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D’ye ken John Peel at the break of day

Parliament today finally voted by a substantial majority to outlaw hunting with hounds:

MPs have voted to ban hunting with dogs despite mass demonstrations and the debate in the House of Commons being interrupted by protesters.

The ‘fearless and principled’ Tony Blair (having pushed this law forward as a sop to his increasingly fractious party) failed to show up for the debate and did not even bother to vote.

But plenty of hunt supporters did show up to rally outside the Houses of Parliament in a protest that turned into a pitched battle. By 5.00pm this afternoon, the radio news networks were reporting that Westminster had been closed off by the chaos and blood on the streets. Five hunt supporters even managed to invade the floor of the House of Commons:

It was shortly after 1620 BST that the protesters rushed in, with one shouting at Rural Affairs Minister Alun Michael: “This isn’t democracy. You are overturning democracy.”

Wrong. This is democracy in action and the hunters are on the receiving end of it. Tempers are flared:

“Banning Easy, Enforcement Impossible – That’s A Promise” and “Tally Ho Tony, We’re Off Hunting” suggested many would not see a ban as the final word.

Particularly popular among the younger protesters were T-shirts which had hijacked French Connection’s controversial slogan to read “FCUK yer ban”.

“These people are very angry,” said Davina Morley, 53, from Yorkshire, who has been hunting all her life.

This is not the end. It is just the beginning.

135 comments to D’ye ken John Peel at the break of day

  • 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.

  • Verity

    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.

  • Guy Herbert

    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.

  • JuliaM

    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….?

  • Jacob

    “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.

  • mike

    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..

  • WHS

    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

  • Julian Morrison

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

  • J

    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?

  • Euan Gray

    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.

  • ThePresentOccupier

    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 Wobbly Guy

    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

  • Guy Herbert

    “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.

  • The Wobbly Guy

    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

  • WHS

    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.”

  • Julian Morrison

    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

    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…

  • A_t

    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.

  • Legion

    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.

  • A_t

    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)

  • James

    (‘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)

    Hell, I’d buy that book.

    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.

  • Euan Gray

    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.

  • Rob

    “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.”

  • Euan Gray

    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

  • James

    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.

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

    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

    True. Given the coverage I’ve seen regarding the CA and other groups, no one name springs to mind as a natural. Then again, they might use a more dispersed command structure.

    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).

  • Euan Gray

    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

  • 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. 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?”.

  • Michael Farris

    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.

  • Jacob

    “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.

  • Verity

    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.

  • The Wobbly Guy

    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

  • Steve Bowles

    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.

  • mike

    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?

  • Julian Morrison

    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/

  • Julian Morrison

    I have this book 🙂

  • A_t

    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).

  • A_t

    doh! “hunting bah” should of course read “hunting ban”, tho’ not entirely inappropriate typo.

    humbug.

  • Verity

    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.

  • Sandy P

    –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!

  • A_t

    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!

  • Guy Herbert

    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.

  • Verity

    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.

  • A_t

    🙂 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.

  • Verity

    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.

  • Euan Gray

    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

  • mike

    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’?

  • Euan Gray

    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

  • Guy Herbert

    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

  • mike

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

  • R C Dean

    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.

  • Guy Herbert

    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.

  • Gazaridis

    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!

  • mike

    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.

  • GCooper

    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!”.

  • Verity

    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.

  • Julian Morrison

    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.

  • Verity

    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.

  • Euan Gray

    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

  • mike

    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.

  • Julian Morrison

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

  • Euan Gray

    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

  • mike

    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.

  • Julian Morrison

    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.

  • Verity

    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.

  • Cobden Bright

    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.

  • Julian Morrison

    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.

  • Julian Morrison

    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.

  • Verity

    David – D’accord.

  • GCooper

    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.”

  • Verity

    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.

  • GCooper

    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.

  • GCooper

    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.

  • Verity

    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.

  • Ted Schuerzinger

    Verity:

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

  • Verity

    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 government and they have an absolute right, should the government refuse to hear their case, to take their protest to the streets of the capital.

    This government has gone way beyond being over-mighty and has become delusional. They think they can beat the brains out of citizens who dare say them nay.

    I see there’s to be an “independent enquiry”.

    They must be very frightened. But the time for yet one more “independent enquiry” has past. I think we’ve just passed the tipping point.

  • Guy Herbert

    “[…] just how nasty and ghastly the pro-Police commenters were towards pro-hunt folks.

    There is a very strong tendency in a substantial portion of the population to support police action whatever it is. In the eyes of such people if you are the wrong end of a truncheon you must be a violent criminal. And to the same people being “a criminal” is a question not of variable action but of fixed status: once you are identified as a criminal, you are marked for life and to be outlawed. No possibility of change or redemption.

    It is the habit of mind that allows Blunkett’s anti-civil-liberties programme to play so well.

