Hammond’s first, post-Brexit budget this autumn, I wonder if there will be any further encouragement for local food and drink producers.

It is such a shame that these days most of us buy our apples from supermarkets – 482,000 tonnes a year. Yet just two varieties, Gala and Braeburn, both natives of New Zealand, make up almost half of British sales.

According to the National Fruit Collection, we could eat a different home-grown apple every day for six years and still not have sampled them all. There are no doubt commercial reasons for this, not least economies of scale.

My Lord Hindlips keep well for up to two months, but after that they get a bit soft. And because, while they still hang from the trees, I tend to share them with birds and insects, they sometimes bear the scars of battle. I doubt they would sell very well in New Zealand. I’m not rushing to negotiate my own post-Brexit trade agreement.

Betting our hedges

I think that if there is one element of the countryside which defines rural Cornwall, it is our hedges.

They mark ownership boundaries. They stop livestock escaping from fields. They are abundant in wildlife. And they turn our cratered country lanes into long, narrow, dark green tunnels, acting as a magnet to visiting motorists who never learned how to reverse.

It is thought that Cornwall has about 30,000 miles of rural hedgerow, the vast majority being centuries old. Some are more than 2,000 years old. Quite properly, we have laws to protect them.

The 1997 Hedgerow Regulations were brought in after decades of neglect, and a long period in which agricultural policy was directed by a mantra which insisted “bigger farms are better.” After the second World War, many hedgerows were dug up in the name of economic efficiency.

The regulations are interesting because, in part, they seem quite arbitrary – for example, to be “important” a hedgerow has to be at least 20 metres in length. If it is shorter than this, and does not adjoin another hedge, it is still “important” if it is part of a village green or common land. It must also be at least 30 years old.

Many hedgerows include trees, often local landmarks and covered by Tree Preservation Orders. Hedges are also “important” if they mark town or parish boundaries which pre-date 1850, or if they mark the boundary of a pre-1600 estate. The regulations apply not only to limiting the destruction of hedgerows, they also require maintenance.

Most of probably don’t own a pre-1600 estate, but all of us have an interest in hedgerows. Hedgerows which adjoin public highways are particularly important, as the maintenance of these hedges is related to road safety. And the responsibility for hedgerow maintenance, these days, falls squarely on the shoulders of the owners or occupiers.

Until about 30 years ago, county councils would often cut hedges – pretty crudely, it must be said, using a flail which sliced as readily through the wildlife as the blackthorn. It was however a service which worked to the advantage of many farmers. Now that farmers and other landowners themselves have to meet the costs of hedgerow maintenance, our hedges are somewhat taller and thicker – and we seem to be moving to an era in which rather than being criticised for cutting down hedges, owners and occupiers are today more likely to be criticised for not cutting them.

Cornwall Council is the authority responsible for enforcing the rules, and publishes a handy guide as to what is expected: “At locations where highway hedge growth has become a problem, the highway authority is likely to serve notice on the owner/occupier requiring the necessary work to be completed within a stated period. Failure to comply with the conditions of this notice may result in the highway authority undertaking the works and recovering the costs from the owner/occupier.”

I have a personal interest in this, because some of my hedges adjoin the main road and earlier this year the main part of hedge was expertly cut, by a professional. Over the past 30 years, the hedge had got higher, and thicker, and at harvest time it was always pretty hit and miss (mostly hit) as to whether any of the local agricultural vehicles would get past without losing most of their load to the higher branches. Of course I felt guilty about this. But at least the thicker hedgerows made them slow down a bit.

Too easily ensnared by ignorance

When I moved into this house 30 years ago, one of the first curios which I noticed the previous owners had left behind, hanging on a shed wall, was a what looked like a piece of scrap metal with jagged edges and the remains of a powerful spring. It was covered in rust and cobwebs and obviously hadn’t been used for years. I took a closer look, dusted it down, and realised it was a gin trap.

