I am certainly no lover of the hunting fraternity or the practice itself, however the use of the Parliament Act on such an issue will be an outrage.
The appalling security lapses in our centre of government, put into context the draconian measures proposed by Vladimir Blunkett. Maybe they should get their own house in order before attacking the civil liberties of the law abiding population.

Man is a predator that kills for sport & food. That's why the eyes are in front, and most of the teeth are slender and sharp. (They're flat too, which means man is really an omnivore, so have a salad with that baby seal steak).

My point being, man's nature can't be denied for long. A government bans a normal, natural thing like hunting at its risk. (Okay, well, the unspeakable doing the unthinkable to the uncatchable isn't exactly organic, but it's arguably an outgrowth of man's pack hunting inclination). Man can act a little better or a little worse for long periods, but his basic nature can't be denied for long.

Cancergiggles says: ... The appalling security lapses in our centre of government ...

What's appalling? Are you saying that Blair and his minions and the slime in which they gyre and gyve should be sealed off to the electorate? Why? What makes them so special that they shouldn't have to face citizen opponents of their politically motivated "policies"? How else to get at them? Mouth unheard disagreement through the reinforced glass of their taxpayer-funded cars while a policeman unholsters his gun? Stand outside Downing St, where you'll be moved on by a policeman who is already calling for back-up? Try to get on a Question Time near you?

Why have the British allowed themselves to become so distanced from the haughty people they have had the bad taste to elect? How have they, once the most democratic of nations, managed to breed an overweening political elite that separates itself from hoi polloi (at hoi polloi's expense) and downgrades them to chickens scratching around in a farmyard as they grandly sweep through?

Whenever I lament what Britain has become, I always temper my anger with the thought that, 'they let it happen. They could have stopped all this grandiosity. But they didn't.'

From what I see, this is going to end in blood and not just the fox's. They'll not only need cameras in the countryside but the army as well if it goes on like this.

There are some positive consequences. If it attempts to use the Parliament Act 1949, the Government must disrupt the timetable for two much, much, more pernicious pieces of legislation, the Children's Bill and the Civil Contingencies Bill.

Further, hunters are sufficiently motivated and funded that doing so might lead to a legal challenge to the Parliament Act 1949--arguably not law--itself. That would be a real victory against elective dictatorship.

The class hatred thart drives much of the Labour Party has rarely been explicit as seen yesterday. Compare their "outrage" at the pro-Hunt supporters relatively mild actions to their approval of the poll tax rioters.

Hunter's groups have already suggested a legal challenge to the ban is looming.

And with reference to the 'they'll need the army' comment, a large group of hunt supporting farmers declared their intention in last Sunday's 'Express' to withdraw longstanding cooperation with the army by preventing their access to their land for training.

Perhaps there are other ways that this ban can prove costly to the government, for cost is surely the ONLY thing that they listen to now....?

"Man can act a little better or a little worse for long periods, but his basic nature can't be denied for long. "

What's man basic nature ? Hunting foxes ? How many foxes have you hunted in your lifetime ? (I haven't hunted any foxes). The hunting ban is silly, but so is this comment.

Jacob, I don't think the comment is at all silly.
The commentor is merely making the point that hunting is part of our make up and for some people hunting with hounds is the way for this itch to be scratched.

Guy:do you think a legal challenge against the use of the Parilament Act would stand a serious chance of success?
It'd be great if such a challenge were to succeed..

Jacob says the "the hunting ban is silly"

Its not just silly. Its a absolute disgrace.

I've never before been so furious with a Birtish government as I am now. And I've never hunted a fox in my life

There is a small but significant possibility this could be remembered in history books as the first shot in the second British civil war.

Re Jacob and Al Maviva

Arguments based on 'man's basic nature' are weak. First of all I disagree that hunting is part of man's basic nature. Most societies move to herding and farming asap, as it works a lot better. Yes, people enjoy hunting a lot, and have done for a long time, but then they've enjoyed swimming for a long time - I wouldn't call splashing around in the water part of man's basic nature.

Secondly, so what if it is man's basic nature? Shagging women is man's basic nature - does that justify rape? Fighting the tribe next door is man's basic nature - does that justify murder, GBH, football hooliganism?

possibility this could be remembered in history books as the first shot in the second British civil war

In my view, this is indeed a possibility. A remote one, though.

I have for some time now thought that the only way things are going to change significantly in this country, or anywhere in western Europe, is through violence. I'm not sure this is a good thing, but I fear it may be inevitable.

I wonder who our modern Cromwell will be?

EG

The class hatred that drives much of the Labour Party has rarely been explicit as seen yesterday.

This morning while driving to work I was listening to Nick Ferrari on LBC (great morning show, btw) and was treated to one of his callers saying that "the people who live in the countryside are morons, hunters are morons, and the people who oppose the ban are morons". As Nick said, his sparkling rhetoric sure convinced me...

This is the same mind-set that is driving the Rathergate scandal in the US. I don't want to accept that such people exist, but every day they force their existence upon me.

possibility this could be remembered in history books as the first shot in the second British civil war

In my view, this is indeed a possibility. A remote one, though.

Doubt it. Apathy rules. Whilst it might be nice to dramatise yesterday's events, sooner or later the countryside is going to be bludgeoned into submission.

We're in the minority, and the urban portion of the country doesn't give a damn. It doesn't affect them in the short term, so it doesn't matter. Yes, there are firearms, yes there are shotguns - but the slightest hint of anything akin to rebellion and the paramilitary police farce will descend like a ton of bricks, "pour encourager les autres". Dress it up as terrorism and you can lock them up indefinitely.

We've discussed before the heinous act of daring to impinge upon the state's monopoly on violence.

The picture of the bloodied protestor sent a shiver down my spine. So much for a peaceful protest. When the state has taken away your right to smoke, your right to drink, your right to drive your car, all of your freedoms, it is time to fight back. To take up a gun and claim 'no more!'

The revolution could indeed be happening in front of our eyes. 20,000 people is no small figure, and many of them would be armed. And it could be a revolution that could ignite Europe as well.

One wonders just how much further the British government dares to push. The only trouble is just how brainwashed the British are. Looking through the comments at BBC, it seems that so far a sizable majority still thinks they can impose their will through the state on the minority.

It's not really statism by the government, nor is it anti-democratic, when the people are practically voting for it. We're seeing the results of a "Tyranny by Majority' type of government.