    This same fixed labelling tendency may also be at work in some of those suddenly shocked by police brutality. They may never have paid much attention to a demonstration before. And this time the demonstraters are people like them, not anarchists or trades unionists that they can understand might deserve to be beaten up.

    By the by, funny isn’t it that there’s seldom a shortage of Police at protests, no matter how peaceful. I’ve remarked here before about the armed and becameraed cordon that faces the silent motionless Falun Gong meditators, and occasional quiet Tibetan buddhist protest opposite the Chinese Embassy.

  • Verity:people are writing in to The Telegraph forum expressing shock at the police brutality employed against unarmed demonstrators.

    I asked a guy at work whether he watched the protest on TV or not. He replied: Yes, the police seemed to be having a good time.

  • The Wobbly Guy

    the UK’s force governed by an effete elite of fast-tracked sociology-soaked graduates from some of Britain’s weaker universities.

    Interesting. I’ve always thought, from my knowledge of my country’s police officer(the higher rankers), that they preferred engineering graduates. Ditto for the armed forces. They prefer engineers too.

    I have three friends on government scholarships bonded to the police force. They’re all in the engineering faculty.

    TWG

  • Julian Taylor

    What inflamed people the most does seem to have been Alun Michael’s admission to John Humphrys, on Radio 4’s Today programme, when the minister effectively conceded that his demolished bill’s return, and its proposed 2-year delay to a fox-hunting ban, were for Labour party management reasons rather than anything to do with “animal welfare”. Simon Hart, of the Countryside Alliance, followed this up by claiming that the protest went far beyond the specific issue of hunting to “the fundamental issues of political prejudice politics and discrimination in a liberal democracy”.

    I was at the protest on Tuesday afternoon, not necessarily because I agree with all aspects of hunting – for me Wildes’s quote of ‘the unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible’ still holds true for a large number of huntsmen and women – but I do still support a number of hunts. What I, and a large number of others, saw was a police force that seemed totally out of control – officers stamping down on the necks of teenage girls, while 2 other policemen handcuffed them, officers seemingly desperate to get in and hit people, and all this while they were egging the protestors on to come at them. One person I know received the ‘neck stamping’ treatment while he was trying to get his son and 2 daughters away from the police barriers, he says that they threatened to use CS spray on him unless he stopped arguing with them.

    Since then we have heard of Labour MP’s saying “that makes us even over the ’84 miners’s strike”, The Beast of Bolsover (Dennis Skinner) claiming that “the upper classes got a bloody good hiding”, although strangely no mention of a Labour MP getting attacked by the police on her way into the House of Commons even though she was not anywhere near the main protest.

  • Ian Bennett

    The Government seeks to ban hunting for the same reason that the Puritans banned bear-baiting; not because of cruelty but because people enjoy it. Hunters are seen as ‘toffs’ (how I want to stuff that word back down the throat of anyone who utters it), and Blair is pandering to the lefty element of his party, demonstrating once again that he can be nouveau gauche to the Islington set and traditional Labour to the otherwise unrepresented ‘working man’, who, like a fool, will continue to vote for him.

  • A_t

    Funny how rational policing to protect property turns into police brutality when you relate to/sympathise with the protesters, eh?

    I don’t believe a word of all this “boo hoo, civil rights abused” crap; were any of you in the least bit concerned at the diversion & arrest of anti-arms fair protesters earlier this year, or the summary arrest & detention of peaceful demonstrators during the republican convention? Hmm.. number of comments on Samizdata… nil! So don’t tell me it’s all about principle & democratic right to demonstrate; if these universal principles were really important to you, you’d be outraged even when demonstrators for a cause you thought was foolish were arrested or beaten.

    I should add, the footage I saw clearly showed demonstrators ripping away the barriers, leaving the police as a final line of defence between the houses of parliament & the protesters. What would you expect the police to do? Link arms & hope there wasn’t too much weight behind the crowd? Resign themselves to the protesters overrunning parliament, because after all, they’re ‘decent folk’? Perhaps next time an ‘anarchist’ crowd lurches towards McDonalds, the police should just step aside & not crack any heads either.

    That’s not to say I don’t have sympathy with the many who doubtless got hit on the head for being in the wrong place at the wrong time; I do, but this kind of stuff has happened again and again at demonstrations; it’s par for the course when a demo gets ugly. The police have to do something to protect people & property, & whacking people with sticks is a tried & tested crowd control method which is a bit brutal but works ok and didn’t seriously injure anyone this time.

  • A_t

    Ian Bennett, you’re bang on the money about the motivation (not so much the toffs bit); it’s puritanical disgust at the idea that people could take pleasure from such a ‘brutal’ passtime.

    Personally, I think the class element plays a small part perhaps, but not much of one; do you think any working class cruel sports could somehow have remained un-banned until now? The sole reason hunting has survived the puritans for this long is precisely because wealthy, powerful & influential people enjoy it. My main beef with the hunters is that their cause is inconsistant; they’re only upholding the right to their own sport; there’s no logical reason to demand legal fox hunting but acquiesce to a ban on dog fights.

