Kerre Woodham: Refusing to walk the talk

So the Government's put the farmland access issue on the backburner until after the election. Hardly surprising. This was a hugely unpopular piece of legislation that had townies and cockies united in their fury at what they saw was, rightly or wrongly, a gross invasion of their property rights.

It's all very well for the Government to say the legislation has been misunderstood and farmers have misrepresented the issue to the public. Given the numbers of trained communicators and spin doctors employed by the Beehive, surely it's up to the Government to ensure their legislation is gussied up and sweetened to make it palatable to the electorate.

Remember the furore over the driver's licences? It was talkback hog heaven. Every night, people would ring up incensed at having a lifetime licence taken from them with the stroke of a pen, and transformed into a licence that would have to be renewed every 10 years.

Maurice Williamson just didn't get it and - to be fair - neither did I. He thought people were just being silly and that they would get used to the whole idea of the licences. And they did. But not before they'd turfed Maurice and the National team out.

The Government is quite right to walk away from this one, and the power pylons, and the drinking age, and the rest of the tricky stuff. At least until after the election or until they can snaffle up Alistair Campbell. He's done such a marvellous job deflecting Lions criticism that Labour would be mad if they didn't offer him a working holiday.