Farming is a fresh field for Michael Gove’s slash and burn politics
We must also not forget the small but very precious fishing communities likely to be similarly affected….
If Michael Gove brings the same zeal to bear in his new post as environment secretary as he exercised on schools and prisons, some of Britain’s farmers may be in for a shock.
Even before he gatecrashed last year’s Tory leadership contest, knocking his supposed friend Boris Johnson out of the race, Gove was a deeply controversial figure.
Accompanied by his loyal adviser Dominic Cummings, who went on to mastermind the Vote Leave campaign in last year’s referendum, Gove slashed and burned his way through decades of conventional wisdom in education – making an enemy of the teaching unions in the process. From his bid to take climate change out of the geography curriculum, to the expansion of the use of untrained teachers, to dispatching a Bible to every school, he frequently infuriated the educational establishment – but his allies insist he was working tirelessly to drive up standards, not deliberately picking battles.