  • mike

    A_t – I don’t know how I’d go about it, but if I were John Stevens (or whoever the relevant chap in charge is) I’d want to do everything I could to make sure the police didn’t resort to beating people with sticks and stamping on their necks – that’s not only disgusting but definitely is dangerous, there must be other less dangerous ways of doing crowd control and I wouldn’t be too bothered about shelling out a bit more money if necessary.

    I do agree with you though on the partisan point, it’s alright when it’s the other side getting beat up, but when it’s your ‘own’ it’s always a different matter isn’t it?

  • “I should add, the footage I saw clearly showed demonstrators ripping away the barriers”

    A_t should note that the ripping away of the barriers happened after the police started laying into the protestors; although if you only saw the BBC news you would not have seen that.
    If you saw the Sky News footage where the actual violence began, you would see that there was virtually no provocation other than a pushing up against the barrier.

  • Julian Morrison

    Heh, I’m not partisan about stuff like police brutality at the republican convention, I’m selfish, They’re in a foreign place and outside the scope of issues I care about. Also, I have bigger fish to fry.

    Still, there are certain sorts of people who deserve to get the crap kicked out of them on a weekly basis just on general principle, eg: anti-capitalist protesters with £100 Nike sneakers, modern mobile phones, and Che Guevara tee-shirts from Gap.

  • GCooper

    A_t writes:

    “Funny how rational policing to protect property turns into police brutality when you relate to/sympathise with the protesters, eh?”

    And equally funny (not to say positively hilarious) to read you doing exactly the same thing. The whole tone of your piece reads like a Daily Mail leader following the Poll Tax riots.

    Ho hum…

    You also say: “Personally, I think the class element plays a small part perhaps, but not much of one…”

    Tell that to the goon’s chorus of Labour MPs who are positively basking in the glow of class warfare (see comments, earlier). I’ve also noted a definite tendency of callers to radio phone-ins to resort to the use of ‘toffs’ and ‘gentry’ the moment their carapace of animal welfare is prodded.

    Consider, also, that pious champion of the working classes, the Daily Mirror which actually used the ‘T’ word in its headline, as it does today with: “Top Cop: Toffs deserved it”.

    You may like to believe that there is only a tiny element of class warfare involved in this, but clearly you are wrong. My impression is that it is a fairly large component – though, it is by no means, the only one.

  • mike

    Julian: alright then I’ll take that comment back – those red Che Guavara t-shirts do tend to push my mood over into Al Pacino territory…

  • Verity

    A_t – “Funny how rational policing to protect property turns into police brutality when you relate to/sympathise with the protesters, eh?”

    If you’d read the comments of others before posting, you would have seen that many of us supported the right to demonstrate of people with whom we profoundly disagree. I loathe hunting. I think that people who could chase an exhausted and panicked animal to its death are deeply repulsive. I could never have anyone who hunted as a friend and would prefer not to have them as an acquaintance either.

    But they have a right to gather and voice their dissent from government actions and decisions without getting beaten up by the police. And no other commentators have posted on the contention that the police were acting as agents of Tony Blair – which only happens in dictatorships like Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe and the former Soviet Union. Now Britain.

    This is a grave aspect of this event and I am surprised that no one else has had a word to say about it.

  • GCooper

    Verity writes: “And no other commentators have posted on the contention that the police were acting as agents of Tony Blair…”

    If they are like me, people might be uneasy suggesting this, when the obvious rejoinder is that during other conflicts (for example the miners’ strike) the police were accused of exactly the same thing, in the service of a Tory government.

    That said, I do think there is greater political interference these days. “New” Labour has infiltrated its tentacles into a lot of organisations previously supposed to have been impartial (the civil service, to name just one) and it seems unlikely that the Met hasn’t fallen victim, too.

    Indeed, the comments issuing from “Sir” John Stevens since the event ( e.g. “no one got cracked over the head for no reason”) are more than defiant, suggesting he has complete confidence in his position – which would be unwarranted unless he was acting to order.

    On that issue, a letter in today’s Telegraph, claiming to be from a former ‘riot trained’ police office, says that policemen used to be instructed not to hit people’s heads (which I must say was my thought when I saw the TV coverage). What changed here? Poor training? New methods? Or was the whispered order to go in hard? And, if so, as Verity’s comment leads us to wonder, who originated that order?

  • Julian Morrison

    Verity: that’s because it’s not the Occam’s Razor hypothesis yet. The cops could just have been breaking heads because one or more of them had a personal hate-on for “toffs”. I doubt Blair ordered any such thing. If it was ordered, it’s more likely to be the brass second-guessing the PM’s frowns, after the manner of Henry II and Thomas à Becket. Blair’s a “civilised” politician with an eye to his career, he won’t risk dirtying his hands in public.

