We have written before about the influence that our current prime minister's latest paramour has over our industry, and its health and welfare.
Entrenched within the Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation (CAWF) and with carefully placed colleagues, Carrie Symonds's Beatrix Potter inspired wish list is gradually being unveiled from the corridors of power.
The Farmers Guardian this week reports on her demands to remove from office the Secretary of State for DEFRA, George Eustice. The accusation, the paper affirms, is that Eustice is 'too close to the farming lobby'.
As The Right Honourable Member was quite openly offering media briefings along the lines of the CAWF's wish list only weeks ago, and well ahead of a sham 'consultation' on the future of badger culling, we would dispute that. Eustice has history of following his masters' voice.
And as George Dunn (Tenant Farmers Association) remarked in the FG piece, to find that we need look no further than the present prime minister's latest bed mate.
"If we are looking at where allegations of undue influence should be more aptly applied, then we should look no further than within the private quarters of Number 10 Downing Street."
It's one thing the agricultural press passing an opinion on the 'undue influence' Symonds holds over Johnson and policy, but last week the Mail on Sunday ran an article about the pair. While the main thrust was the decoration of the Downing Street flat, or more particularly, who financed it and when, for hard pressed livestock farmers, the Henry Davies cartoon says it all.
Carrie wants to 'save badgers' by vaccinating them. That is No 22 of the CAWF wishlist a screen shot of which is below. Apologies - use zoom to see detail.
The document has long disappeared from the CAWF site, but is 'saved' here.
