I spent some of yesterday evening sitting under a dinosaur's tail.
Yes, you've guessed, I was in the Natural History Museum and listening to Hilary Benn, Secretary of State for Defra, give the annual Darwin lecture.
The evening was a celebration of Darwin (whose bicentenary it is this year (and whose On the Origin of Species was published 150 years ago)), a celebration of the Darwin Initiative (which funds expertise-transfer on biodiversity from the UK to other countries) and a celebration of biodiversity itself.
Mr Benn spoke very well. He didn't say anything (bar one thing, see below) that I haven't heard him say before but don't get me wrong, I don't tire of hearing him speak about the natural environment because he speaks with passion, knowledge and conviction.
I was sitting next to a lady from a large financial company and rather mischievously asked her whether she'd be voting Labour after hearing Mr Benn speak. She smiled, rolled her eyes, and said no but then surprised me by saying that she would think about it if Mr Benn were standing for Prime Minister because she thought that he was an admirable politician.
One of Mr Benn's best phrases, which I first heard him use in a speech in Cambridge a while ago:
“The truth is that the great challenges before us – our changing climate, the security of our food supplies, human development and biodiversity loss, are bound up together. They are as separate only as the fingers of a single human hand are separate. It is how they work together that makes them so special.
That phrase is almost a definition of sustainable development. It is joined up thinking. Will it lead to joined up action?
Mr Benn announced, so this was the completely new bit, that the group which will look at ecological networks and what extra is needed to join existing sites of high nature value together, will be chaired by Prof Sir John Lawton FRS. Sir John is one of the UK's leading environmental scientists (and an ex-chair of RSPB Council - and a keen and knowledgeable birder to boot!) and we'll be bending his ear on this subject if he'll let us!
Yes Mark I can understand that lady saying she might vote labour if Hilary Benn was leader and seeing as I wondered if he was one who claimed a lot of expenses seems I was totally wrong as he has a very good record on that score so as I said I would I applaud him,very well done as it takes some doing to watch so many jump on gravy train and still behave honorably.Labour ought to take note of what the lady said because they don't seem to have any other reasonable options as the lot at the top have taken the country to brink of bankruptcy and we are a long way from being out of it yet.