  • Julian Taylor

    Indeed, the comments issuing from “Sir” John Stevens since the event ( e.g. “no one got cracked over the head for no reason”) are more than defiant, suggesting he has complete confidence in his position – which would be unwarranted unless he was acting to order.

    As indeed he would be. It is unfortunate that the only person able to remove the Metropolitan Police Commissioner from his post is The Queen, not even the Prime Minister can do that without her permission.

    One can only hope that the levity accorded to a breach of palace security by Stevens and Blunkett will prompt Her Majesty to shout ‘off with his head’…

  • Guy Herbert

    “were any of you in the least bit concerned at the diversion & arrest of anti-arms fair protesters earlier this year”

    Well yes, actually. I was fairly sure there was a post about it. Though maybe my memory is playing tricks.

    “or the summary arrest & detention of peaceful demonstrators during the republican convention?”

    Of course.

    I used the words “police brutality” in my comment, to draw attention to the inconsistency of some of the hunt supporters’ views, not expecting to be taken as inconsistent myself.

  • Guy Herbert

    A lot of odd things about this affair. One of which is indeed the class-warrior element.

    They’ve kept fairly quiet about it in previous votes, but seem suddenly to have been off the leash (so to speak) in the last week. We had Monbiot saying to whatever medium would listen that this isn’t an important animal welfare issue, it is about punishing people for identifying with the squirearchy.

    All just before the TUC and the Labour Party conference. Another brilliant New Labour coup de theatre? I rather think so. Add the extension of the application date till after the election (locking-in single- issue fanatics), and the excuse that this was to prevent “disorder” in the election campaign (playing to the current security theme), and it is hard to see anyone laying a glove on them.

  • Julian Morrison

    Yup, here’s him on that topic.

    Interesting though, it’s not just “the toffs” he’s castigating – he sees it as a proxy for the romantic ideal of chivalrous aristocracy, which he wishes to kill. Meme war, rather than class envy.

  • Harvey

    The police brutality issue is centred around one thing: the fact that the police are acting the same way when presented with non-confrontational demonstrators as they do when confronted with ‘professional demonstrators.’ After all, when ‘police brutality’ is screamed by those who organise protests under the banner ‘keep it spikey,’ it’s hardly something one can take too seriously. We’re not just hamming it up because it’s ‘our people’ getting the kicking!

  • sympathetic Yank

    Until the British people rise up to defend their freedoms they will find them one by precious one uprooted and carted away. Most of my forefathers had no overriding desire to cease being subjects of King George III; but when they felt his government impinged on their liberties as free-born Englishmen they took up arms.

    God save you, the free-born Englishman now has no arms to take up save the pen, spray paint and the club, for his government has stripped him of arms. If only those who were agitated about the decline in British civil liberties could make up their minds to fight, peacefully–or otherwise–for their freedoms, you would bring the government down.

  • John Ellis

    Vertiy,

    A_t has already argued cogently about this, but I just had to comment. When you said:

    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.

    I don’t think they were so shocked. We’ve seen all this before with the Poll Tax riots, and many more disturbances before that. Being contentious, I could say that YOU were shocked, or YOU felt that, because you identifed (in moral, ideological or class terms) with the people on the end of the truncheons this time. But let’s not be contentious…;-)

    People have argued here for the demonstrators as heroic defenders of free expression, and for the police as justified and restrained protectors of the rule of law under unreasonable provocation, and the truth probably lies somewhere between the two, as usual.

    However, if you are, as seems likely, an avowed libertarian, you are inclined to object to police enforcement of government diktat. If only the majority of the commentators here took that consistent view, rather than Right=Good, Left=Bad.

    Sometimes I think this site is nothing more than cheerleading for Rebublicans/Middle English values, and it should be so much more than that.

  • John Ellis

    God save you, the free-born Englishman now has no arms to take up save the pen, spray paint and the club, for his government has stripped him of arms. If only those who were agitated about the decline in British civil liberties could make up their minds to fight, peacefully–or otherwise–for their freedoms, you would bring the government down.

    Where’s King Billy when you need him? 😀

    Seriously, even if we all had assault rifles (or tanks), we wouldn’t be marching on Blair with murderous intent. Even those of us who heartily dislike the warmongering, duplicitous bastard, and are trying to find someone to vote for who doesn’t make us throw up or dispair.

    As don’t the more heavily-armed American democrats vis-a-vis ShrubCo.

    Actually, most Westerners are indolent, passive sorts, who only get excited about Sport, Reality TV and the latest diet fad. What we need is someone like Osama to convince us that dying in a political cause is worth the effort.

    No takers? Thought not. 😉

  • Verity

    John Ellis – “I could say that YOU were shocked, or YOU felt that, because you identifed (in moral, ideological or class terms) with the people on the end of the truncheons this time. But let’s not be contentious…;”

    And let’s not type silly emoticons to try to soften the insult.