TWG

"do you think a legal challenge against the use of the Parilament Act would stand a serious chance of success?"

Historically the courts were very unwilling to question or circumscribe Parliamentary intent, but what with the EU Law and the Human Rights Act they are getting quite used to it by now. In the last decade it also seems to have become possible to look at Hansard for clues on interpretation (which clues are often sorely needful in recent legislation), so I can't see it as completely impossible the 1949 Act might be ruled invalid. Unlikely, yes.

I understand that Vernon Bogdanor is starting his session as Gresham College lecturer next week with a (to me dubious, at least unless/until the EuroConstitution is ratified) claim that Parliament can't repeal the Human Rights Act. It must be much less demanding to show that Parliament failed to enact something in the first place. Commonwealth Acts were happily invalidated.

Damn, looks like the statists are still too many. I went to the poll and those supporting the ban were a whopping 87%. It could be biased because of BBC's readership, but probably not by much.

TWG

J: "Shagging women is man's basic nature - does that justify rape? Fighting the tribe next door is man's basic nature - does that justify murder, GBH, football hooliganism?"

Eh?

Is this the level of debate we have to engage with? Have a look at Dominic's comment regarding "sparkling rhetoric."

ThePresentOccupier, about "yesterday's events", I think if anything they're under-dramatized. I was on the big countryside march, the one with half a million people. The prevailing emotion was "we won't march again. We've asked nicely. No point asking twice. He takes the hint - or he doesn't, and then the gloves come off".

I think the reduced size of demonstrations since then is not due to apathy, but rather, patient waiting, in the Claire Wolfe mode; "too late to fix it, too early to declare war".

ThePresentOccupier, about "yesterday's events", I think if anything they're under-dramatized. I was on the big countryside march, the one with half a million people. The prevailing emotion was "we won't march again. We've asked nicely. No point asking twice. He takes the hint - or he doesn't, and then the gloves come off".

I couldn't make that one, so I sent some money to the CA as a sop. I'm also (nominally?) a member of the Sportsman's Association, but they seem to have given up, more's the pity. Finally been ground down, AIUI.

The original march impressed the hell out of me - no aggro at all, and no litter. Yesterday's was bound to end up the way it did - although I'd love to know what justifcation there was for bringing in riot troops (sorry, polis). Was that Blunkett trying to antagonise & provoke, perchance?

I think the reduced size of demonstrations since then is not due to apathy, but rather, patient waiting, in the Claire Wolfe mode; "too late to fix it, too early to declare war".

Not quite the accusation I was levelling - the apathy that concerns me is the non-country portion of this benighted isle. Stamp on the countryside and the city & suburban dwellers will - in general - not bother particularly. With limited contact/understanding other than the drivel the BBC feeds them, they will be told (and will believe) it to be right and proper. Hmm, shades of Wilfred Owen... Look at the example of the vilifying of the fuel protestors - moved quickly from "heros" to "potential terrorists hell-bent on disrupting the country".

As for the fox hunting, it has never interested me. Always been much more of a rifleman. But I used to ride quite a bit, so I might give it a go now...

I think the class war aspect, although significant, isn't the whole picture by a long way.

Both sides of the debate are being hypocritical; as was pointed out in the Times this morning, the anti-hunt activists are being hypocritical, decrying the 'unnecessary' suffering of a fox which has had a good, natural life, whilst making no particular protest about the much larger numbers of animals which live crappy lives, cooped up in cages, divorced from any kind of 'normal' and are finally subjected to a terrifying journey to a place which smells of death, in order to end up slaughtered as an 'unneccessary' luxury for us to eat.

I think those of you who cry 'class war' are also perhaps seeing a small part of the picture, but not all of it; as I point out below, all analogous working class 'cruel sports' were outlawed long ago; the main reason this sport survives is because of the social class & political influence of those who enjoy it. To my mind, trying to ban hunting is consistant with laws against animal cruelty which already stand in this country, & the main motivation behind them isn't particularly concern for the animals involved (are the same people protesting about battery chickens?), but disapproval & disgust at the thought that people are directly getting enjoyment from the suffering, or the activities which cause the suffering.

It's a grossly unrealistic point of view since I should imagine only a small number of hunters actually relish the fox's suffering at the end of the hunt, just as I'm sure many dog fighting afficionados don't get off on the dogs' suffering, but do enjoy the tactical fight, or boxing is more about the interesting tactics & skill, with an added edge provided by the real pain inflicted, than about enjoying seeing men get hurt.

Further I'm certain many of those supporting the ban will gain enjoyment indirectly via the lifelong suffering of chickens or cows as they tuck into their dinner tonight, secure in their feeling of moral superiority.

The hunters meanwhile are hypocritical as their stance is inconsistant; their chosen sport has only been preserved for this long because of the political influence weilded by it's afficionados. Contrast this with traditional working class 'cruel' animal sports such as dog fighting, bear baiting etc.; all these were banned long ago. If hunters are to be consistant, & not fighting a class war of their own (only supporting the sports chosen by their class, being happy for others not to be afforded the same privileges) they should also be outspoken in support of re-legalizing dog fighting, cock fighting etc.; I see little moral difference between a dog tearing another dog apart for the entertainment of a crowd & a bunch of dogs tearing a fox apart following an exciting chase, for the entertainment of various people riding horses.

I realise this would be unpopular with the general public, but it would be a far more philosophically consistant & defensible stance than the one they currently hold, which smacks largely of self-interest more than support for any wider conception of liberty.

As for the government proposing to invoke the parliament act over this trivial, irrelevant sop of a piece of legislation... plain ridiculous.

ThePresentOccupier:the apathy that concerns me is the non-country portion of this benighted isle. Stamp on the countryside and the city & suburban dwellers will - in general - not bother particularlyProbably true. I wonder, however, how influenced by their new neighbours those with second homes in the countryside will feel. I think that the us and them boundaries are not as distinct as they used to be which is part of the reason why, I guess, many huntsmen and women are more representative than they, perhaps, used to be.

I'm also very interested in the more practical things that the pro-hunt people might get up to to make their case. For instance, a pro-hunting farmers biggest asset is his land I would think. I wonder if there are any favours (paid for or not) that the farmer does to the government and its agencies with this land that could be withdrawn.

I hear rumours that the MOD is sometimes granted use or access or some such and that such things have already been discussed.

