The former Secretary of state for Environment, who referred to the environmental lobby as ‘the green blob’, was axed in the cabinet reshuffle last week for Liz Truss, who takes over the role.

Mr Paterson’s relations with environmental groups has dwindled somewhat during the course of his time in office after giving scathing comments about various organisations such as the Green party and Friends of the Earth.

"It was not my job to do the bidding of two organisations that are little more than anti-capitalist agitprop groups, most of whose leaders could not tell a snake's head fritillary from a silver-washed fritillary," he said.

Paterson was described by Friends of the Earth as ‘Paranoid and never fit to hold ministerial office’ whilst Greenpeace said his “tenuous grasp of the facts showed why it is best that he no longer dictates policy”.

In an interview for the Sunday Telegraph, Mr Paterson described his sacking as a "mutually supportive network of environmental pressure groups, renewable energy companies and some public officials who keep each other well supplied with lavish funds, scare stories and green tape", and said that much of his work as environment secretary was devoted to loosening its grip on government policy.

"This tangled triangle of unelected busybodies claims to have the interests of the planet and the countryside at heart, but it is increasingly clear that it is focusing on the wrong issues and doing real harm while profiting handsomely," he wrote.

Whilst Mr Paterson did not directly criticise David Cameron's decision to sack him, he reportedly told Cameron that his dismissal would alienate voters in the countryside.