When nuclear rain swept the UK in the aftermath of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, farmers saw their livelihoods and even their families threatened. Some 9,700 farms and four million sheep were placed under restriction as radiocaesium- 137 seeped into the upland soils of England, Scotland and Wales.
Public lukewarm on Prince Charles
Friday 01 June 2012
Less than half of the British public believes the Prince of Wales should ascend to the throne, an opinion poll for i reveals today.
Richard Benyon: An aristocrat whose enthusiasms have clouded his judgement
Tuesday 29 May 2012
profile
Hit & Miss, Sky Atlantic, Tuesday
Harlots, Housewives and Heroines: a 17th-Century History for Girls, BBC4, Tuesday
Sunday 27 May 2012
Can a pre-op transsexual hit-man also be a good mum? Dilemmas don't get more modern than this
Derby Day, By DJ Taylor
Saturday 26 May 2012
As every punter knows, even impeccable lineage and short odds can't guarantee success at the Epsom Derby. According to DJ Taylor's novel, it was ever thus. In a Victorian melodrama surrounding a clever betting sting, Taylor portrays a society in the midst of preparing itself for a new kind of front-runner.
How I wooed the lovelorn shepherdess
Saturday 26 May 2012
Emma Gray made headlines with a book chronicling her solitary life on a Northumberland farm miles from civilisation - and the opposite sex. So could Jonathan Brown be the answer to her prayers?
Scientists plead with anti-GM protesters not to destroy crop
Friday 25 May 2012
Three senior scientists made impassioned appeals yesterday to anti-GM campaigners not to destroy a field trial of GM wheat that is the culmination of several years' work.
Diary: MPs are silenced by a masterpiece of mandarin-speak
Friday 25 May 2012
To be a successful Whitehall mandarin you need to learn never to lose your cool or rise to provocation, and to make your point without exaggerating. Sir Jeremy Heywood, who has reached the very pinnacle of the civil service, as Cabinet Secretary, exhibited these qualities to the full when questioned by MPs yesterday about Steve Hilton, the recently departed Downing Street adviser and friend of David Cameron, whose farewell gesture was to suggest that 90 per cent of civil servants should be sacked. "The way Steve operates is to challenge, he is a very challenging person," said Sir Jeremy, in classic mandarin speak.
Feeding a hungry world – or meddling with laws of nature?
Friday 25 May 2012
As scientists at Rothamsted's GM trials plead with activists not to sabotage their work, Michael McCarthy visits the battle field
Joanna Blythman: GM crop trials are reckless and needless
Thursday 24 May 2012
This Sunday, exasperated farmers and citizens will travel to a field near Harpenden to uproot a crop of genetically modified wheat. They have been denounced in purple prose by pro-GM commentators, as science haters, "Nazi book burners" and vandals. But what else can concerned citizens do when the company conducting the GM wheat trial, Rothamsted Research, presses on recklessly with an open field experiment that has the potential to contaminate neighbouring farmers' crops and trigger unpredictable impacts on other species?
Joanna Blythman: GM crop trials are needless and reckless
Thursday 24 May 2012
Canadian researchers have found traces of GM pesticide in 93 per cent of baby foetuses
Milk Link and Arla plan £2bn merger
Tuesday 22 May 2012
Around 1,600 farmers are set to join one of Europe's biggest dairy co-operatives in a deal that will pool nearly a quarter of UK milk production.
Man faces GM wheat break-in charges
Monday 21 May 2012
A 50-year-old man has been charged with criminal damage after an incident at a research centre where a trial of GM wheat is taking place.