We're in the minority, and the urban portion of the country doesn't give a damn. It doesn't affect them in the short term, so it doesn't matter.

Minority? So what. Sinn Fein/IRA are a minority too, a minority within a minority. I have seen that pointed out before on this very site.

Yes, there are firearms, yes there are shotguns - but the slightest hint of anything akin to rebellion and the paramilitary police farce will descend like a ton of bricks, "pour encourager les autres".

Again... Sinn Fein/IRA is now in government, so that really worked, eh? THAT is what should "encourager les autres"

Dress it up as terrorism and you can lock them up indefinitely.

In that case, how is it that animal rights activists can engage in terrorism for decades now and the state does almost nothing effective to stop them? If the animal rights activists are able to carry on, why not angry hunters? Did it ever occur to you that the British state is a whole lot weaker than it appears when confronted with collective internal violence? I have "reconfigured" over a dozen CCTV cameras and I intend to look for new ways to take direct action over this latest assault on my liberties. It is not just about hunting. The time for marching and talking is past. Time to start doing.

Tony Martin was just one person. We may be a minority but who are we? Our name is legion for we are many.

This whole country vs. city stuff is silly too; protesters coming in & blocking the m25? F*** off! Perhaps we should all come out to the country & give you more of problems which already piss you off on a daily basis? Here, let me help that crumbling barn wall fall down. Hmm... not stinky enough round here; let me spray some cow shit on your house.

'Country folk' are making out like they're some essential part of the nation, when in fact they're mostly subsidised throwbacks, essentially kept on welfare by the cities because the urban wealth generators like to journey out through quaint fields & villages, & like the idea of maintaining some notional 'heritage'. Where is the UK's wealth generated? Is it by salt of the earth farmers, or by awful urban sophisticates with computers, smart suits & trendy haircuts? hmmm... (not that generating wealth justifies trying to impose restrictions upon other people, but the self-righteousness of the country folk, like they're somehow more 'real' or something, pisses me off as much as that of the urban sophisticates)

I quite like the idea of a civil war though; perhaps we could cut off all subsidies to the countryside & have armoured motorways between urban connurbations, leaving the countryside to be roamed by shotgun-wielding bands of country folk, performing the occasional raid on a merc which speeds past, making off with their spoils in landrovers held together with bits of string & wire. City folk could take breaks in heavily guarded hotels, with carefully sanitised views of 'perfect countryside' bounded on all sides by high voltage wires.

('course, I don't think the concensus is really that uniform, either in the country or the city, but I find it an entertaining neil stephenson type vision)

('course, I don't think the concensus is really that uniform, either in the country or the city, but I find it an entertaining neil stephenson type vision)

In all seriousness though, if the SHTF bigtime, what would be their "tactical" priorities? And are there really enough firearms left in the countryside?

I'd be surprised if this doesn't die down, as it always seems to.

In all seriousness though, if the SHTF bigtime, what would be their "tactical" priorities?

Protection of networks which permit the flow of data and goods - ports, railways, roads, airports, telephones, banks. In practical terms, armed guards at key points, restrictions on public, road closures, communications monitoring, exchange controls.

are there really enough firearms left in the countryside?

Unimportant. If the ordure really does start flying, it would appear not to be especially difficult to import whatever you need. Illegal firearms are cheaper and more readily available than ever in this country.

However, you need a leader. There isn't one, and until or unless there is nothing is going to happen beyond moans and marches, and the odd incident like that in the Commons.

EG

Unimportant. If the ordure really does start flying, it would appear not to be especially difficult to import whatever you need. Illegal firearms are cheaper and more readily available than ever in this country.

True. Likewise firearms are restricted in Northern Ireland in much the same way as they are elsewhere in the UK and that did not stop significent numbers ending up on the hands of people willing to use them. In any case, sledgehammers & bottles with washing up liquid, petrol and rag stuffed in the top will most likley be the weapons of choice to start with if this goes the way it might.

"Kulaks were former peasants in Russia who owned medium-sized farms as a result of the reforms introduced by Peter Stolypin in 1906. Stolypin's intention was to create a stable group of prosperous farmers who would form a natural conservative political force. By the outbreak of the First World War it was estimated that around 15 per cent of Russian farmers were kulaks."

Rob,

But the situation in pre-revolutionary Russia was a little different than ours. Russia was in transition from widespread slavery to a more liberal dispensation, whereas we appear to be going in the opposite direction.

The "natural conservative force" in Britain is the urban middle class, whatever the country folk might think, which has been bought off by successive governments with petty regulation (which they like, because they generally administer the systems) and welfare handouts (which feel better than keeping your money untaxed, and of course they also administer that system). They also tend to like the socialistic model, because it assumes the lower orders are dumb and feckless and need their betters (i.e. the urban middle class) to look after them. The whole system gives them power, authority and privilege - why would they change it?

You could argue, and some do, that in Britain today we suffer from excessive taxation and arbitrary government, two of the most important real causes of the first Civil War. But until there is a critical mass of people willing to stand up and say "no" to this, and more importantly until someone appears who can galvanise and lead these people, nothing will happen that cannot be relatively easily neutralised by the state.

Disparate groups of malcontents are easy enough to eliminate - simply round up enough of them and they do in reality disappear. However, if they are led, organised and motivated, it is much harder to remove them (unless you remove the leadership, which isn't always easy). But this organisation is the harder part - you need money, lots of it, you need time, training, useful idiots inside the establishment, and so on. I seriously doubt if there is any real attempt to achieve any of this now, but one never knows...

Of course, it would be nice if our potential new Cromwell wasn't a Marxist, a Fascist or a swivel-eyed anarchist. Motivating ideas need to be clear, simple and plausible, not to mention having enough widespread appeal to actually catch on. Neither of the three above have these attributes.

EG

Unimportant. If the ordure really does start flying, it would appear not to be especially difficult to import whatever you need. Illegal firearms are cheaper and more readily available than ever in this country.

However, you need a leader. There isn't one, and until or unless there is nothing is going to happen beyond moans and marches, and the odd incident like that in the Commons.

EG

Either way, I don't see this going much beyond marches either. They can't afford to go the PETA route, it has to be BIG.

My guess is that what we will see is sporadic acts of violence against visible manifestations of 'them' and when it becames clear that it is not actually that hard to get away with it, this sort of behaviour will gradually become a more or less perminent feature of Britain's social landscape.