    You have never met me and you haven’t even read what I’ve posted on this thread before making the assumption that I identify with the demonstrators morally, idiologically or in class terms. Well, wrong. As I’ve written above, the notion of chasing an exhausted and panicky animal until it collapses from exhaustion sickens me more than I can tell you. I am not in the hunting class, whatever class that might be, and I would never number someone who hunted among my friends. The whole enterprise sickens me.

    As I have said, I nevertheless support their right to dissent from the government and to take their grievance to the streets if they feel they are not getting a fair hearing. And I was nonetheless sickened to see my fellow citizens being beaten up police wielding truncheons, even if I don’t personally approve of them.

    Julian Morrison, you say Blair’s a “civilised politician” and won’t risk dirtying his hands in public? It strikes me that Blair is the most corrupt prime minister in British history. Who took a million pounds for his party from Bernie Eccleston to put off a ban on tobacco advertising? Who made a phone call to the prime minister of Latvia on behalf of an Indian national to persuade him to sell the national steel company to that Indian national (Lakshmi Mittal), whose company directly competes with British steelworkers? He got 150,000 pounds for his party for that one. There’s been more money for favours, but I can’t remember them all.

    Who accepts lavish vacations for his entire family and entourage from people he barely knows, as long as it’s free?

    Who routinely lies to Parliament and to the people to the point where the number of voters who believe a word he says can be counted on the fingers of one hand? Who is obsessed with getting rid of the mighty pound for the Mickey Mouse euro in order to further his personal ambitions in Europe?

    Blair is ‘civilised’?

    G Cooper, interesting that the policeman told you the police were always instructed previously not to beat anyone on the head (I should think not! Good god!). Who gave the countermanding order? This should be a question in Parliament.

  • John Ellis

    Verity,

    The “silly” emoticon was part of saying that this was not ad hominem, and that I was querying your (and some of your colleagues) dispassion in a right/left issue, rather than your libertarian credentials….No-one likes to see police beat up on civilians (or civilians beat up on police). The point I was making was that it’s a bad deal whether the victims are hunting protestors, poll tax rebels, or any civil disobedients. As long as their disobedience does not threaten normal lawful life, they should be indulged.

    And I have read what youn have posted before here. Most days I read what’s going on here.

  • Verity

    John Ellis – I wasn’t offended that you might have appeared to be threatening my libertarian credentials. I’m not that touchy and I hadn’t even noticed.

    I was offended that, after everything I had said, someone would persist in thinking me sympathetic to the cause of hunting with hounds.

    I have written consistently on this thread that though I find hunting with hounds nauseating, these people are members of the electorate and have a right to have their views listened to by their elected representatives. If they feel the people they have elected to serve them are haughty and overmighty, they have an absolute right to take their grievances to the streets.

    That’s all. I don’t have to like them to recognise that they have the same rights I have.

  • Julian Morrison

    Verity, you mistake my meaning of “civilised”. I certainly didn’t mean he’s nice. He’s a backstabbing lying charismatic hypocrite, utterly without ethics or empathy, and he believes his own press. He’d sell his grandmother to a catfood company if it would win him the next election. But he’s not a bestial sadist nor the sort to take out grudges with physical violence.

    In addition, he’s a shrewd enough political operator to understand that, regardless it’s popular with his “base”, they’re a minority and his real base – the general public at large – looks askance at such things.

  • GCooper

    John Ellis writes: “If only the majority of the commentators here took that consistent view, rather than Right=Good, Left=Bad.”

    Two factors you might like to consider.

    The first is that, here in the UK (I assume from your use of “to beat up on” in a later post that you are in the USA – if not, I despair) that we have been suffering under a Left- wing government for several years. That does rather tend to focus one’s attention on the iniquities of socialism. This is reflected in the opinions you see posted.

    The second is that there is at least a strand of what is considered Right-wing thinking that is not antipathetic to individualistic freedom. No such strand seems to have emerged from the collectivist Left.

  • kaj

    These protestors and pro-hunters are country people, defending their lifestyle. Country people are, by need, resourceful. If something goes bust on your farm, you repair it yourself. I think you Brits are in for a surprise from those country yokels in the future. The last word about hunting has not been said.

  • Verity

    kaj – We’re not in for a surprise; we know our own people very well and have known them for thousands of years. I am amused, however, by your use of the word ‘yokel’ in profound contrast to The Mirror’s ‘toff’.

    Julian M – “He’s a backstabbing lying charismatic hypocrite, utterly without ethics or empathy, and he believes his own press. He’d sell his grandmother to a catfood company if it would win him the next election. But he’s not a bestial sadist nor the sort to take out grudges with physical violence.”

    I do not agree that he is charismatic.

    But no, he’s not the sort to take grudges out with physical violence. He has minions to take care of grudges.

