Life after Meacher

It may not have attracted as much attention as the abolition of the Lord Chancellor's Department and the legal and parliamentary reforms that will go with it, but the formation of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs was in many ways a worse botch. Shaped by the post-election haggling for ministerial fiefdoms, DEFRA had the environment thrown in as a makeweight for the team who had to create something new from the wreck that was the Ministry of Agriculture.