This will go on until either it runs its course or some 'leader' does indeed materialise to tap in to it to either ramp things up into serious violence a la Northern Ireland or (more likely if I was a betting man) uses the anger to fuel a political career that genuinely breaks the current mold in a variety of unpredictable ways (of which not all scenarios I can think of would be A Good Thing).

Watch out for increased sales of P.A. Luty's books

I'd never heard of the man before, so did some Googling.

Interesting. Very interesting...

Perry - how about a third option: Revolution?

EG

It ain't gonna be BIG because they're not bothering to rally round any larger principle which non-hunters can latch on to. At least the left is usually smart enough to tie in whatever they're marching about to some universalist principle (see the criminal justice act marches, which made strong points about civil liberties in general). The marchers here seem to be largely saying "what about meeeee", & narking on about the 'importance' of maintaining traditions most people in the UK couldn't care less about. What they should be doing is making a much wider moral case against government/majority interference in minority pursuits, which could bring them more widespread support.

I reckon it'll all fizzle out in typically British fashion; if the law comes into force, there'll be a few guerrilla hunts, possibly some loopholes, & doubtless some neutered hunt activities, & who knows... the govt. may find some legal loophole which allows them to scrap the law before it comes into effect without losing face; "hey, it's just the system, what can you do?".

I pretty much agree with A_t.

I have no strong feelings about the issue but both sides were managing the rare feat of saying things I agree with in ways that were completely unacceptable.

My own view: Being torn to pieces by a pack of dogs is probably no worse than natural deaths of most wild foxes and if the English gentry enjoy paying for such sophisticated pasttimes then I suppose there's no real harm in it and lawmakers have no real business getting involved.
On the other hand stop trying to pretend it's some sort of vital environmental or cultural activity. It's the elite version of cockfighting, get over yourselves.

Perry - how about a third option: Revolution?

Things are just not that bad. A militant minority can force changes but an actual 'revolution' is not going to happen (at least any time soon) when GDP is growing (or at least not shrinking), unemployment is low and the state is not yet repressive enough to make normal life intolerable for more people than is currently the case.

The situation will have to start looking more like Britain circa 1973 for that to even be within the realm of possibility. We probably will see at least some degree of real (by which I mean violent) sporadic 'revolt', probably for quite a sustained persiod I suspect, but 'revolution'? I doubt it.

"hunting is part of our make up "

I thought hunting was part of the makeup of wolves, lions, leopards, etc, while man was another beast, a beast that uses his brains to find more efficient ways to feed himself.

I thought Perry's penultimate post was rather interesting. We will to see what happens when, as Perry predicts, they find out they can get away with minor acts of civil distraction. Once these start becoming commonplace, a leader with the vision to link the woes of the countryside to the larger civil woes of the rest of Britain, whose rights are routinely abused by this government, may well emerge.

Euan Gray, with whom I seldom agree, says he has" for some time now thought that the only way things are going to change significantly in this country, or anywhere in western Europe, is through violence." I think so too. It won't be coordinated between countries, but there must be many causes for anger among the citizenries of Europe who have seen their own rights overrun by governments forcing them into the EU straitjacket. I've always had a feeling that the first on the continent to have violent disagreement with their government would be the Germans. I think their trigger will be their declining economy and influence since joining the euro. They want their mighty DM back.

To my surprise, I also agree with A_t this morning. I, too, quite like the idea of a civil war.

It all boils down to one thing: Do the rights of foxes outweigh the rights of human beings?

Libertarians would probably say no to that question. And for those people, liberal or otherwise, who do, they simply have a case of misplaced values. And worse than those misplaced values is that they're forcing those values onto others.

That's why it just feels so wrong.

TWG

Whilst I find the bill itself quite nauseating for a number of reasons, I really do wonder how it can ever be enforceable in practical terms. It absolutely cannot stop a bunch of folk dressing up and riding their horses with their dogs across private land. The evidence required to bring a prosecution of deliberately hunting foxes, rather than having a jolly in the countryside with their friends will be very difficult. How will any prosecution not fall fowl of the human rights act ? What police officer or magistrate that LIVES in the countryside will want to seriously prosecute these activities. How will any prosecution determine who was actually hunting and who was riding their horse. This all looks like a standard labor party and king tony fuckup that will keep the appeal courts busy for years.

A civil war sparked by this fox-hunting malarky? Get real.
I know you'll go on about your civil liberties, but honestly, civil wars, revolutions? - you lot are having a laugh aren't you?

Guy (if you're still following this thread): thanks for that, despite my general ignorance of legal issues I did suspect a successful legal challenge to the Parliament Act would be a bit 'out there' - it was intended for getting emergency legislation onto the statute was it not?

Says A_t: "It ain't gonna be BIG because they're not bothering to rally round any larger principle which non-hunters can latch on to."

That's not my experience. Certainly when I was on the countryside march there was a fair groundswell of genuinely libertarian slogans.

Oh, btw, books, this one is good: "Wither This Land" by William Venator http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/190462300X/

I have this book :-)

Julian, yeah, the countryside march seemed to encompass a larger set of concerns, but most of the more recent outcry over foxhunting in particular, at least in the media, has seemed very single-issue focussed, & has not exploited the larger points which could be used to pull in more supporters. I think many country folk are perhaps too confident that most 'sensible' people will recognise their 'place' in society or value their traditions. Speaking for myself at least, this is the wrong approach; I'm highly amenable to reason & thought, and very swayable by wider arguments dealing with personal liberty, but very much unconcerned about social protectionism or maintaining traditions for their own sake, which seems to be a core part of their argument.

I'm sure many hunters cheered on the criminal justice act's ridiculous criminalising of any gathering of 100+ people enjoying music "wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats", which has led to the break up of perfectly law-abiding parties held on private or common land which disturbed no-one (for parties on other people's land, or ones which disturbed the peace, perfectly adequate laws already existed; what was required was more vigourous enforcement, not extra legislation). My point in going on about this is, I'm not convinced they're any better than any of the other folk; people are all very happy to march & shout & hit policemen when it comes to banning something they like; it's whether they speak out against the banning of something they don't enjoy, or actually dislike, that they are interested in wider issues of liberty.

