Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

I am no vegan, but I cannot see why a vegan ought not to be the Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Which of those is veganism not?

My only objection is to the existence of Defra itself.

For the abolition of MAFF has never had the happy effect of depriving the big agribusiness lobby of its very own Department of State, effectively controlled by its trade union, the political office of which is literally next door.

What does Defra do that could not, and should not, be done by Health, or Communities and Local Government, or Transport, or Energy?

Already, the likes of the NFU and the Countryside Alliance have derided this appointment on behalf of "the countryside", and "rural people", and so on, as if they were the uncontested voices of those categories.

They always do this, and they are always allowed to get away with it, whether by self-serving right-wing media, or by pig ignorant media that purport to be of the Left.

They are like the SNP. Except that half the population of Scotland really does vote for the SNP.

By any consistent Thatcherite, neoliberal, or economically libertarian measure, Defra is a monstrosity, both in practice and in principle.

Jeremy Corbyn has made housing his Number One political priority. Properly presented, that will resonate very clearly indeed in rural areas, as will his concentration on transport.

He and Kerry McCarthy need to promise that Defra is just going to be got out of the way. Instead, development and public service provision in the English countryside will be run by the same people as run them in the towns.

Unfiltered through the inheritors of large houses with extensive grounds, who drive round in Range Rovers that they are running illicitly on duty free fuel, who delay their taxes because they can, and who bray away that they alone speak for "the countryside".