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| Still battling - Swift campaigner Hannah Bourne-Taylor |
THERE could be some discomfort for four former MPs when the book, Nature Needs You, is published at the start of next month.
Subtitled The Fight to Save Our Swifts, it is Hannah Bourne-Taylor's forthright and edgy account of her ongoing campaign for legislation which would require that nesting bricks are incorporated into new housing developments as is the case in, for example, Gibraltar and Holland.
The author is frank about the sense of frustration she experienced followed her encounters with two decision-making housing ministers - Lee Rowley and Dehenna Davison.
It seems that the attitude of Rowley was one of indifference, while Davison feigned support but was too flaky to act.
As a member of the Cabinet, Michael Gove had many opportunities to grasp the bull by the horns but, according to the author, he consistently "floundered".
In the end, she came to regard him as "a pantomime villain".
But Bourne-Taylor greatest scorn seems to have been for another Cabinet member - one whom she declines to identify but is obviously former Environment Secretary Therese Coffey.
Their encounter at a Westminster reception could scarcely have been more frosty - not least after the campaigner threw caution to the wind and accused the minister of talking "bullsh**".
To find out what happened next, you have to read the book.
Davison and Gove stepped down before the last General Election, while Rowley and Coffey both lost their seats.
On the plus side, the author was buoyed by the support from many of the last parliament's MPs, plus others (including officers of the RSPB) - and she is effusive in her expressions of gratitude.
But perhaps her staunchest ally, now as then, has been Zac Goldsmith, Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park, himself a former environment minister in a Conservative government.
What next?
The change of Government in July, sparked fresh hopes in the campaigner that a Labour administration would be more resolute on behalf of the Swift, a species in rapid decline, than its Conservative predecessor.
These hopes were further fuelled by her meeting with new Environment Secretary Steve Reed who was complimentary both about her and her campaign, adding that, as far as he was concerned, she was "pushing against an open door".
To her astonishment, he even let slip that its was only lack of space that had prevented proposed swiftbrick legislation being included in the pre-election Labour Party manifesto.
But fine words butter no parsnips. . .
While the Labour administration juggles with its formulation of fresh policies on planning and building regulations, it seems Bourne-Taylor is still banging her head against what must seem to her like a particularly solid brick wall.
Will it eventually crack? Only time will tell.
In the meantime, Britain's plummeting population of Swifts is estimated to have fallen by another several thousand pairs since the campaign began back in November 2022.
* A full review of Nature Needs You will appear following its publication by Elliott and Thompson in hardback (£16.99) on May 1.
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