Recently, I was in my local park when I noticed a young girl staring at me with a puzzled expression. She then turned to her mother and asked: ‘Why is that man hugging a tree?’ It was a good question. Why was an old, cynical, embittered hack like me hugging a tree? The simple answer is: I’ve become a tree hugger. 

What’s wrong with Zionism, Hugh Laurie?

Is it time to scrub Andrew from the line of succession?

Peter Mandelson arrested by Met Police

There was a time when I laughed at people like me; and many are still laughing. Tree hugger is a term of abuse that everyone seems happy to use. Green politics may have moved closer to the mainstream but we tree huggers have been left out in the cold. We are the friends of the earth who have very few friends. To ‘climate sceptics’ on the right, we’re just lunatics. To left leaning eco-warriors, we are eco-wimps. 

To some in the Green movement, tree hugging is part of their embarrassing past. Don’t mention the hug word around Zack Polanski. According to a recent report in the Telegraph, ‘Greens shun tree hugging and embrace Gaza at Gorton and Denton by-election’. It represents the soft sentimental side of the hard struggle to save the planet. Hug a tree? You might as well........

© The Spectator