 These have been outlawed for nearly 60 years, their fearsome jaws being responsible for the indiscriminate, slow, agonising deaths of wildlife for the previous century and a half.

I was reminded of this when Parliament last week took the rare trouble to debate a rural issue, and spent just over an hour talking about the use of snares.

A snare is a thin wire noose intended to catch animals around the neck, rather like a lasso. There are two types: the self-locking snare, which is not legal, tightens around the animal the more it struggles. Even when the animal ceases to struggle, the device is still tightened and causes serious injury and death.

A “free-running” snare is still currently legal. If it is operating properly, it should relax when the animal stops pulling, allowing the operator returns to kill the animal, usually by shooting, or release it if the snare has not caught the right quarry. The disadvantage of a legal free-running snare is that it can in many circumstances act like a self-locking snare, particularly if it becomes kinked or rusty.

As usual, it was a Labour MP from the not-particularly-rural constituency of Lewisham West and Penge who sought to bring the matter up. Jim Dowd wants to ban snares because of the “continued suffering caused to thousands of animals every year.”

Mr Dowd’s motion was not put to a vote and he was fobbed off with the usual junior ministerial response of a promise to look into it.

For a news reporter like me, the real value of such debates is that an army of Parliamentary researchers and special advisors have done all the hard work and established some interesting facts. For example, DEFRA’s independent working group on snares concluded in 2005 that it would be difficult to reduce non-target catches to less than 40%.

Four years ago, DEFRA reported that 260,000 snares were still in use in England and Wales. 

DEFRA’s field studies found that the intended targets were mainly foxes, but that these accounted for only 25% of all victims. The other 75% included hares (33%); badgers (26%)—both of these are protected species—and a further 14% described as “other.”

That is almost a quarter of a million animals, including deer and domestic pets such as cats and dogs, captured every year.

As Mr Dowd told his Parliamentary colleagues: “Most snares cause extreme suffering to animals and often lead to a painful, lingering death. Animals caught in snares suffer huge stress and can sustain horrific injuries. Snares can cause abdominal, chest, neck, leg and head injuries to animals. Some animals get their legs caught in snares and end up with the wire cutting through to the bone. Such animals may attempt to escape by gnawing off their own limbs.”

My gin trap still hangs on the shed wall, having collected a further 30 years of rust and cobwebs, and maybe one day I will take a wire brush and clean it up properly. It might be worth a few bob on eBay.

Be careful out there

Life in rural Cornwall, particularly for anyone involved in agriculture, is often portrayed as a battle against wild animals. Any beast which competes with us for space and resources, disrupting our right to maximise output, is, at best, a nuisance – right?

 So last week’s news that squirrels had “brutally attacked” a three-year-old boy in Cornwall raised all kinds of profound questions, not the least of which were: Really? Should we be worried? And most urgent of all for the national newspaper journalists – what is the correct collective noun for more than one squirrel?

Words like “gang” or “pack” were initially popular, conjuring up images of squirrels hiding in bushes, co-ordinating their movements, prior to planning and launching a surprise attack on an unsuspecting human. Eventually the hacks (collective noun: “a scoop of journalists”) settled on the little-used term “a scurry of squirrels.”

I’ve had squirrels in my wood for more than 20 years, and although I have seen them in pairs I have never seen a “scurry” – but after last week’s drama I shall now be much more careful. And scared. In 2009, according to the ever-reliable Daily Mail, the Department of Health encouraged nurses at a Durham hospital to “walk about in pairs” in order to stay safe in the wake of squirrel attacks. “The hospital involved sent out guidance that nurses should be careful and wear protective headgear or carry an umbrella.”

More recently, thanks to the Daily Telegraph, we know that: “Terrified schoolchildren were forced to evacuate the playground after an aggressive squirrel caused havoc and attacked a teacher. Staff had to lead the children to safety at Watford’s Chater Infants School after an “unusually aggressive” grey squirrel disrupted their afternoon playtime. One member of staff was attacked and scratched by the squirrel during the encounter.”

