By Gabe Trodd
Sickening details of the Conservatives’ plans to reintroduce hunting foxes, stags and other animals have been revealed over the weekend. Labour’s flagship 2004 Hunting Act had previously consigned the ‘sport’ to the history books, although newspapers are reporting that fresh Tory policies are being cultivated behind closed doors by William Hague, Edward Garnier and the Countryside Alliance, with the firm backing of a number of other senior Conservatives and private organisations. In policy terms, the finer details of the plans will include the creation of a quango, the Hunt Regulatory Authority (HRA).
Inevitably, the plans will be distressing to the 75% of the British public who do not wish to see a return to the cruelty of this pastime, as well as organisations like the League Against Cruel Sports, who are gearing up to fight hard against the plans with a new high-profile campaign next month. Whilst the League Against Cruel Sports have flagged up the fact that "fifty-six per cent of people say they would change their vote if their candidate supports the repeal," Stephen Lambert of the Master of Foxhounds Association, who is fine-tuning the plans for the Conservatives with Brian Fanshawe (a former Master of Foxhounds), has unkindly stated in the media: "We’ve built the car, the key is in the ignition, we’re just waiting to turn it."
It’s easy to take for granted how far Labour has taken the UK on animal welfare: securing an EU-wide ban on the trade in seal fur; banning fur farming and working in Europe to ban imports of cat and dog fur into the EU; establishing the National Centre for the Replacement, Reduction and Refinement of Animals in Research which provides research into alternatives to animal testing; securing better welfare standards at a European level for battery hens and meat chicken; banning driftnet fishing which helps protect dolphins, turtles and other animals; banning testing cosmetics, toiletries, alcohol and tobacco on animals; and refusing to license any testing on great apes (such as chimpanzees, orangutans and gorillas).
But what’s confusing about the Conservative plans, for anyone interested in environmentalism and ecology, is the hypocrisy and duplicity. Whilst Conservative-run councils have opposed 80% of wind farm applications submitted to them since David Cameron became the leader of the Conservative party, against the backdrop of fierce campaigns against the supposed ‘scarring of the landscape’, the Conservative plans to turn back the clocks on the hunting ban will obliterate Labour’s work to protect British rural areas and wildlife, and blight the landscape with the savagery and cruelty of the hunt. The League Against Cruel Sports have rebutted many of the reasons being put forward by supporters of the Conservative plans here.
The details of the plans are the final nail in the coffin for any credible pretence of ‘compassionate Conservatism’ or Tory environmentalism. The conflict and dividing lines that would exist under Cameron are becoming increasingly pronounced: climate change campaigners would have to fiercely clash with the Conservative energy team and Conservative-run councils, and animal welfare campaigners would have to fiercely clash with William Hague, Edward Garnier, the Tory DEFRA team and the new HRA.
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And having voted for this lot they deserve it!
As for barbecues - they're not a feminist plot to prove that men can't cook, they're a feminist plot to get us a night off so that men DO the cooking. However, it's a plot that has spectacularly backfired on us because the down side is that we have to smile sweetly and eat the immolated offerings and then, oh joy, we have to nurse and look after our men when they go down with salmonella! So, on the whole, I too hate barbecues and on health and marriage preservation grounds, think they should be banned!!
I never knew they grew on trees.
