Former Tory cabinet minister announces he is to step down at the election in order to play a leading role in a pan-European campaign to tackle global warmingJohn Gummer, a former Conservative cabinet minister and one of the party's most staunch
environmentalists, has announced he is to quit the Commons to join a new international campaign to combat climate change.He said the collapse of the Copenhagen talks had forced him to rethink his longstanding plans to contest his Suffolk Coastal seat, which he has represented, with boundary changes, since the 1979 election which brought Margaret Thatcher into power. He was also MP for Lewisham West from 1970-74.Gummer is to play a leading role in as-yet-unrevealed pan-European campaign on climate change, which will be launched next month."I had every intention of staying on," he told the Guardian today, but said he had his mind changed by "the collapse of the Copenhagen talks and then the pressures from other people that we have got to do something about it".The departure of Gummer, who co-chaired the party's "quality of life" policy group with Tory candidate Zac Goldsmith, weakens the "green" presence on the Tory benches. He said he had discussed his departure with David Cameron before Christmas. "I am quite sure the future of these [green issues] are in safe hands with him. He is totally committed, but not everybody internationally is."Gummer's departure will make Kenneth Clarke, assuming he retains his safe Tory seat at the next election, the sole surviving Commons representative of the "Cambridge mafia", a group of high-octane Conservative brains from that university which made it to the cabinet. Michael Howard is standing down and Lords Brittan, Lamont and Fowler have already left.Gummer was party chairman under Thatcher, agriculture secretary under her and John Major, and then environment secretary for four years from 1993. He is possibly most famous, or infamous, for trying to feed his daughter Cordelia ...
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