    But he’s a nasty little bully. Remember when he used his position in a press conference to tell prominent conservative British columnist and author Peter Hitchens to “sit down and stop being bad”? Can you imagine any other world leader, barring Mugabe, speaking like that in public to a prominent and respected writer?

    His whole behaviour tells us that this man does not know limits. He makes personal phone calls to the prime minister of Latvia on behalf of an Indian national whose companies compete directly with British companies; and to the president of Italy on behalf of American citizen Rupert Murdoch and on and on. He is curiously disconnected and doesn’t understand limits.

    If he sells his grandmother to a catfood company, someone please let me know as I’m fussy about what my cats eat.

  • lindenen

    “I loathe hunting. I think that people who could chase an exhausted and panicked animal to its death are deeply repulsive.”

    Verity, how do you think your ancestors fed themselves?

    Let’s play hypothetical situation: Saudi Arabia’s oil gets cut off and no food gets to the grocery stores. In particular, no meat. Isn’t it a good thing for a significant number of Britons to retain the skills necessary to hunt animals for food? If you stop people from hunting, they won’t be able to pass on the requisite survival skills. It’s a thought.

  • Julian Morrison

    lindenen: Britain is an agri-desert punctuated by towns. If the populace had to live by hunter-gathering and without farming, all ten of the survivors would freeze in the winter.

    I don’t have much time for these wimpy justifications of fox hunting. Pest control? Sure, but maybe not the most effective. Tends to breed fast smart foxes. Sport? So’s football, which is not normally fatal to anything other than grass and ants. Food in an emergency? Whom are you kidding? Eat the horses instead.

    Nope, frankly, hunting is an expression of the very natural chase-and-kill instinct. Not sadism, sadism is a diverted and twisted instinct. Chase-and-kill is an uncut original. It’s as natural to us humans as pounce-and-bite is to a cat.

  • Verity

    Lindenen – If this is how you wish to categorise ‘a thought’, this is your privilege.

    In the absence of decent frozen curries, I would imagine my ancestors went out and shot rabbits and small things to put in a pot. They would have gone out with a gun, I think, and, when they saw something small and furry running, shot it.

    This is what we call, Lindenen, ‘hunting for food’. Hunters in the south of France who shoot sangrail and hunters in the US who hunt deer are hunting for food. That’s part of nature. The weaker physically or intellectually get eaten by the stronger or cleverer. It would take a stronger person than me to quarrel with nature.

    However, this has absolutely n-o-t-h-i-n-g to do with hunting foxes with hounds. I suspect you’re another American contributor who does not understand the layers of underpinnings accompanying this argument and thinks it can all be resolved simply with some straightforward, bright-eyed thinking by a newcomer.

    But here is a little clue for someone who has managed to stay uninformed about the argument so far: no one eats foxes.

    You say, imagine: “Saudi Arabia’s oil gets cut off and no food gets to the grocery stores. In particular, no meat.”

    Well, I guess I’d have refritos negritos tacos con queso y habanero sauce. One survives, darling.

  • lindenen

    Woooooooooooowwww, man. You’re so right! Teehee! I’m just a little teenybopper and you’re just the big bad intelekchoouhll. Unfortunately, I never argued that people eat foxes. People hunt foxes and people should be able to hunt any animal as long as it is not endangered or someone’s pet. If you want to form an organization to adopt all the foxes, then go for it.

    They should get together thousands of foxes and unleash them in London. Preferably in Parliament.

  • GCooper

    Verity writes: “But he’s a nasty little bully”

    He is most certainly that. I have never been able to shake from my mind the time when he gave a speech to the Women’s Institute, received a slow handclap in response and let loose the bestial thug, Alistair Campbell, to smear those little old ladies with accusations that they were somehow affiliated to the National Front.

    It was one of the most shameful incidents in recent British politics and yet went largely unremarked by the media. In its way it was quite as bad as the Bernie Ecclestone bribery scandal, because it targeted innocent members of the public.

    Bliar’s essential nastiness, his spitefulness, mean-spiritedness and messianic self-belief make him the most hateful and dangerous British PM since that other arrogant, loathsome slug, the traitor Edward Heath.

    In decades to come, historians will look back on the damage wrought to the British constitution by this little popinjay and will marvel that we did not rise up and deal with him as he deserved.

    Mind you, there’s still time.

  • Verity

    G Cooper – I disagree that Blair can be compared to the ‘loathesome slug’ Edward Heath because Toneboy is much more hyperactive than a slug. Even if a slug chased it, a photo op would be over before the slug had gone through the process of integrating it into its ‘brain’, but Tone is a little greedy heat-seeking photo missile.

    What is disconcerting is, people actually have so little judgement that they take Blair on his own recognisance. Only the WI got it and they were slapped down by Alastair for their impertinence.

  • Guy Herbert

    lindenen: “They should get together thousands of foxes and unleash them in London. Preferably in Parliament.”