I have no problem with you expressing your views and would never dream of trying to stop you.In fact I agree with you that such comments as you highlight contribute nothing to the debate. I was simply trying to address the fact that you seemed to be making a moral judgement about farmers and rural life based on fairly scant evidence, some of which was second hand. Animal rescue charities, by their very nature, are full of horror stories about cruelty. However, there is a widespread perception among rural dwellers that people who live in towns and cities, NOT Labourites in general, plenty of us live in the countryside, don't understand the dynamics of rural life. I live and work in an area of oustanding natural beauty and it's hard not to feel that, encouraged by the government, the tourist industry presents it as some sort of huge, free theme park, Disneyland with sheep and rain. In reality, the countryside is where our food comes from and, if we lose those skills as decent farmers go bust, leave the industry in their droves and aren't replaced by younger people, then we become a nation entirely dependent upon imported foodstuffs. A very dangerous route to follow. (and that picture postcard landscape everyone loves to yomp about in at weekends etc. will disappear too) This Labour government hasn't shown any committment to British agriculture and has, in fact, presided over its demise. Same with our fishing industry. Fox hunting, upon which Parliament wasted many many hours, was seen as the very public face of that attitude which finally motivated formerly indifferent people to take action. I suspect that many Tories perceive foxhunting as a class issue and, apart from that, have no more interest in those of us who live and work in the countryside than the current government. As for hypocrisy, it's already been pointed out in other comments, that those who often protest the loudest about cruelty to foxes, will happily sit down to an intensively reared chicken, battery egg etc. And, just out of interest, do they feel so protective towards rats?
(Thomas B. Macaulay: "The puritan hated bear baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators").
Runner beans are in season. Can we find common ground?
You are right : many people are vile towards animals, no matter what their post-code.
However, there appeared to be some contributors to this site who were telling us Labourites that 'we don't understand the country, fence-leaning, straw-chewing romantics an' all', and I just chipped in with my first-hand experience of farmers.
No, I don't think that fox-hunting is going to be in the top fifty of voters' concerns in the next general election ('It's the economy, stupid'). But, please, allow me to express a view on the hypocrisy of those who support fox-hunting.
I'll lay dollars to doughnuts that you obtain all of your political and economic knowledge from either the Daily Mail or Daily Telegraph.
(i) the '20 million citizens' are actually around 40 million, if you are referring to the electorate being 'denied' a referendum on the Europe business
(ii) government does not give figures ('benefits up') by calendar year, but by fiscal year
(iii) government debt stood at £800 billion in June (£658 billion excluding financial sector interventions) - a long way from '£1.4 trillion.'
(iv) as for 'private sector pensions trashed' - it will clearly be below your mental capacity, being a Daily Mail reader an' all, to understand all the ins-and-outs of private pensions provision, but I'm preparing a post on this very subject.
Voter ID conclusion : tribal Tory, don't bother to knock.
I take your point re the entertainment. Personally I was vaguely against hunting before the bill, but followed it quite closely and was swung the other way. I went on a hunt to see what it was like after the ban, and while it's not really my cup of tea, this did make me see the argument about the culture, and the greater-than-you-expect social diversity. I am a long term football supporter, and it reminded me of that, right down to the adrenalin and violence - the Saturday ritual, social networks are probably more important than the actual purpose. My personal opinion, backed up by men I know who actually do the digging out, wjich is the cruel part, is - leave the hunting alone, just shoot the fox as soon as you can. I think the trouble is a) it's almost unenforceable andb) the police don't bother because of all the ex top brass who hunt. That last bit is very wrong.
As for the slow progress of the bill, I did follow it as I said, and to me it seemed that the practical difficulties were almost insurmountable. And there are complex arguments too - why is it ok to kill a fish for sport, after all, and not a fox, when foxes ARE vermin?
Also I had the sense that the committees were clueless, but in search of concrete case to justify the bill, and the case was never going to be so concrete.
get well soon!
what we have now is a situation, as MT points out above, where fox capture/kill ratios are up steeply (particularly in scotland) with a higher proportion of slow-death through indiscriminacy (snare) and injury (bullet). this is a simple matter of contemporary fact. was this really the intention? surely not. the results are certainly not a positive contribution to responsible biodiversity. or was it merely a dog whistle for a vengeful old skool left, as evidenced when the late tony banks MP was famously and embarrassingly caught in an undercover recording admitting that the hunt "ban" was unequivocally a statement of class war?
i appreciate what an emotive issue this is for some. but it can only be dealt with sensibly when emotion is removed and the relative cases are argued on empirical fact. the red jacket, the bugle, the hip flask, the ruddy-faces, the "us" and "them" - provocative illusions all. none of these things cast anything more more than a sad and bigoted cloud of distraction.
