Rebranding the Tory Oak

The greenest government ever, in the person of that famous environmental adornment Eric Pickles, has approved the extension of a Kent stone quarry into an ancient woodland site. The Government's new planning regulations, which were slightly watered down from the original attempt to expel from the shores of Albion all pretence of planning or regulation, stipulate that irreplaceable habitats should not be destroyed "unless the need for, and benefits of, the development in that location clearly outweigh the loss". As we all know by now, in the scales of the British Neoliberal Party's judgement nothing outweighs the benefits of corporate profit, and there is nothing in England so ancient or so traditional that it cannot be replaced with a reasonably-priced plastic substitute. A spokesbeing for Pickles' department said that "the land will be restored in due course to native woodland", but wisely refrained from specifying either the restoration's time-scale or its agency.