But the IUCN’s “science” carried the day, with the result that across Britain, farmers have been reporting the loss of up to 30 per cent or more of their oilseed rape crop. The irony is that one of the advantages of neonics was that they were much less environmentally damaging than the pesticides they replaced, such as organophosphates. Only now, however, has my expert colleague, Richard North, managed to reveal that the EU gave the IUCN task force €493,000, specifically to assemble the evidence needed to support a ban (for further details see his EU Referendum blog). This is yet another example of the bizarre symbiosis the EU has established with green pressure groups, as it showers out hundreds of millions of euros a year for them to lobby it for the all-too-often destructive policies they want. Among those who fell for the dubious science behind this particular ban was David Cameron. In their tetchy final interview last July he raised it as one of his chief reasons for sacking Mr Paterson: easily the best-informed and most effective Defra secretary of state we’ve ever had.