Didn’t know about the ratting, thanks for pointing it out. The point I was trying to make is that hunting is about entertainment first and control second.
With regard to the debate to ban hunting, I know it took loads of hours, not sure why (any ideas?), to me it should have been straight forward.
About Iraq, my stance was about trying to understand why we were going in. I believed and still do that Saddam needed to be removed and not by us by the people. I did have some hope that we would help to rebuild the country, through infructure, hospitals, schools, etc before we looked at moving oil out. This we did not do, and in some respects scored an own goal. Numerous lives could have been saved. We needed to bring better, safer life’s to the people to get them back on their feet.
Two underlying flaws in the argument for the Iraq war are that if it was right to remove Saddam, then why not Mugabe. If Iraq was the world capital for carrot export, would we have gone in so quickly?
War is a very bad thing and the loss of life is a crime in its own right. I always think of the mothers when I hear about people dying through war, the pain they must feel is unimaginable.
In Flu like Unity
MA
A working class sport? Not exclusively at all. Have you seen the historic cock pit just outside Eton College? Also did you watch Bargain Hunt today - who featured a "A chair used by the aristocracy for watching cock fighting"
http://media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media/20/7620-004-B22E57CA.jpg
Finally remember the back bench MP's who shouted "That's for the miners" at the end of the fox hunting debate? Are you sure this wasn't partly about class war?
On any other forum, on any other subject, this statement would be regarded as a bit of knockabout wit, a device used to make a valid point.
As wit and humour is virtually unknown on this holier-than-thou forum I can only assume that Northern Monkey is actually serious when he types out sentences like :Tories are immoral".
I doubt if anyone of sane mind and body has the time and will power to analyse Mr Monkey's political discourse and point out to him that his beloved NuLabour redefined political morality starting in 2003 when they took the country into an illegal war based on lies and deceit and which cost hundreds of thousands of innocent lives*.
Thanks - but I'll sleep better with Tory "morality" my Simian friend.
*Yes the Tories did support GWII. But only because they were gullible enough to believe that no PM would lie to the House.
I might be a fabianist lefty but I also have a lot of good friends and family in the industry, so it's not THAT black and white.
Also have to say that I think when people are indirectly subsidising farms they have some right to comment; I remember farmers commenting freely on coal mining in the 80s. At the same time, those commenting should also take note of practical experience.
Halal meat?
http://www.countryside-video.co.uk/ratting.htm
Re cruelty to people - I hate to be the millionth person to point it out but the bill was being debated at the same time as the Iraq war, which involved cololssal cruelty to people. Tho to be fair I'd guess you didn't support the war either.
World's not perfect but there's levels of stupidity. Cutting out the worst and obvious abuse seems prudent. After them things get morally hazy in a beyond good and evil sense. Personally, I'd suggest people take up gardening or meditation as they, effectively, perform the same role but who am I to judge. Theologically one could argue that it's the fishes role to spiritually comfort and feed man. Who knows? Life is a mystery.
As a result; hunts still continue and the legislation has not stopped a single hunt.
Rural foxes are vermin; foxes do not kill to eat and they will kill an entire pen of chickens for the mere fun of it and take back only a few entrails for their cubs. A fox can kill upwards of 60 game birds in a single night. Foxes have no natural predator and represent a serious threat to livestock from chickens and hens through to game and even small lambs and piglets. Foxes also carry and spread diseases harmful to livestock and also humans.
More foxes than ever before are snared, gassed or shot than ever hunted to death. The sad irony is that snaring is far more indiscriminate than hunting as snares catch pregnant females whilst when they are pregnant they give off no scent and cannot be hunted.
In terms of foxes shot; dependent on the rifle and ammunition; lethality is at a short range of 150 yards. As a result, more foxes suffer from maiming through a non-lethal shot than maiming through hunting.
In terms of animal welfare, the current legislation is akin to leaving the barn door wide open.
It overlooks, of course, the Welsh miners packs of hounds. Interesting that the modern Labour party MPs have little sense of mining as a rural industry, which in many cases it was.