(on a side-note, to remain unbiassed, I'm sure many of those who marched against the criminal justice act are all for the hunting bah; this selfish "my way is the right way"/"demonise those doing things we don't like" intolerance thing swings both ways).

doh! "hunting bah" should of course read "hunting ban", tho' not entirely inappropriate typo.

humbug.

mike - you have already told us you are very young. You don't need to prove it.

Many of the posts above have pondered whether this issue could be sticky enough to attract a wider audience of genuine libertarians and others angry at the overweening powers Blair's 'government' (a synonym for Blair personally as no one else counts for dogshit) as arrogated unto itself. Just now, it's a single issue protest, but as several people have said above, a leader with the vision to link the whole issue of civil liberties might be able to attract hundreds of thousands of followers.

I for one hope that this does not fizzle out. I was full of loathing for Blair when he characterised peaceful protesters, protesting as is their civil right, against petrol costs, as terrorists and so defused a legitimate issue. Why does Britain, which has oil, have the highest petrol prices in the world? This man cannot abide anyone having the temerity to deny his regal will.

--Guy:do you think a legal challenge against the use of the Parilament Act would stand a serious chance of success?
It'd be great if such a challenge were to succeed..--

1st the foxes, then the BBC!

Hmm... Verity, as per my point above, do you also support the right of people to peacefully protest at the holding of arms fairs in the UK (they too were stopped/diverted under the terrorist act), & the Mayday protesters, however misguided you may feel they are? If so, join the club, I'm totally on your side for this one!

Mike: "[...]challenge to the Parliament Act would be a bit 'out there' - it was intended for getting emergency legislation onto the statute was it not?"

Not. Genuine emergency legislation (and even fake emergency legislation, such as the 2001 extensions to the Terrorism Act) is generally rushed through with all party support. It doesn't get held up in the Lords for two successive sessions. Emergencies tend to become less urgent in that time.

What it was intended to do was allow a Labour Government with a thumping majority (Mr Atlee's) to do whatever it liked regardless of resistance from the Lords. And it was "enacted" with the sort of contempt for constitutional propriety that has become all too familiar of late. Shortly afterwards, however, the electorate decided it had had enough of a siege economy, direction of labour, and nationalisation of everything, and it wasn't used at all for 40 years.

I'd say it's use now is entirely in line with its original purpose. Blair has effectively abolished the second chamber for all normal purposes by creating a built-in majority of his own appointees. Their remaining Lordships are rarely willing to block him. But, it is still not brooked for them to do so.

You'll recall that even when the last hunting bill was stalled in the Commons, it suited Blair to pretend that it was the Lords what done it. That's because it fits the class war narrative which is being played out for the Labour left in this measure. So getting to use the Parliament Act to overcome cruel toffs by a caring Commons is a bonus.

A_t - Indeed, I do support the right of such protesters, however mal-guided they are by Gramscian principles they don't understand, to protest peacefully without being styled terrorists by the imperious but insecure Tony Blair.

Funny how the only people Blair's reluctant to style terrorists are real terrorists. He practically curtsied whenever the IRA walked into a room.

:) glad we agree on something, Verity!

but anyway, moving on...

On the IRA front tho', I think your criticisms are unjustified; have we seen any attacks of late? I don't care whether one has to bow down before them in order to get them into peaceful discussions or shoot them in the head to put them in the ground; if it stops innocents from getting blown up, & doesn't involve compromising our country (which it certanly hasn't so far as far as I can see), any solution which stops terrorist attacks is good in my book; looking 'robust' & uncompromising be damned. Thatcher was robust & uncompromising with the IRA & it didn't seem to serve the people of the UK or Northern Ireland well.

I too despise blair for many things, but seems to me that pragmatic compromise is sometimes a better solution than 'principled' refusal to talk to men who have done bad things. Blair's job is to try & do what's best for us (when he remembers what he's supposed to be doing), & on that one particular front, I think he's doing an OK job. Certainly IRA attacks are not a prominent fear among Londoners any more, which they were for a long time.

A_t - In other words, give the terrorists what they want and they will stop blowing us up. They're in the British Parliament aren't they? They haven't taken the oath to the Crown have they? Dealing with Tony Blair was a piece of cake.

Margaret Thatcher ordered shoot to kill, and if this could have been implemented without the usual suspects bleating on about human rights, the terrorists would have been conquered. As it is now, they can regroup any time they feel aggrieved again.

Blair has no backbone, and he doesn't give a stuff about doing what's best for the British people. He is motivated to do what's best for Tony Blair. End of story.

Look for him and the fishwife to move to DC when they finally pry his cold, grasping fingers off the keys to Downing St.

Having got over the profound shock of the delightful Verity actually agreeing with me (no offence, honestly), I've thought some more about revolutions, insurrections & such.

Banning hunting will not start a revolution, although there is the possibility that there will be sporadic violent protest until people get used to the idea. The priorites and desires of the country people are not, when it comes down to it, particularly important for Britain. The intelligent ones know this. Nor is the desire to preserve a tradition just because it's a tradition. The British, in any case, are adept at inventing new "traditions" when it suits.

Revolutions don't need mass support, nor do they need a single burning issue. They tend to happen when a large enough mass of the people just get generally fed up with the way things are, and when enough of them are fed up enough to say so. Mob mentality and all that. In the first Civil War, the principle motivators for most of the people who were interested was the ship money tax and the increasingly arbitrary nature of government. More fundamental issues such as the limits on royal power, how far parliamentary democracy could be pushed, a national religious settlement, and so on, although ultimately far more important, didn't light too many fires in the public consciousness. People generally don't want much more than to be left sufficiently alone to do the everyday things they want to.

I think it's just about possible that in this country we are close to that level of general, albeit incoherent, discontent. I believe the modish phrase is "tipping point". Two things are lacking, IMO - a leader and a plausible trigger event. I think that given these two things there is distinct possibility that revolt or even revolution is possible here.

One of the dangers is, of course, that this process, if it starts, could get hijacked by Communist or Fascist elements. I'm quite confident that libertarians will never do it, largely because they'd never be able to agree about anything for more than 10 minutes.

And talking of which, libertarians would likely moan anyway because, given the condition of the country, a great deal more heavy-handed statism is needed to correct things - but then, if done properly, the state can take a back seat. In about 5-10 years, I think.

People should not, of course, suspect that I lie awake at night planning this kind of thing.

