Fox - predator or lovable varmint?Spectator yesterday, [and note their emotive photo], on the repeal of the hunting ban:
However, there is an idea doing the rounds in Conservative circles as to how the party could get around this problem. Rather than a bill devoted exclusively to repealing the hunting ban, there would be one that would concentrate on a whole host of civil liberties issues including ID cards.
Hunting would merely be a section of it, with a free vote on the issue. This way the party would avoid the appearance of spending a considerable amount of time on the relatively fringe issue of hunting and would get to frame repeal of the ban as a civil liberties issue.
Your not-so-humble blogger has no real opinion on this but was struck by the amount of emotion displayed against him when a fox ran in front of his car on a northern road years ago. It's certainly an emotive issue.
Well, I'm strictly anti-hunting. I could rightly be accused of ignorance of the countryside, but enjoying killing and calling it a "sport" are incomprehensible to me. Trust the Tory toffs to try to sneak in a repeal.
ReplyDeleteRepeal.
ReplyDeleteYou have to ask? Of course it's barbaric and silly, but so what? Each to their own.
Why just do these? Personally I think repealling every bit of legislation put on by this lot should be the minimum that should be looked at.
ReplyDeleteJeep the ban in place. Nobody will convince me that fox hunting is anything but a chance to tear an animal to bits under the flimsy guise of pest control.Let the hunters have drag hunts instead.
ReplyDeleteJams has just said what I was going to say. You don't need to hunt a real animal, drag hunts fill the need.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I only see two reasons for hunting; either you should eat the animal, or it is causing problems.
ReplyDelete"The unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable", I think Oscar Wilde closed the argument a hundred years ago!
ReplyDeleteSeriously though I'm like you James- I share the views of people above that a sport whose sole objective is to kill something isn't very pleasant but it isn't a priority to me at all- there are far graver problems in the world than a load of foxes dying and I don't think its a big civil liberties issue either- compared to say detention without trial its a tiny one. Generally though I agree with you on this James.
When Lord T says repeal every act under Labour- does he really mean every single one?
Gracchi,
ReplyDeleteName one that has actually done any good and we can exclude that one.
Gracchi,
ReplyDeleteDon't strain yourself any more. There were too many laws to check just to, potententialy, find one that arguably could be classified as good.
So we are all agreed then.