I actually agree with you on foxes to an extent - they should just shoot them with a small gun at the point of digging out. But what I cannot stand are the double-standards, hypocrisy and ignorance in the debate.
Good stuff you are writing.
You forgot to mention the unmentionable as far as farmers are concerned : subsidies, which they have received for at least 50 years to my knowledge (before the CAP, which they profess to hate). Subsidies, by and large, are abhorrent to Conservatives .....
If the 75 per cent living in urban areas are paying taxes to support farmers, then they should have some say in matters that have a financial impact.
'As a lad', I worked on farms in the school holidays, and for a year before going to University. I now live in a village that has a few farmers, so I know a little bit about the bu**ers : (i) their first thought is invariably their bank account and (ii) I have yet to meet a farmer who wouldn't skin a fart for tuppence.
Twenty years ago, we acquired our first dogs - a couple of Border Collie rescues. When we collected the second, the Rescue lady told us that the dog was one of a litter, that had been bred by a farmer for sale at Christmas. When none of the litter had been sold, the farmer telephoned her to offer the litter for rescue, otherwise 'it'd be in a sack in the river.'
That's farmers and 'the rural life.'
Animals can be pests, others exist merely to be consumed, and others still have use in medical experiements but that's no reason to disrepect them or be cruel. Any good farmer or so-called Townie knows this. The problem is the lazy and sociopathic.
Any fool can claim authority and take an attitude on the internet. Hence, all the steel jawed positioning and carpet bombing of perceived opponents. But, this is ignorant and immature. Quite tiresome. Utterly useless.
Meanwhile, the Tories are claiming parts of Britian are like 'The Wire'. I've personally known gangsters, drug dealers, drop outs, and murderers. I could (if my memory functioned) generate an easy headline with some of the things I'm aware of. What do the Tories know beyond TV fantasy and gated community paranoia?
The iron triangle of big business, finance, and the Tory party are the guys who promoted gang culture in popular media, destroyed opportunities, and withdrew capital from poorer areas. They caused the problems, shifted the blame, and are trying to present themselves as the solution. Clue: they're not.
The CBI are trying too look good by talking up apprenticeships but the sad fact is it's just another attempt to take peoples eye off the bonus culture ball and claim more corporate welfare so the already rich don't have to pay. Jobs, real money, and more positive culture goals are the key. Only Labour get this.
"Or not getting a joke?" Not so much a joke as sarcasm!
"ACPO is a police organisation isn't it?" Yup! The police chiefs have basically said the Labour laws are unenforcible. So they won't!
If I recall rightly there are more workers involved in telesales than agriculture. But I agree the majority shouldn't tyrannise the minority.
However your point about wolves and foxes is completely tainted. How come we idealise and anthropomorphise descendants of the wolf (i.e. dogs) and demonise their close relations? It's facile. Neither foxes, badgers or wolves are 'horrible'. As a countryman you should know that. They just disturb your livestock.
And what they've got to with 'carrots' I don't know. Unless you think rabbits are 'horrible' too. They're all animals, doing the best they can to reproduce and survive.
".... but what about the right of a chicken not to be persecuted by a fox?"
Er ... didn't someone once say 'life is just one big restaurant table?'
But didn't Blair do everything he could to kick the anti-hunting legislation unto the long grass for years, only letting it reach the statute books as part of a deal with his backbenchers to garner support for his own education bill, which was faltering in the commons? I don't believe that Labour covered itself in glory by not taking on the blood sport lobby sooner and making the hunting bill less ambiguous, but it was a step in the right direction and as such was ultimately very worthwhile.
With over three million people unemployed and an historical national deficit to tackle after the next general election, I will be amazed if the Tories spare any legislative time to repealing the Labour's anti-hunting legislation during their first term in office. Besides, doesn't David Cameron want to fox people into believing that the Conservative Party has been transformed into compassionate, modern, humane and decent political force and is no longer the "nasty" Party that kept it far from power for thirteen years or so? I don't think making a priority issue vis-a-vis allowing a small minority of sadistic country folk to hunt foxes in the most appalling and violent fashion imaginable would help him move this programme forward.