EG

Guy: yes I have to admit it does seem sizeably obvious given a moment's thought, doesn't it!!!

I know about the Lords and Blair's cronies, but how did the Parliament Act actually get on the statute in the first place, I mean didn't the Lords tell Atlee to get stuffed? Or
did they actually support it??? And what did you mean when you said that the Act was 'arguably not law itself'?

I think Ireland is a more complex issue. During Thatcher's time, NI was strategically important for the UK in the Cold War. After the collapse of the USSR, the strategic importance vanished - witness Major's public declaration that Britain had "no selfish strategic interest" in Northern Ireland.

After that, it was unimportant who won and the British strategy appears since then to be one of getting out at the minimum further expense in blood and money. If that meant giving the IRA what they wanted, so be it - the whole thing was now no more than a drain on Britain and had no benefit.

I am quite sure that, if we still faced the USSR, Blair would be just as active in taking on the terrorists in NI as Thatcher had been. Bugger sentiment, it's strategic reality.

EG

The reason the Parliament Act 1949 isn't valid is because it was itself passed without Lords approval, purportedly under the procedure of the Parliament Act, 1911. The latter was introduced by Asquith after the 1910 general election returned a Liberal Government with a mandate to reform the Lords, but gave much more scope for delay by the Lords.

There's a detailed discussion here

Hmm thank you very much, that's very kind of you.

A civil war sparked by this fox-hunting malarky? Get real.

Yeah, its not like revolutions against the British government have ever been sparked by anything so trivial as, say, a tax on tea.

Sorry if that's just too much detail. I'm just a sad wonk. Quite harmless, really. Well, mostly harmless...

Banning hunting will not start a revolution, although there is the possibility that there will be sporadic violent protest until people get used to the idea.

I agree that hunting will not start a revolution, but what they will probably get used to is not the end of hunting, but violent protest.

There's not going to be a revolution over this issue. But they could be about to launch a great PR campaign - according to one hunt member interviewed on the local news, technical difficulties may be starting to affect speed cameras across the country!

Guy: No need to apologise at all, I find it very interesting, if anything the document is extremely sparse on detail - the nature of the arguments that would have to be made in any future challenge to the Act in the courts, for example. I would've thought it'd be difficult to make the challenge seeing as how both the 1911 and 1949 Acts were passed with Royal Assent, and that Britain is a formally a constitutional monarchy still. Or am I overestimating this in my ignorance?!

R C Dean: Yes - get real. Where tea was a pretext for the independence of an entire nation of immigrant people and all that that meant, the revolt against fox-hunting is a pretext for preventing another relatively minor and probably ineffective incursion into the civil liberties of people living in the countryside - however much you may wish (with Euan) for some grand, bizzare 'repetition of history'. It's not that I don't sympathise, it's just that I think you're all going a bit OTT.

The point Gazaridis makes about speed cameras is interesting. Only today, a friend told me of one quite major West Country road on which all the speed cameras (not "safety cameras" as Blair's poodles try to call them) have had the lenses spray-painted. There seems to have been a conspiracy of silence about this in the media - no doubt the thought of direct action from anything but the usual suspects on the Left makes the BBC and its fellow travellers distinctly uncomfortable.

It would be extremely easy for a rural guerrilla movement to disable many of these infernal contraptions and, in so doing, gather a lot of support from the general public. Indeed, there are quite a few popular anti-Blair targets that The Resistance could take on and which, while attacking them wouldn't constitute a revolution, it might hasten the long hoped-for demise of the demagogue Bliar.

On another note, one of today's most enjoyable sights has been that of 'New' Labour toadies up on their hindlegs hrumphing like' 50s Tory backbenchers about yesterday's 'affront to democracy'. These, of course, are the selfsame supporters of the Poll Tax protesters, whose attack on London and 'democracy' was of an altogether different order.

And their cheerleader? None other than that stalwart defender of 'democracy' the insufferably arrogant Kenya-born revolutionary Peter Hain, still better remembered for his profoundly undemocratic career as an anti-apartheid protester than anything he has achieved since being reincarnated as a 'constitutional politician'.

Whatever one's views about hunting, the spectacle of a contemptuously empty house and a policy being rammed through by a government with a massive majority but the votes of only a fraction of the UK population, marks a new low for parliamentary democracy.

Cromwell's words, when he dissolved the Rump Parliament have rarely seemed as relevant: "What shall we do with this bauble? Take it away!".

Well, Euan, I'm about to agree with you again. You say: "Revolutions don't need mass support, nor do they need a single burning issue. They tend to happen when a large enough mass of the people just get generally fed up with the way things are, and when enough of them are fed up enough to say so. ... I think it's just about possible that in this country we are close to that level of general, albeit incoherent, discontent."

After reading readers' comments, in The Telegraph, on the level of police brutality and their apparently acting as agents of the prime minister, I think you're right. Many of the commenters below are people who do not approve of hunting yet were shocked and appalled at the treatment of unarmed and largely unviolent demonstrators.

(Link)

It is surprising to see that issues like hunting are starting to be conflated with issues like speed cameras (quite rightly I might add).

It seems that there may be more resentment of the regulatory state than is obvious. Hunting is a minority sport and not something I would have pinned many hopes on for raising awareness of the sheer scope of the modern state's writ...

Yet I will be watching this for some shift in the zeitgeist. I wonder, I wonder.

A possibly quite interesing development. We shall see.

When I say I think this could turn into civil war, I'm not referring directly to hunters. Rather, I suspect Blair & Co will run amuck enforcing the ban in the face of widespread and comedic civil defiance. He'll set up a KGB in the countryside and probably in the towns too. This, then, will be what pisses people off sufficiently that they take up arms and revolt.

Perry - and the police brutality, obviously on command from the individual who ramrodded through this unpopular policy and didn't bother to turn up to vote on it, appears to have incensed many ordinary Britons and given them a rallying point that we wouldn't have foreseen two or three days ago.

Apparently a large number of Britons was upset to see on the TV news their fellow citizens being roughed up as deliberate policy by the police, for exercising their right to disagree with the government. Things do come out of the blue, don't they? The police brutality and the fact that the police were seen to have deliberately ramped up the confrontation, seems to have united non-hunters and hunters and given them common cause.

We'll see where it goes. And then there's the speed cameras - another point of common interest. This story's looking as though it might have legs.