    Unnecessary. There are probably more foxes in London than in three or four rural counties put together. I often see one trotting silently along the road on its way home just before dawn. Usually very sleek, pizza-fed, and really quite cute. Urbane as well as urban. Which is probably why they have more sense than to go into Parliament.

  • Julian Taylor

    They should get together thousands of foxes and unleash them in London. Preferably in Parliament.”

    One plan I have heard mentioned is to dump the gassed bodies of hounds in Whitehall, after the ban comes into force (one hunt can have as many as 200 hounds). The alternative to putting them down is going to be either:

    1) sell the hounds off to animal testing laboratories, or
    2) sell the hounds off to animal rights campaigners.

    For the latter, I look forward to hearing of an animal rights campaigner being tried for hunting with dogs, where their “rescued” hounds chased a fox.

  • la marquise

    A pro-hunting person reading these comments will be filled with the bemused despair of a man who, having had his licit and habitual conjugal relations made illegal by one bunch of absurdly self-righteous eunuchs, finds himself defended by another bunch of absurdly self-righteous eunuchs who assert his right to continue his former habits on the grounds that, disgusting and utterly loathesome though his perversions are, they should be tolerated in a free society … (what magnanimity! what proof of imaginative sympathy!)

    Verity – Your e-persona as exhibited on this site’s comments sections is not synonymous with extreme délicatesse or hyper-sensitivity, so perhaps you feel you have to lay on the fox-cuddling a bit thick. Be that as it may, please would you consider the fact that those whom you loathe and despise for their cruelty, by their activity reduce fox suffering (a running wild animal is under less stress than one rendered immobile either by snare or injury) while all your preening, anthropomorphic identification with the animal does not.

  • Verity

    La Marquise, I don’t think I go in for fox cuddling. I am saying that I do not defend the rights of foxhunters to hunt with houds, although I do defend their right to dissent and should not have provoked the government to violence.

    Look up anthropomorphic in the dictionary and then quote one comment I have made that leads you to believe I am that soft in the head.

    BTW, just a friendly hint: do cut down on your use of adjectives, there’s a dear.

  • John Ellis

    John Ellis writes: “If only the majority of the commentators here took that consistent view, rather than Right=Good, Left=Bad.”

    Two factors you might like to consider.

    The first is that, here in the UK (I assume from your use of “to beat up on” in a later post that you are in the USA – if not, I despair) that we have been suffering under a Left- wing government for several years. That does rather tend to focus one’s attention on the iniquities of socialism. This is reflected in the opinions you see posted.

    The second is that there is at least a strand of what is considered Right-wing thinking that is not antipathetic to individualistic freedom. No such strand seems to have emerged from the collectivist Left.

    GCooper, I’m a Brit, but hanging out here (there I go again) tends to make you suceptible to Americanisms…

    …my apologies that my less-than-pure Englishness has offended you so much.

    Regarding the COLLECTIVIST Left, I agree with you that their precepts differ from Libertarian ones by so much that there is little or no common ground. However, the very fact that you chose that qualifier means that you realise that there might be other forms of “Leftism” that are not essentially Collectivist.

    For me, such forms include most societies that permit humans to live together without perpetual / immediate resort to contract law or large personal armories.

    And if you think that Blur’s Government is either Left wing or socialist, that I’m afraid YOU are the Brit-impostor…. Where have you been for the last 7 years? Tony is a friend of Bush, corporate Britain and the marketeers that control political “thought” in this country. Leftist, whatever that might mean, he is not.

  • John Ellis

    …and I’d love to explore the idea of how one can be Libertarian without being a neo-con, or a neo-con symp, but I thing we need another thread for that, as this one is supposed to be about foxhunting!

    Perry? Pretty please?

  • John Ellis

    La Marquise,

    I just would like to compliment you on your prose style. I don’t want to get in to the argument you may be having with Verity, but I’m sure you won’t let her transparent envy of your literacy and faux-condescention towards your style affect the robust and elegant way you convey your ideas. Bravo!

    Keep those adjectives and mots justes a-comin’…

  • GCooper

    John Ellis writes:

    “my apologies that my less-than-pure Englishness has offended you so much.”

    Offence? Amusement, if anything.

    “However, the very fact that you chose that qualifier means that you realise that there might be other forms of “Leftism” that are not essentially Collectivist.”

    Err, no. As far as I am concerned, Left-wing thought is inevitably and inescapably collectivist.
    Perhaps you would like to show us some form of Leftism that isn’t essentially collectivist?

    “And if you think that Blur’s Government is either Left wing or socialist, that I’m afraid YOU are the Brit-impostor…. Where have you been for the last 7 years? Tony is a friend of Bush, corporate Britain and the marketeers that control political “thought” in this country. Leftist, whatever that might mean, he is not.”

    What rot! Anyone who has been earning a living for the past seven years (which specifically excludes students, teachers, civil servants et al) will have been only too aware of just how Leftist Bliar’s government has been as they watched levels of taxation, state interference, social engineering and waste rise like an inexorable tide.