If a single word about fox hunting appears anywhere in the forthcoming Tory manifesto I'll eat my hat!
* One half Gallon of Apple Cider or Apple Juice
* 3 to 4 cups of Orange Juice
* 1 to 2 cups water
* 1/2 cup sugar
* 3/4 to 1 teaspoon cinnamon
* 1/16 teaspoon nutmeg
* 1/16 tea spoon cloves
Mix all items in a large pot on the stove or in a large crock pot. Heat then let steam and brew for 90 minutes. Serve Hot with a stick of cinnamon. (It may also be simmered for 20 to 30 minutes over an open fire. Caution, do not place pot in the fire) It may also be iced after brewing and served with a sprig of spearmint as a garnish.
Stewardship of the countryside is not a matter for the metropolitan Labour elite sadly demonstrated by the foot-and-mouth crisis.
They then pull the barbed hook (have you ever had a fish hook caught in your hand - it hurts)out of the fishes mouth and throw it back in again. Recently a huge 64lb carp died of natuarl causes - but it has been estimated that she was caught and thrown back more thna 60 times during her life.
That must be far more barbaric than fox hunting. We happily kill rats by any means - why not foxes?
Thanks for sharing that insightful and thoroughly analytical viewpoint.
I'm not a fan of bird shootings, but it's hardly comparable to being ripped apart by hounds for sporting pleasure.
What you've made is perhaps a point for more restrictions on bird shooting, not a case for legalising fox hunting.
At the end of the day, you can bang on about class warfare as much as you want, but the true class war comes from the Tories who want one rule for them (legalised fox hunting, unelected over-privileged monarchy with all the flunkies around them like Lord-Lieutenants, Lord Sheriffs etc. across the country, House of Lords with automatic places for 92 aristocrats, Church of England Bishops etc) and one rule for the lower classes (like the ban of cock-fighting which the Tories are happy to keep).
So why do the Tories support banning cock-fighting but not fox hunting? Because cock-fighting was traditionally a working class sport and fox-hunting was traditionally an upper-class sport. As I say, the Tories are the true class warriors.
Nobody eats foxes. You may kill foxes in order to keep the numbers down, but shooting them would be much quicker and less painful.
It's the cruelty to animals for the purposes of sport and entertainment which is the problem.
The same as bull-fighting or bear-baiting.
It's performing cruelty on animals as part of a sport or social occasion that's the problem.
I have no problem with animals being killed humanely, either for food or because they carry disease.
But you can't tell me that dressing up to the nines with a bugle in hand whilst wathcing hounds tear apart a fox slowly and painfully, is anything other than watching animal cruelty for human pleasure.
I did not say that fox hunting is a primary reason for Lords reform, I simply said that Lords reform would have made it harder for a fox hunting ban to be repealed.
Wow,you really are upset,I clearly hit a raw nerve,but the facts speak for themselves,a 12 year horror show.
I accept this is the case as I am a meat eater.
2) 75% of the British public do not live in the countryside.
3) Hypothetically, why don't all farmers in this country go on strike and stop producing food, or unite and jack up prices by 500%? Farming is something that 95% of the general population don't have a clue about. You guardianite, fabianist lefties would not have a leg to stand on. Hunger or fox hunting? I'd rather choose fox hunting. Just remember that when you are buying your carrots.
4) Foxes are horrible creatures, almost similar to wolves. Many a fluffy Joe the pet rabbit or Barry the chicken has been slaughtered (and when I mean slaughtered they DO rip them to shreds). They carry disease and kill livestock - in other words they are a pest and their population keeps growing.
5) So in that case, stop interfering in the affairs and traditions of the countryside and go back to drafting crime policy in your comfortable little office.
6) PS. I am sure your a nice guy, so don't take this personally. But if you don't live or work in the countryside, quite frankly you have no right to comment on its affairs.
