Now Labour retreats on a right to roam for England

With every month that passes, the prospect of a Keir Starmer government grows a little less enticing. The latest radical policy to be jettisoned is a right to roam in England along the lines of the one that has operated in Scotland for 20 years. This is reported - sorry, 'revealed' - by the Guardian today.

The paper quotes the former Labour shadow nature minister Alex Sobel speaking in the Commons earlier this year:

"Labour’s approach, like in Scotland, will be that Labour’s right to roam will offer access to high-quality green and blue space in the rest of Britain. We will replace the default of exclusion with a default of access.

"Research shows that people with a stronger connection to nature were more likely to behave positively towards the environment. It’s quite simple: the more people engage with nature, the more likely they are to protect it."

Now all that has gone in the face of opposition from the NFU and the Countryside Alliance.

It's telling how the latter, set up to defend the life of the countryside as a distinct form of culture in the diversity-loving Blair years, switched to a full-blown "Get off my land" manifesto the moment the Tories took power.

This story matters, and not just because greater public access to the country is an important issue - read The Book of Trespass by Nick Hayes for more on this.

It matters because of what it tells us about what a Keir Starmer government would look like.

The really radical things that Tony Blair did were done in his early years as prime minister. The minimum wage. Assemblies in Edinburgh and Cardiff. Reform of the House of Lords.

If Starmer begins this timidly, what will he be like after four or five years at No. 10?