Nanny Bans Park Rangers

Nanny, and her friends, always claim to have the best interests of her "charges" at heart.

She is always "tub thumping" about social inclusion.

Nanny's fickle gaze has now turned to that bastion of prejudice, the Lake District National Park.

Seemingly, in Nanny's opinion, her targets for social inclusion are not being met by the Lake District National Park. Namely, not enough people from minorities and other groups are visiting the parks.

Nanny is concerned that the park only seems to appeal to the white middle classes, people like her neighbours in Islington in fact. I don't blame her, I wouldn't want a bunch of Islingtonites tramping through my undergrowth either!

Anyhoo, Nanny is determined to address this issue. Therefore in a splendidly daft solution, even by Nanny's halfwitted standards, she has decided to ban the free guided walks carried out by over 100 volunteer rangers .

The activities facing the axe, include a programme of 900 events run by 300 rangers. These include a magazine, informative talks, slide shows and children's farm visits.

Nanny's friend Paul Tiplady, national park officer, told the volunteers of the decision by letter. Quote:

"..more regional and EU funding would be attracted by refocusing on the urban young, people from ethnic communities and disabled people..".

In other words, it is merely stunt to grab more money from the EU; as we all know Nanny doesn't give a stuff about the countryside anyway.

If anyone can explain quite how axing volunteer rangers will change the socio economic mix of visitors, will they please explain it to the rest of us.