I have seen hunting up close and I don’t buy the vermin angle. The main reason for this is that I haven’t seen great crowds gathered watching rent a kill deal with rats!
Hunting is purely done for entertainment, some hunts even breed foxes for the ‘chase’. I am glad the ban is in place, I am not happy with how poor it is when it comes to enforcement.
There are better ways to deal with foxes, stags, otters etc than hunting with dogs. Yet it is claim to be tradition, so to was slavery, and we stopped that in some forms.
Animal experiments under Labour have continued to increae “3,583,223 animals were used in tests in 2008, an increase of 14% on the previous year” (BUAV), and to tell the truth this is a market driven by money and not medical.
We able to cure cancer in mice and not in people!
Cruelty in all its forms is wrong, and If people can commit such cruelty against a living thing, that feels, feels pain and fears death, then its not too much further to do the same to people.
In Flu like Unity
MA
You're right. I think there are no simplicities here. Animals have some rights, but what about the right of a chicken not to be persecuted by a fox. I think our reasoning on this is all over the place. I'm no fan of hunting, but I once wrote a musical about a Matador, and though the bull was the hero (and even got a song) it was intimated to me from someone from PETA that someone could firebomb my house.
My response to that was - but I'm an animal too! Don't I have rights?
Back to easier topics: barbecues. I'm convinced they're a feminist conspiracy to prove that men can't cook. With the exception of some seafood kebabs, most barbecues I've eaten have a simple recipe: carbon on the outside, salmonella on the inside.
I can answer your point re the extermination. If you go to areas where there is less organised hunting, the foxes are controlled by the gun, and as a result there are virtually no foxes. Ie they are all but exterminated. Hunting is actually a far less effective form of control - indeed it can be argued that it breeds fitter foxes because it catches the slower ones.
This begs the question why hunt at all if the aim is to control foxes? Why don't farmers just shoot the fox? This is where logic departs: the reason is local hierarchies and networks - the farmers don't want to upset the more powerful local landowners. I've personal experience of this, shooting around Bridlington.
Finally, in heavily wooded areas shooting isn't going to work so well as the fox is not exposed. Whereas the men and terriers will be effective.
To an extent I agree with you about the pleasure. The only thing is, I don't think its black and white.
Re the point about waste, it's not much consolation if it's your chickens that got killed.
I'm not a massive fan of hunting at all, by the way, I just don't like what to me seems like hypocrisy and double standards among the antis. As for the gormless class notions - it says something to me about how far Labour has come from its roots that noone ever seems to know about Welsh miners packs of hounds.
PS PJ I'm glad to hear that someone else dislikes barbecues. I had begun to think I was alone.
I note you agree on Barbecues and Big Brother though...
So we'll just have to slug it out over the Broccoli. Or Broccoli it out over the slugs.
Though no doubt some nuclear physicist will show up and tell me they're both inseparable.
have to agree...
Personally I couldn't care less either way. I have friends from all walks of life, and when the ban was being debated, none of us cared about the outcome. I really don't know where they get their 75% figure from. There are far more pressing matters for parliament to address than the plight of foxes (or their hunters). Any plan to repeal the ban will have no effect on my vote at the next GE.
I'm so tired of this "Tories eat babies" crap.
Tell me what Labour will do for me. (and then explain to me why Labour didn't do it during the last 12 years)
Tell me what Labour will do for our country. (and then explain to me why Labour didn't do it during the last 12 years)
And whilst you're at it, tell me why I should believe anything the Labour party says, considering Labour ministers have been proven to lie on countless occasions.
Whom are you trying to kid,yourself?
If New Labour were the slightest bit concerned about cruelty to animals then they would have banned halal slaughter whereby hundreds of thousands of animals each day are subjected to extreme cruelty.This has been supported by numerous independent reports including the RSPCA.
But as this would alienate the muslim & jewish vote it's not even discussed,no mention in any manifesto,just the class based politics aimed at non Labour voters and some crumbs thrown at lefties.
Get real,the only reason for the fox hunting ban and you well know it is class based politics,so please stop the crap.
