Hunting update
Sara Rutherford | 12.01.2006 12:03
Regional Update from the Countryside Alliance in Southern UK, brought to you by Sara Rutherford January 2006
On Boxing Day morning Simon Hart was a guest on ‘Today’ with Mike Hobday of LACS and extracted an admission from him that the Hunting Act wasn’t working. The BBC reported from the Warwickshire kennels and meet and Sky were at the Beaufort. All reports suggested support was up, morale high, and determination to repeal the legislation absolute.
The media coverage of hunting up to and including Boxing Day has helped us acheive a number of our objectives:
- We have laid to rest forever the perennial claim that these will be the 'last Boxing Day meets'. There is now a general understanding that hunting is not going to be finished by the Hunting Act.
- It has been widely accepted by both the media and the public that the Hunting Act is not working. No-one quite knows why not, but they understand that it has failed to achieve whatever it set out to do.
- We have therefore started to generate an acceptance that the Act is temporary, cannot last and will have to be replaced at some stage.
- We have left our opponents in a mire - they cannot decide to whether to continue claiming that the Hunting Act is somehow an improvent in terms of animal welfare, when it is patently not, or alternatively throw around accusations of illegality which cannot be substantiated and which would support our proposition that the Hunting Act (their Hunting Act) is unworkable.
The consistently positive media coverage hunting has received for many years now is a result of the hard work, honesty and bravery of individuals and hunts. It is continuing to have a very important impact and don't just take it from us. Here is the start of an editorial from the Wall Street Journal:
"Sound the horns and release the hounds -- fox hunting is alive and well in Britain. We all recall how late last year it suddenly occurred to the stuffed-shirt Laborites in the House of Commons how nothing was more important than that they ban the ancient ritual of fox hunting across the rural glade in merrie olde England. Well, 10 months after Parliament curtailed the practice, the annual Boxing Day hunts carried on and, surprise, surprise, attracted more people than last year's pre-ban event -- upward of 300,000 enthusiasts according to some estimates. Are there 300,000 "toffs" in England, or may we assume that mere commoners were among the several hundred thousand?
"The Hunting with Dogs Act turned a local British spat into a world-wide debate, as people everywhere watched to see if the Brits would chuck another tradition that at least to the nation's lucrative tourist trade is what makes England what it is. Though the hunts are still legal, exactly how is debatable thanks to the now-infamous hunting act's tortuous wording..."
Hunting Act Survey
Survey carried out by ORB for the Countryside Alliance shows that only a third of people think that the Hunting Act is working:
The survey asked – From What you know do you think the Hunting Act is working?
No – 59%
Yes – 34%
Don’t know – 7%
The media coverage of hunting up to and including Boxing Day has helped us acheive a number of our objectives:
- We have laid to rest forever the perennial claim that these will be the 'last Boxing Day meets'. There is now a general understanding that hunting is not going to be finished by the Hunting Act.
- It has been widely accepted by both the media and the public that the Hunting Act is not working. No-one quite knows why not, but they understand that it has failed to achieve whatever it set out to do.
- We have therefore started to generate an acceptance that the Act is temporary, cannot last and will have to be replaced at some stage.
- We have left our opponents in a mire - they cannot decide to whether to continue claiming that the Hunting Act is somehow an improvent in terms of animal welfare, when it is patently not, or alternatively throw around accusations of illegality which cannot be substantiated and which would support our proposition that the Hunting Act (their Hunting Act) is unworkable.
The consistently positive media coverage hunting has received for many years now is a result of the hard work, honesty and bravery of individuals and hunts. It is continuing to have a very important impact and don't just take it from us. Here is the start of an editorial from the Wall Street Journal:
"Sound the horns and release the hounds -- fox hunting is alive and well in Britain. We all recall how late last year it suddenly occurred to the stuffed-shirt Laborites in the House of Commons how nothing was more important than that they ban the ancient ritual of fox hunting across the rural glade in merrie olde England. Well, 10 months after Parliament curtailed the practice, the annual Boxing Day hunts carried on and, surprise, surprise, attracted more people than last year's pre-ban event -- upward of 300,000 enthusiasts according to some estimates. Are there 300,000 "toffs" in England, or may we assume that mere commoners were among the several hundred thousand?
"The Hunting with Dogs Act turned a local British spat into a world-wide debate, as people everywhere watched to see if the Brits would chuck another tradition that at least to the nation's lucrative tourist trade is what makes England what it is. Though the hunts are still legal, exactly how is debatable thanks to the now-infamous hunting act's tortuous wording..."
Hunting Act Survey
Survey carried out by ORB for the Countryside Alliance shows that only a third of people think that the Hunting Act is working:
The survey asked – From What you know do you think the Hunting Act is working?
No – 59%
Yes – 34%
Don’t know – 7%
Sara Rutherford