    I concede that Guardian readers might have been so dismayed by Bliar’s affinity for Bush that they might not have noticed the ratcheting of their agenda… but then I tend not to expect to have to discourse with Guardian readers here.

  • la marquise

    John Ellis – Thank you. Your generosity is rare and comforts my bitter and twisted heart. Verity was right though, my adjectives were rather close together but only because I had cut out all the other parts of speech for brevity’s sake, but there’s no pleasing some people.

    Verity – Good heavens, woman! after you’ve insulted someone as ‘deeply repulsive’, ‘sickening’, ‘nauseating’ and unworthy to break bread with you, why bother getting picky about their style? (unless the first attitude was mere posturing…) Your own style is normally brutal but in this thread has, on occasions, turned sentimental (a not unusual two-chord combination, particularly popular with politicians btw).

    I neither said nor implied you were ‘soft in the head’ but I do think you see the fox as a furry libertarian pursued by the barbarous forces of conservatism – which is anthropomorphic. I repeat – I do not think you are soft in the head (perhaps you are confusing me with someone on another thread, who does ..)but I do think you have fallen a little bit in love with the image of your own virtue which contrasts so prettily with the loathesome despicable etc monsters of iniquity that you have conjured so unfairly in your imagination.

    But to bicker about our respective styles and your amour-propre is to fiddle while Britain burns. Please concentrate your, doubtless formidable, brain on the depressing fact that this ban, if enforced, will not only increase vulpine suffering and restrict human freedom but , moreunder (which is to subtract not to add),it will lead to skills being lost, knowledge forgotten, happiness diminished,vocabulary impoverished, conviviality suppressed, beauty eliminated, conversation silenced and even, yea, in pubs being emptied…..
    And you would talk to me of adjectives ?

  • Julian Taylor

    …this ban, if enforced, will not only increase vulpine suffering and restrict human freedom but , moreunder (which is to subtract not to add),it will lead to skills being lost, knowledge forgotten, happiness diminished,vocabulary impoverished

    Nicely put, but I don’t see many skills being lost over the ban. People are not going to stop riding horses as a result, thus saddlers and farriers are not going to lose business. The only gripe so far appears to be from vets, over the vastly inflated retainers they receive for looking after a pack of foxhounds, and from a certain number of Masters of Hounds who for the most part do not get paid anyway, and I would certainly not regard being a Master of Hounds as being a rather ‘skillful’ occupation.

    Contrary to what some people have written on here, foxhunting has most certainly never been regarded as the sort of sport originating from some faded notion of ‘putting meat on the table’. It is a legacy from the days of stag-hunting with horses and hounds, and later became regarded as a “sport” for the exercise of both hounds and horses.

    Many people seem to be protesting, not for the support of huntsmen and their pasttime, but for what Blair, Michaels et al will do next – will we now see an end to commercial/corporate shoots, angling tournaments or even village gymkhanas (some of those six-year olds can be damnably vicious to their ponies)?

  • John Ellis

    La Marquise – you’re welcome. I don’t know if you’ve ever read posts/works by an individual who styles himself on some noticeboards/blogs as “Lazarus the Gimp”? His bitter, twisted but erudite and stylish musings are nicely coupled with an irreverent sense of humour. Link:

    (Link)

    GCooper,

    If you define “left” as pertaining to collectivism, there is no point having this discussion. However, it can be defined as “favouring labour above capital” or the have-littles above the have-lots. Neither definition leads necesarily to collectivism.

    And when you say:

    What rot! Anyone who has been earning a living for the past seven years (which specifically excludes students, teachers, civil servants et al) will have been only too aware of just how Leftist Bliar’s government has been as they watched levels of taxation, state interference, social engineering and waste rise like an inexorable tide.

    I concede that Guardian readers might have been so dismayed by Bliar’s affinity for Bush that they might not have noticed the ratcheting of their agenda… but then I tend not to expect to have to discourse with Guardian readers here.

    So many straw men to set on fire!

    1) As I have mentioned here before, I work for a Bank (in a rather competitive, outsourcing-heavy environment) and I earn well into the top tax bracket (which admittedly isn’t that hard in the UK).

    2) Levels of taxation, waste, corruption and social engineering rose under the last Tory administration, too. Big Government is a curse under statists of the Left or the Right.

    3) So no, I do not identify the evils you list as specifically Leftist. And the obsequity shown to American Presidents of varying stripes has been a shameful thread in British Prime Ministerial politics since the 1950’s at least, bothe Labour and Tory.

    4) You might not expect to converse with Guardian- or Independent-readers here, but hey, you just have been. Maybe it will expose you to a world-view outside your comfort zone. I recommend it to you – that’s one of the reasons I come here myself…:-D

    Enough on this, however, this is egregious case of thread-jacking. Back to the cuddly/feral little foxlets…