Thanks - and good to see you back. Excellent comments in the past week or so.
-2 disatrous wars
-500,000 corpses
-3 million unemployed
-20 million citizens denied a vote promised in the manifesto
-£1.4 trillion in debt
-Benefits up from £93 billion in 97 to £193 billion in 2010 'the cost of failure'
-60% of council tenants don't pay rent
-Private sector pensions trashed
AND LABOURLIST IS FOCUSSED ON FOX HUNTING.
Foxes will kill all the chickens in a coop, but they are not wasteful killers. If undisturbed, they will bury uneaten prey, and leave it to consume in hungrier times.
So let's no calumnise the Fox. If fox hunters enjoy their 'sport' let them just admit it, rather than saying they are doing pest control.
That's the question. I've an open mind about this. Unfortunately, the minority/majority issue in case of burglars doesn't answer my question. A minority opinion believed capital punishment was wrong. If everyone in the world believes something, and one person doesn't, it doesn't make that person wrong. So appeals to the majority don't cut it morally, though electorally they do of course.
As it happens, I don't think fox hunting is something that should be legislated about - but don't really care one way or the other - but having a private company decide what laws get enforced or not... now that is *wrong*.
Having laws that aren't enforced also supports a stupid lazy government passing stupid laws for political an image reason, rather than because individual rights demand it.
Hunting is more popular now than it ever was before the ban. Labour put class warfare ahead of animal welfare i.e.
It was more attractive to go after people in red jackets on horses, than for instance, to go after other forms of hunting. If Labour had gone after pheasant shoots (On each shoot 100's of birds are bred, shot and then buried in a pit without being eaten)- then they could have more clearly made a case that they were fighting an animal welfare battle.
I expect fox hunting will continue to be very popular for years to come. It is the corner stone of many peoples lives, both rich and poor and they are enjoying sticking their fingers up to what they view as "ignorant, urban, self righteous elite".
The fox hunting ban has just galvanised a wide range of people against Labour and increased the popularity of hunting.
The thing I don't understand about fox-hunting is that we are told the fox is, at least, a pest, at worst, vermin and that it causes untold damage - all those stories about a fox runnimng murderous riot amongst a (collective noun) of hens and chickens.
Now, if the fox is such a pest, causing great amounts of economic damage and hardship, do you not think that it would have been exterminated, a long time ago? Do you think land-owners, farmers and small-holders would pussy-foot around, letting the 'unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable.' I don't.
The rural community is not noted for its sentiment on occasion. Not so far from me, moles are hunted and caught and are then strung up in a line on a fence-wire. Why the stringing up? On another occasion, myxamatosis was deliberately introduced to this country in the early 1950s. I don't know whether the perpetrators were ever brought to justice, but they (almost) deserved the same fate as the moles.
Fox-hunting is a form of pleasure, no more and no less. If the proponents of fox-hunting would just come out and say that, I would respect (but not accept) their point of view. As it is, they are just feeding us a line of bullsh*t.
When Sir Terry Burns produced his report on fox-hunting some years ago now, I calculated the cost of killing a fox from the numbers he gave ('rural economy' and all that) and it came to around £8,000 a fox. Honestly. If that's effiency, I'd hate to see inefficiency.
This raises an interesting question. When a 43% of the electorate vote for the Tories at the next GE, does that make the Tories and therefore immoral? If so, you are alienating a large part of the population who you would like to vote Labour at the GE after next. Don't you think they might remember what you have called them?
I knew that we were on opposite sides of the fence on most issues, but I did think you were civilised....
I don't like barbecues, Big Brother, Cyrano de Bergerac, or Broccoli.
You might not like those things Peter, but none of those things are 'wrong'. I've yet to meet a piece of broccoli which has committed a painful, cruel act on a living creature.
There's democracy, but there's also effectiveness, and while the interests of animals must be safeguarded, there's also duty to defend the interests of minorities against the majority.
Not if the minority is wrong, you don't! A minority of people burgle houses for a living, is it wrong for the government to crack down against this?
