"I'm sorry, I got it wrong."

An earlier post ('What are our woodlands worth?) will leave you in no surprise to hear that I couldn't help but breathe a huge sigh of relief as the Environment Secretary, Caroline Spelman, doubled back on herself today. She said that the obvious displeasure of the general public and some politicians require a different approach to the proposals to sell off a huge amount of land managed by the state.

I see this as quite a victory in the eternal battle to protect biodiversity and maintain public access to an important array of habitats in this country.

As I'm not a politician, or a 'real' journalist, I won't attempt to fill in the gaps for you (they can be found online here). There are still big changes ahead for the management of our forests and the future role, if any, the Forestry Commission will play in it. But whatever the future of our forests turns out to be, today's triumph has lit a small glimmer of hope in another way. It's not often you get a satisfactory apology in the House of Commons these days, which is a step up from the days of "You turn if you want to; the lady's not for turning". It takes more moral fibre to change your mind, especially when everybody's watching, than it would have done to plough ahead in fear of a dented sense of pride.