Prince Charles waded out in his wellies to see the flooding on the Somerset Levels, while Chris Smith, head of the Environment Agency, was knee-deep in accusations that he doesn’t love the countryside. He’d not made a visit and said that we need to choose between “town or country, front rooms or farmland”.
But according to The Ramblers (formerly The Ramblers Association), the Barnet-born former Labour MP is actually a natural at this countryside stuff. Lord Smith was its chairman from 2004 to 2008. “He is not a city boy,” says president Kate Ashbrook. “He has rambled all over the place. He particularly loves wild country. He has talked about the importance of allowing people to walk free in lonely places and how vital it is to us all. ”
Smith was the first MP to climb all the Munros — Scottish mountains over 3,000ft — and once said: “There’s no better antidote I know to the flurry and business of politics and public life than sitting on the ridge of a Scottish mountain and contemplating the view.” Perhaps the Somerset Levels are all a bit too, er, level for him.