Where tea was a pretext for the independence of an entire nation

But if the British had backed down over excessive taxation and arbitrary government, it's quite likely that nation would not have been born at all and what is now America would be part of a much larger Canada.

"What shall we do with this bauble? Take it away!".

Or even better, perhaps - "In the name of God, go!"

Well, Euan, I'm about to agree with you again

See? Things are so dire in the country that Verity has agreed with me twice in one day. Surely the time is ripe for revolution!

I think resentment against the police, more so perhaps against the way the police are used, has been building up for a long time. I'm not old, but old enough to recall a time not that long ago when the police were generally respected - now they're widely held in contempt. If you're being burgled or stabbed, don't bother calling them unless the assailants' car has an expired tax disk or bald tyres - then they'll be round in no time.

Mike may say 'get real', but the nature of this country is so radically different - not pleasantly so - than when I was a boy (sheesh, how that sounds!), the people more resentful, more prepared to stand up, more bolshie to use an unfashionable word. I don't think it can go on much longer, and I do distinctly feel that abrupt and radical change is not far away.

EG

For people very given to bemoaning the ubiquitousness of the left in Britain today (in the media, the gov, in the bowl of rice you sit down to in chinese resteraunts...), I am a little half-surprised no comparison has been made to the similar fighting talk on the left resulting from the Iraq invasion - and nothing has happened except the liklihood that Blair will have a reduced majority for the next Parliament. Despite all the anti-war, anti-violence, anti-nuclear blah blah blahing.

We are all susceptible to being carried away by our moral sentiments at the expense of realistic judgement. As I think Popper warned in an essay in C&R.

mike, could be, but I read it different. Shallow noise versus deep grudges, long held.

I am a little half-surprised no comparison has been made to the similar fighting talk on the left resulting from the Iraq invasion

I'm not. People care a damn sight less about laying down the law in foreign countries than they do about having their own lives interfered with. Most people I've spoken with about the war have said pretty much the same thing - no, they don't like Bush, and no, they don't really like Blair either, but when it comes down to it old Saddam was a right bastard and he had to go one way or another. Deep down, I don't think most people have too much of a problem with deposing the odd foreign tyrant - the British have been doing it for so long it's almost a national sport (the only one we're any good at, too).

The anti-war "movement" is largely a rent-a-mob operation, as is evidenced by the motley collection of dingbat protest groups forming a large part of the "ordinary people" on the marches. As well as that, it has been undeniably hyped by the not-exactly-unbiased media.

When the tyrants turn out to be a bit closer to home, that's when people get pissed off.

EG

Julian: you might be right - all i'm getting at is the importance of a critical attitude without which self-serving appraisals and guesses become that much easier regardless of their truth.

Heh, mike, you're probably right; counting chickens, holding a party before the result's in, etc etc.

Still I think it would be true to say: because of this, mass revolt becomes seriously more probable in a much closer timescale than otherwise. Mass civil disbedience becomes very nearly certain.

Aside: if y'all know anybody high ranking in the UKIP, tell them to pull their fingers out and come on-side with the hunters. There's a lot of votes in this, I think.

When I say I think this could turn into civil war, I'm not referring directly to hunters. Rather, I suspect Blair & Co will run amuck enforcing the ban in the face of widespread and comedic civil defiance. He'll set up a KGB in the countryside and probably in the towns too. This, then, will be what pisses people off sufficiently that they take up arms and revolt.

I agree with Julian. The hunters and sympathisers will probably engage in sporadic acts of vandalism and low-grade disorder. Indeed, it appears that they already are. But that is not enough to spark any sort of major upheaval. What could do a lot of damage, is the government response which, if clumsy and oppressive, incites much wider and deeper resentments.

David, it already is. If you go to the link I provided about 10 posts up, you will see that [mainly non-hunting] people are writing in to The Telegraph forum expressing shock at the police brutality employed against unarmed demonstrators. The feeling is the police, who were over-reacting to an unhinged degree, were following orders from No 10, as in a police state. People were shocked to see police beating the heads of unarmed, peaceful demonstrators with truncheons.

This is the type of response I believe you and Julian are referring to, and it is already happening and it is already having an effect. People cannot believe their countrymen are being beaten up by the police for excercising their right of peaceful dissent, and they are reacting with fury.

So where there was one (non-) issue, hunting, now there are two issues - the police apparently acting as Blair's agents brutalising their fellow citizens with truncheons and horses. The feeling among those who saw the news (I am not one of them) is that the police were acting as agents of the prime minister. You can't get much more clumsy and oppressive than that.

As I said, I think this one has legs.

I don't see how enforcing fox-hunting bans is any different to enforcing anything else. If the law is legitimate, then it is quite acceptable to smash the faces of protestors and worse. If the law is illegitimate, then any punishment is obviously unacceptable.

What makes the law legitimate? On libertarian principles, killing a fox with a pack of dogs clearly causes harm to the animal. There therefore needs to be a defence of necessity, to avoid it being a crime of inflicting needless suffering on an animal (i.e. the reason bear-baiting is now illegal). The fact that foxes prey on livestock is clearly a defence, which allows you the right to kill foxes. However, when one has the right to kill something, you still have a moral obligation to take reasonable steps to minimise the suffering caused.

This whole debate, then, is simply an empirical question as to whether fox hunting results in an acceptably low amount of suffering for the fox, relative to the other methods of killing them, such as poison, traps, shooting etc, and the practicality of these alternatives. If these alternative methods are sufficiently impractical, or just as painful as being killed by dogs, or have other disadvantages, then hunting with dogs may well be not only acceptable but preferable. However, if we suddenly discovered a simple efficient way of killing foxes painlessly, then hunting would become immoral overnight.

Whether hunting is acceptable or not is therefore a matter of ethics and common sense judgements from people familiar with the various ways of killing foxes and other predators. It has nothing to do with liberty, preserving the countryside, democracy, the right to be free from government interference, class war, Tony Blair, or any other peripheral issue.

I'd be surprised if they avoid "clumsy and oppressive". The countryside is barely policed at all. The small seaside town town my late grandparents lived in had one policeman, who drove over in his police car every other day. Defiance will be so open they'll have no choice but to "clamp down" either with the army or via cameras and a "rat on your neighbor" campaign, and either way won't win them friends.

Cobden Bright: from a libertarian perspective, it's far simpler. Does the fox have rights? As a nonsapient creature, no, it has none. There may be ethical reasons to be nice to animals, but there can be no legal imperatives beyond property.

