At last, some splendid news from the ConDems!

I love trees. Everywhere I have been and have had the opportunity, I have planted trees. I have planted trees at Chalk Farm, Bottisham, Spring Hall, Bottisham, at the sides of the Swaffham Bulbeck Heath Road, at Manor Farm, Swaffham Prior, and where Sue and I live now - Chapel Farm, River Bank. Some of those trees have been planted for my enjoyment and, eventually, my profit. Some have been planted for public enjoyment and for nobody's profit. But I have never believed in state-owned trees, no more than in state-owned farms and farm land. Therefore, a report in the Sunday Telegraph to the effect that the ConDem government is planning to sell off part of the state-owned Forestry Commission's estates is splendid news. For once, I commend the ConDem government and the relevant Secretary of State, Ms. Caroline Spelman.

Here is the nicest portrait of Ms. Spelman that I could find.

And here is the link to the report -

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/countryside/8082756/Ministers-plan-huge-sell-off-of-Britains-forests.html

I have left a comment on the Sunday Telegraph's website as follows:

"I'll believe this when it happens. But, if and when it happens, I'll be the first to praise Ms. Spelman. I have often said that a test for me is whether the government will authorise the privatization of the Forestry Commission, a darling of certain dyed-in-the-wool rural Tories, and/or whether County Councils will be ordered to sell, preferably to the farming tenants, their vast holdings of agricultural land. The latter will be resisted by the Liberals and by the self-same said dyed-in-the-wool rural Tories."