WHAT is the countryside for? The question might seem odd. Must everything in life be reduced to a calculable purpose? The British countryside is what it has always been: a place shaped by millions of individual actions by humans and animals over thousands of years, made special precisely by the fact that there never has been a grand plan. It is a beautiful accident.
Still, we do need to answer the question. Rural issues are marginal in national debate and, with that, old constancies are falling away. The way things are will not