Surely it's the government's duty to defend the persecuted (the foxes) rather than the persecutors (the fox hunters).
Don't bring back fox hunting, just fix the bill and stop playing politics that pander to each party's core vote.
All rather silly, you can legislate all you like but unless you can find an enforceable form of legislation it's all a waste of time.
As the police have made clear the current ban is all but unenforceable and they have better usees for resources.
As with lots of things NuLabour, the hunting ban legislation looked nice to your supporters but was completely unfit for purpose.
I don't like barbecues, Big Brother, Cyrano de Bergerac, or Broccoli. But I don't seek to ban them. Some aspects of hunting are cruel to me, but I'm not entirely sure than banning has resulted in less real cruelty taking place. Instead it has given a lot of 'country people' a martyr complex, and strangely made hunting more popular in many respects.
Of course a majority support a ban on hunting, but a majority also favoured capital punishment for most my lifetime. There's democracy, but there's also effectiveness, and while the interests of animals must be safeguarded, there's also duty to defend the interests of minorities against the majority.
I don't think I want this ban repealed, given the Parliamentary time it would take to do so. To me the weight of anti cruelty legislation should be place on the livestock and battery farming industry, since the actual harm there is much more magnified.
Having said all that, I've a pretty open minded about legislative solutions to this, and so look to some really compelling arguments to guide me.
Hate to break it to you Dan, but the vast majority back the ban and the answer is to make it more strictly-enforced.
I couldn't care less what class the fox hunters belong to, it's still wrong.
All we have to do is promise to bring in a stricter ban once we get back in power again. If the Tories want a game of Parliamentary ping-pong, then that's fine. Our side of the argument will eventually get its way because the vast majority of the public back the ban.
It would also help if we'd actually reformed the House of Lords to become an PR-elected chamber with more powers. Then there would be no chance of this proposed repeal getting through Parliament because the Labour and LibDem 'Senators' would never vote for it. Another missed opportunity from the Labour government...
A few points/questions from someone who actually has experience of living and working and hunting in the countryside:
1. No one stopped hunting because of the Hunting Act, partly because the law is close to being unenforceable. So repealing it will not "blight the landscape".
2. How do you work out that Labour secured the new EU chicken welfare standards?
3. "Labour's work to protect Britain's rural areas and wildlife" - examples of that please?
4. Do you think it makes sense that it is legal to kill a rabbit with a dog, but not a fox? If so, what is the size of the animal at which killing with dogs becomes morally wrong?
Hot tempers and bluster,
While we're in the mood,
Sweet FA and fluster.
More seriously, Fox hunting never bothered me too much but when the Tories turned it into a power struggle I thought stuff 'em. The symbology and handwringing of the left bores me to tears but I don't have much truck for the thin veener of civilisation the Tories wear like a mask over their ambition and greed.
If the clowns are keeping themselves entertained at least they're not gumming up the works where it matters. This is, I suppose, one of the saving graces of so-called democracy. The clammer and clatter of so many raging egos spouting off just gets in its own way so is a form of silence in its own way. Good heavens, if they discussed things in an ordered and consensual way we might have to do something. The horror.
Shhh. Back off slowly and hope nobody notices.
I don't particularly like the idea of hunting, particularly the way it is done, but 75% of people are against it? 75% of people will be distressed? Is this like Sion Simon's four out of ten people indicating overwhelming support for the ID card?
Not being funny, but what is the body count in Afghanistan or Iraq so far? It's over 200 now isn't it? I'll start being distressed about the hunting ban being overturned when soldiers stop coming home in body bags and I've have thought the Conservatives would be concentrating on bringing our lads home safely before they start messing around with hunting bans. Doesn't surprise me one bit that they'd rather concentrate on things like this rather than actually doing something to save the lives of people.
I sincerely hope they don't bring hunting back but I'm not sure that on it's own it would swing my vote either way.
Any idea where the LACS got their figures from? Always a bit wary when figures are quoted with no reference.
"A recent survey showed that 100% of the Dad's in our house fancy a pint"