Starmer’s right to roam pledge puts the Tories in a bind

Keir Starmer has come up with a good policy for once. He is promising to offer a Scottish-style right to roam across England, which would open up vastly more tracts of land for public recreation. The right to roam granted by the Blair government 20 years ago applies only to moorland, which is rare in the South East, while Starmer’s proposal would extend to woodland and other areas of uncultivated land.

It is a clever policy not just because it is popular in itself – according to a YouGov poll today 62 per cent of voters are in favour and 19 per cent against; even among Conservative voters it is supported 56 per cent to 31 per cent. It is also clever because it is liable to push the Conservatives into the electorally barren pastures of standing up for landowners’ rights, pastures already thoroughly explored by William Hague’s Tories.

Hague, you may remember, spent a good deal of his time as leader opposing Blair’s hunting ban and right to roam law.