Cornwall seems to be unusually plagued by vicious wild animals. At around the same time as squirrels were causing havoc in Tehidy Woods, giant seagulls were knocking teenagers off the harbour wall at St Ives. A 15-foot fall led to a flight in an air ambulance, and a trip to hospital, after a dive-bombing seagull snatched the 18-year-old’s ice cream.

Seagulls, of course, have form. There are plenty of stories of people who have nearly lost fingers, or suffered head injuries, following seagull attacks. In Cornwall, we know of cases where seagulls have killed at least one pet dog and (separately) a tortoise.

Personally, the wild animal I would definitely think twice about before approaching is the mink. More than 50 years ago, there was a mink farm near St Mabyn. As the demand for mink coats declined, the business closed and some of the animals either escaped or were released. I’ve seen one, with a rat clenched firmly between its razor-sharp teeth, down by the River Allen.

These mink really shouldn’t be here at all. An American-import, they have had a devastating impact on Cornwall’s native wildlife. A bit like grey squirrels.

Lazing in bed on Sunday morning, I watched as one crow after another settled and perched on the electricity cables which stretch across the field. There must have been about 20. I’m sure they were looking at me. I decided to stay in bed.

Stones, glass houses and really poor use of language

Is this the most famous window in politics?

Another day, yet another anti-Corbyn story all over the nationals, once again prompted by a group of Labour MPs.

I bow to no-one in condemning any hint of violence or intimidation in politics.  Jeremy Corbyn himself routinely receives death threats.  After the murder of Jo Cox, everyone should take such threats seriously and report them to the police.

But I am really getting tired of headlines such as today’s: “45 Labour women MPs have written to Jeremy Corbyn demanding that he does more to stop abuse etc etc.”

For example, Angela Eagle wants Jeremy Corbyn to “take action” over a broken window in Wallasey.  Before you go any further, please read this very interesting blog post from Wirral In It Together.

I don’t think the blog post quite proves that the brick attack was NOT directed at Angela Eagle’s office, but it certainly raises a huge question as to why Angela Eagle is claiming that it was.  It’s an excellent example of lazy journalists failing to ask even the most basic questions.

Similarly, the media seems to have forgotten that Labour MP Jess Phillips last year promised to “knife Jeremy Corbyn in the front” and said she frequently screamed at her leader.

My colleagues seem to have also forgotten that Ms Phillips’s views on sisterly solidarity run so far as telling Diane Abbot to “fuck off” during a comradely debate about feminism.

What action, precisely, does Angela Eagle want Jeremy Corbyn to take about the broken window which she shares with five other organisations?  And can anyone remember Jeremy Corbyn ever talking to national newspapers about his desire to “knife” other MPs?

Lessons from history

Len McCluskey might be many things, but paranoid isn’t one of them.  His comments to The Guardian about possible infiltration of the Labour Party by agents of the intelligence services are firmly rooted in historic fact.


The response of former (Labour) Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, dismissing the suggestion as a “downright insult” demonstrates how little she knew about what was going on when she was supposedly in charge.

For readers worried that Jacqui might be struggling to make ends meet after the ungrateful voters of Redditch booted her out of Parliament in 2010, I’m happy to report that she has now found gainful employment in Egypt and Jordan.

I drew attention to the official, authorised history of MI5 in this blog back in 2009.  The book, Defence of the Realm, actually boasts about how MI5 spied on the then democratically-elected Prime Minister, Harold Wilson.

There are also countless records of how the spooks involved themselves in assorted industrial disputes, notably the 1980s miners’ strike.

No-one should rubbish what Len McCluskey is saying until they have researched the recent history.  The idea that the intelligence agencies might be responsible for various attempts at de-stablising Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party would be very far from the most outlandish stunt they have ever tried.