To round off our party conference season we shall be heading up to Manchester (a city I’m very fond of) this weekend to the Conservative conference for our final RSPB ‘Question Time’ fringe event.
Do join us if you are town – we’ll be in the Whitworth Suite of The Palace Hotel on Oxford Road (M60 7HA for those who like a postcode) and would be delighted to welcome you. Doors open at 6pm for a 6.15pm start, with the debate running for an hour. Entry is free, and there will be light refreshments available too.
As Kim said in her opening blog, the publication of the inaugural State of Nature report in May means our focus is serious. The report, compiled by a collaboration of 25 conservation organisations, highlighted the dire state of most of our much-loved wildlife and wild places. With 60% of the species studied declining over the last few decades, and 1 in 10 under threat of disappearing from our shores altogether it has never been more important to have the environment at the heart of decision-making.
We welcome to our panel this week:
The Rt Hon Owen Paterson, Secretary of State for the Environment
Guy Newey, Head of Environment and Energy, Policy Exchange (@guynewey)
our own Mike Clarke, Chief Executive, RSPB (@mike__clarke)
and in the Chair we have Charles Clover, columnist for The Sunday Times, author of ‘The End of the Line’ and Chairman of the Blue Marine Foundation (@CRHClover).
If you can’t make it to us in person, you can still follow events as they happen on Twitter – I’ll be taking up Kim’s action station and tweeting live from the room. You can follow me @StephLandymore and the full debate using #rspbqt.
Looking forward to seeing you there!