Last week she stood up in front of the National Farmers Union and told them "I appreciate that your members are looking for clarity on specific issues - such as the future of direct payments." "I am not going to stand here today and pre-empt the work the Government is doing to get the best possible deal for the UK. Those negotiations will take time."
Like all good lies this sounds at first sight perfectly reasonable. Farmers do indeed want to know whether they will receive any subsidies when we leave the EU and what they might be for. So perhaps it might be reasonable to cut her some slack and let her negotiate those subsidies with the EU before she tells us anything about her policy.
But hang on a minute. I thought the whole idea of us leaving the EU was so that we didn't have to negotiate things like this. She can say what she likes about what UK policy on farm subsidies might look like after we leave. That is about UK policy. It is not something that depends on complex external negotiations. It simply requires coherent thinking to be announced by the UK government.
Instead she is saying nothing and claiming it would somehow damage Brexit if she is honest with farmers about what she wants to do. This trick is being pulled off by Conservatives again and again in area after area of policy and it needs challenging. It simply isn't true.
It is just about plausible that in some circumstances it may indeed be necessary to hold complex detailed negotiations behind closed doors on exactly what the tariff rules will be between the UK and the EU. It is not plausible to claim that we cannot know what the government intends to do about subsidising UK farmers or almost any other subject you care to mention where UK policy is likely to change.
We've been told for years that when we get free of the EU we'll be free to make our own decisions. Well then, it's time Andrea and her like started to tell us what those decisions will be. There can only be two possible reasons why we are not hearing this.
One is because the government hasn't worked out what it thinks and doesn't know what it wants to do. Never a great position for a country to be in. The other is that they know entirely what they would like the future policy to be. They are just scared still that too many voters won't like it. That is even worse.
Vagueness allows you to be the friend of everyone. As soon as you have real policies in place someone won't like them. Actually quite a lot of people won't like them.
We need to hear what UK policy will be once we are "free of Brussels controls". We need to hear what the government intends to do about specific areas of policy like agriculture. Few people think Brussels got this absolutely right. Even fewer people agree on exactly what the alternative would be. So let's all see the policies at an early stage and let everyone with some knowledge on the subject try to challenge and improve them. That is the only way to get those policies error free and to get the necessary systems designed and put in place in time to operate efficiently and do what they are intended to do two years from now.
I would like to see a commitment to recast farming subsidies so that:
1. There is a cap on how much can go to any one farmer, farm corporation or conglomerate.
2. The subsidies are for stewardship of the land not just production.
3. Subsidies are co-ordinated with other policy areas. For example they should encourage tree planting on bare grouse moors in order to reduce the risk of flooding in valleys that are currently subject to rapid run off and excessive silting.
4. The subsidy system is simple to operate and pays farmers on time but is subject to efficient checks on fraud.
5. The system helps improve food security and supports local production for local sale and increased employment in the agriculture industry.
I would also like to see a firm commitment that all food imports will need to comply with UK minimum standards. This means:
1. It will not be possible for US mass producers to battery farm cattle and then destroy the UK cattle industry or its animal welfare standards by selling at prices UK farms can't match without subjecting cows to the same levels of cruelty.
2. It won't be possible for crops grown by spraying pesticides banned in the UK to be sold in the UK by foreign farmers.
3. It won't be possible for technology that is banned in the UK to be used to grow food that is sold in the UK. For example Genetically Manipulated crops that don't comply with UK law.
4. No international undemocratic courts will make decisions about what food can be imported to the UK
Now I don't expect for one minute that Andrea Leadsom will come up with policies that have much in common with the ones I am suggesting. That would be too much to hope for. But she could at least pay farmers and voters the courtesy of starting to explain what policies she does support. Or she could perhaps tell us when she will get round to telling us about them. A week before we leave? A month? A year? Two years - oh hang on, that's now!
That is the real problem for this crazy far right government that pretends to be Conservative. They want to take us into a brave new world where everything is different and we don't have any of those pesky policies coming out of Brussels. But they don't seem very keen on working out the pesky details of their own policies or telling us anything about the evolution of those policies.
Could it perhaps be that when voters start to see the bitter reality of those policies that Brexit will really start to become unpopular? And when we do finally see the detailed comparison of the policies that are on offer post Brexit with those that existed before could it be that a lot of people will want the chance to go to the polls again and tell this government exactly what they think of it before it is too late?