So whose property is the fox? As a roaming wild creature, the usual answer is "it belongs to whomever owns the land upon which it's standing, until it wanders off again".

Do the farmers have the right to grant the hunt access and permission to chase what is (temporarily) their own fox? Yes, they do.

Case closed.

Verity,

You may well be right. Perhaps I, too, am underestimating the significance of yesterday's events.

I have noticed though that all the usual 'meeja' chatterers are clucking like a load of hens about this. Well, this and the Fathers4Justice chap who climbed up Buck House dressed as Batman. I get the sense that the establishment is genuinely rattled by all this activism from non-lefty sources and at loss as to how to respond.

David - D'accord.

Cobden Bright writes:

"It has nothing to do with liberty, preserving the countryside, democracy, the right to be free from government interference, class war, Tony Blair, or any other peripheral issue."

Rubbish. In an entirely theoretical sense you may have a point. But you are not reckoning with the real world inhabited by the likes of Tony Banks, Gerald Kaufman and the zombie legion of Labour MPs who have driven this issue.

Oh and, by the way: no, even if the "law is legitimate" it is not "...quite acceptable to smash the faces of protestors and worse."

G Cooper, I think Cobden Bright is an American commentator and, in the American way, he has cut to the chase, so to speak. He doesn't realise that there are layers and layers of underpinnings here. I suspect he doesn't have real knowledge of what motivates the British left.

For that, he can easily be forgiven. However, as you write, it is absolutely never, in a free society, OK for the police to use truncheons to beat unarmed demonstrators at all - never mind assaulting them on the head, which can cause death. In fact, these actions have turned, in a trice, a large swathe of the British public who don't give a rat's arse about hunting, violently against the police.

And to my mind, that the Metropolitan police attack on the demonstrators was so uniform tells me they had a remit.

As far as I am concerned, this was criminal assault and these 'officers' can be identified on video. I hope those who were beaten for no reason other than that they disagreed with the government, sue the shit out of the Metropolitan Police until they are institutionally bankrupt.

Several of the commentators on The Telegraph site who are anti-hunting remarked on the viciousness of the attacks on their fellow Britons and one officer, a redhead who'd lost his cap was clearly seen enjoying himself by several Telegraph commentators. I don't have cable yet, but apparently one male demonstrator had raised his hands to show he had no weapons and wasn't going to commit violence and was seized and beaten to the ground. This is on video.

Where Blair is concerned, we don't have to wait long for "clumsy and oppressive" reprisals against those who cross his mighty will. I think, I hope, this is the tipping point.

And for the Metropolitan Police, who fail so signally every day of their existence to protect Londoners from crimes ranging from petty to heinous, and now have failed to protect them against an over-mighty government and beat up the taxpayers who pay their salaries and benefits and pensions, god willing, they are finished.

David Carr writes: "I get the sense that the establishment is genuinely rattled by all this activism from non-lefty sources and at loss as to how to respond."

Indeed. And that is precisely the fulcrum that is sitting there, begging for a bit of leverage.

If the fox-hunters (for whom, and FWIW, I have no brief) have any sense at all, they will recognise the huge pressure behind the political dam in the UK and will start chipping away immediately.

There are many consensus beliefs that the man on the Clapham omnibus holds, yet which the political classes refuse to address. Family law inequalities, absurd restrictions on self-defence, oppressive motoring laws, punitive taxation, useless policing, virtually uncontrolled immigration (and yes, I know there are Samizdata "views" on that - nonetheless, it is an issue which concerns many), EU bullying and nanny-statism. In short, the imposition of metropolitan "values" on an innately conservative, 'live and let live' populace.

There is no shortage of issues that bother the average man and woman in this country and which none of the political parties addresses coherently. A cleverly co-ordinated rural guerrilla movement couldn't start a civil war: but it could certainly check - maybe even reverse - the Leftward drift of British politics.

Verity writes: "And for the Metropolitan Police, who fail so signally every day of their existence to protect Londoners from crimes ranging from petty to heinous, and now have failed to protect them against an over-mighty government and beat up the taxpayers who pay their salaries and benefits and pensions, god willing, they are finished."

I have recently had a fair amount of contact with the police (no, they haven't finally caught-up with me!) and my impression is that the average PC Plod is pretty sick of it, too. That some psycho let loose with his truncheon yesterday doesn't greatly surprise me - in some ways you have to have more testosterone than sense to join the police in the first place and, in fact, that might be all to the good, were not the UK's force governed by an effete elite of fast-tracked sociology-soaked graduates from some of Britain's weaker universities. The problem is with the morons who have been allowed to take control of our police force.

Which means that "Sir" John Stevens (head of the Met, for non-UK readers) should walk the plank, forthwith. The man has presided over a catalogue of disasters and should be sharkfood, without further delay.

And, of course, I agree with Verity. This could be a turning point and I hope it is. A police force will always be a vicious brute of a dog, which should be kept tightly in check. The question is, who holds the leash - and Bliar has proved he is unfit. Please let this be the smirking little shit's terminal miscalculation.

I hope I am not posting this because I have had much too much to drink - it is Mexico's National Day and I felt it only courteous to join in the spirit of the occasion without reservation - but, G Cooper, I hear the tumbrils.

Or maybe it's the claws of a cat running across a hot tin roof. What's the diff? It's an ominous sound drenched in fear. The behaviour of the Metropolitan Police tells me Blair is running scared.

The Metropolitan Police has brutalised citizens of the United Kingdom when there was absolutely no threat either to the country or to the individual officers from the protesters. I do not like the idea of fox hunting, but the foxhunting industry has an absolute democratic right to put its case and to defend itself against an over-mighty government which proposes to destroy its livelihood for personal political advantage. They have an absolute right to put their case on the public streets of the capital without being beaten with truncheons.

Verity:

What I found interesting about the Telegraph comments is just how nasty and ghastly the pro-Police commenters were towards pro-hunt folks.

Ted - oh yes. There's no warrior more committed than an antediluvian class warrior with nothing to fight for.

I hold no brief for hunting. My heart is with the animal who is taking flight, panic in its breast, and using its wits to save its life. I loathe people who could chase an animal to its death. But that's beside the point.

The pro-hunters have an absolute right to voice their dissatisfaction with the actions of the govern