Fifteen grand for a lizard - that's newt (From News Shopper)

Fifteen grand for a lizard - that's newt

3:36pm Thursday 1st May 2008

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A newt for £15,000 sounds a bit steep - but MP for Lewisham and Deptford Joan Ruddock appears to think money is no object when it comes to saving the reptiles.

The story has been around for a while about Cheshire County Council spending £60,000 moving four of them as part of a planning application for building work at a school in Macclesfield.

But when Tory MP for Macclesfield Sir Nicolas Winterton asked the junior environment minister: ”Is this a sensible way to spend taxpayers' money and would you ensure that the habitat directive of the EU, under which the council is obliged to act in this way, is urgently reviewed?"

Ms Ruddock answered - rather enigmatically: “It is not possible to equate the overall sum of money, which is relevant and necessary, to the number of newts actually moved."

So whether there was one newt - by my reckoning - worth £60,000 or whether there was 60,000 newts - worth £1 - it makes no difference.

I am no economist, but I did pass GCSE maths and see that this is just wrong.

Maybe I am not working on the same mental plane as the gnomic Ms Ruddock.

In between stories about Boris punching slabs of beef like a flaxen-haired Rocky Balboa and grumpy Ken eating his bacon sandwich and trying not to look pissed off about having to go everywhere by bus and tube - there was a story on the BBC news website last week about a priceless tree in Mayfair, which had been valued at £750,000.

As I said - I am no bean counter but the story confounded me.

Perhaps the BBC journalist should speak to Ms Ruddock about what priceless means.