Not just out of touch with the people at large, but also why so many dogs are used by the folk that manage our countryside for us. That lab probably fills many useful purposes, as does the terrier for ratting and so on (I’ve purposely not gone into just what you might use a dog for to not excite those that call them fur babies!).
If she is meant, as the responsible minister, to have an understanding of the hows and whys of country life, then she has totally misunderstood the brief - that’s if she bothered to listen.
In our county, as well as others, we had a badger cull, which reduce the amount of badgers around and led to a short term reduction in TB in cattle. Very short term as the funding ended and there zero chance of it being reinstalled by the Labour government. Meanwhile, the animal huggers are happy, but all those with cattle - feeding the people of this country - are left with a problem almost and soon to be as big as it was before the cull.
I could cite numerous examples of bonkers policy. But there is one truism behind it all. People appointed to be in charge that have absolutely no understanding of what is involved in the stewardship of this land which has, despite the issues of cost, Europe, et al, improved vastly over the past forty years or so.
In honesty, I’m not so sure many, whatever their party, actually do, so become the puppets of bean counting metropolitan civil servants.