Question Time: The cancelled forest sell off

I haven't watched QT for years - the duplicity and complicity of politicians I can live with, but the sheer stupidity of the general public asking the questions I can't - but today I made an exception because Nigel Farage was on.

I must say, it was only the skinny blonde lady with glasses from the audience who nailed this question: she reckoned that the Lib-Cons never seriously planned to sell off the few remaining government-owned forests and that it was a 'red herring'.

The phrase I would have used is 'smokescreen'. Seeing as there is no particular commercial rationale for doing so (maybe it would have generated a profit of a few million, maybe it would have been a net cost, who knows), I would assume that they floated the idea a few weeks ago in order to distract our attention from more pressing matters of e.g. the bank bonus season.

Let's put it in perspective:

Value of forests which might have been sold off £300 million (for which the government would have received £300 million, so net cost to economy £nil, and that is a one-off cost of £nil)

Bankers' bonuses declared in past few weeks: £6,000 million (from which HM Revenue & Customs rake off about 50%, so net cost to economy £3,000 million, and that is an annually recurring cost of £3,000 million).

Twat of the day (5)

Some quango has decided that a tree in Mayfair, London has a value of £750,000, and that such values should be taken into account when deciding whether to chop them down to prevent e.g. subsidence.

So far so good. Trees are in themselves A Good Thing and make an area more attractive, enhancing property values, but conversely, they can reduce property values because of the risk of subsidence etc. Ultimately, property owners will make this trade-off when deciding whether to keep or fell a marginal tree.

However, according to today's prize buffoon, Andy Tipping, "People are still not understanding that subsidence is a problem with buildings, not trees [er..?]. In many cases it's other reasons such as drains [very true], poorly installed double-glazing [wot?] or climate change [dude, wtf?]."

"Schools breaking admission laws"

Nulab have done their level best to destroy the State education system, but they're still not happy because some State schools are still pretty desirable.

This all reminds me of the last stanza of "The Trees" by Rush*:

"Now there's no more oak oppression
For they passed a noble law
And the trees are all kept equal
By hatchet, axe and saw"

* From the 1978 album "Hemispheres"