Commentary: I think we are all in agreement that the badger cull has failed in the eyes of the public. It was always doomed to fail because the shooters couldn’t kill enough badgers, and because every badger they did manage to kill cost the tax payer over £4,000. It failed because the British public got angry when they heard about the suffering the cull caused to our badgers. The revelations that a significant number of animals were shot in the spine or in the head and took up to ten minutes to die in agony has angered ordinary people who wouldn’t normally get involved in animal welfare. Thousands of Twitter users opposed to the cull have sent, and are still sending, thousands of tweets, causing the topic of killing UK badgers to trend on more than one occasion. A wider outcry has come from scientists, vets, animal welfare groups and members of the public who are calling with one voice for the cull to be scrapped, describing it as cruel and serving no purpose. You would think with so much opposition the government would give way and look at the alternatives. After all it must be worrying for David Cameron with an election less than twelve months away to think that his party may be losing votes because of this highly suspect and unpopular policy. One has to ask why, and when we look behind the scenes it’s not too difficult to see the answer. It appears that this Tory government is at the mercy of the NFU. The National Farmers Union has too much influence in politics it would seem. According to 'Corporate Watch', the UK government is legally obliged by the 1947 Agriculture Act to consult the National Farmers Union when making policy. Consult is fine, after all who should know about farming if not farmers, but it is dangerous to allow an unelected organisation to control government policy to such an extent that they will go against the scientific advice of experts in order to appease and offer the NFU a carrot. A report in the UKColumn.org states that the NFU, which claims to be non-political, is indeed pulling government strings as an insider group with a huge amount of political power. The article goes on to say, ‘The NFU is a much more powerful Union than it appears. It does not change as Parliament changes and is therefore, in effect, much like a branch of the civil service; unelected by the wider public, but which does make and control government policy. How many farmers, or members of the non-farming community for that matter, are aware of this? Apparently not many, since the NFU only has 47,000 members actively farming (of the approximate 96,000 members in total). There are 300,000 or so active farms currently in Britain.’ With only 15% of farmers being members of the NFU how can they claim to represent the interests of farming? In a proper democracy such a small percentage should not have the power to make the decisions that will affect the rest of us not just in rural communities, but in towns and cities too. It is not only the NFU that is seeking to control the government. The Countryside Alliance is exerting pressure to repeal the hunting Act of 2004. The Vote OK group who worked to help elect Tory candidates in the 2010 election made sure the successful candidates would vote against a hunting ban in return for their door to door leafleting and canvassing services. Vote OK could be described almost as a secret society as far as the public were concerned because the pro hunting canvassers did not declare their real interest in pushing to elect a particular candidate. The undeclared interest was of course, to bring back fox hunting. One could describe the Countryside Alliance as both an insider and an outsider group. Many MPs in the Tory party are CA sympathisers. The very pro hunting Simon Hart, MP for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire is one of them. He was elected in 2010, after resigning as CEO of the Countryside Alliance, so that he could fight specifically on the inside to bring back hunting. And it’s not just hunting. Mr Hart is also determined to bring down the RSPCA. He thinks they have no right to prosecute hunters who flout the law. He describes the RSPCA prosecutions as political, yet he sees nothing wrong with working on the inside of government in an attempt to further the agenda of his friends in the pro hunting fraternity. A despicable and cowardly war has been raging against the RSPCA and those pro hunting scoundrels who have orchestrated these attacks have been encouraged and supported by the Countryside Alliance, including their CEO who described the RSPCA as ‘sinister’. They would see the most respected animal charity in the world destroyed because of their insane desire to follow a pack of dogs and watch them mutilate a small, innocent fox. The CA has also affected policy limiting restrictions on firearms and has influenced proposals involving animal welfare. These are in relation to shooting matters and other field ‘sports’. The CA claims to have used insider influence to prevent previous anti-hunting Bills becoming law prior to the Hunting Act of 2004. This was in spite of a Parliament being in favour of a ban during that time. The CA are aided and abetted by the pro hunting press, particularly the Telegraph and the Daily Mail who regularly try to get us to believe that foxes are child eating demons who must be slaughtered at all costs. Another example of how the CA seeks to influence policy from the inside is through the Middle Way group who want to bring back hunting, but to make it seem more palatable to the uninitiated they have devised a set of rules and called it regulated or licensed hunting. Their premise is that hunting isn’t cruel and should be allowed because, they argue, it is non-wounding and of benefit to the fox. Quite how they have reached this strange conclusion is any ones guess. However we all know the Countryside Alliance is a powerful and determined pressure group and they have the ear of the Prime Minister. They are an organisation well placed to strengthen the voice of the pro hunting wealthy and privileged as long as we have a Tory government in power. As well as having some insider politicians in their favour, the Countryside Alliance also operates as an outsider group. They have well-orchestrated demonstrations and protests and they are not above running a smear campaign against the Chief Executive of the League Against Cruel Sports. They are quick to distance themselves from any law-breaking but at the same time they don’t condemn the law breakers either. Fortunately, for fox kind and other hunted animals in the UK, public opinion has stayed firmly on the side of anti-cruelty. Yet we must not be complacent. As we have seen public opinion turn against farmers and the NFU over the badger cull, there is hope that even though the rich and powerful are working hard to be able to legally once again rip small mammals to shreds for sport, the good people of Britain are making it clear that we want the hunting ban to stay. Two recent polls carried out by the LACS have shown that support for an outright ban has not wavered, with country folk being just as opposed to fox, stag and hare hunting as those who live in our towns. It is important to keep on protesting. We must put animals firmly on the agenda for the elections in 2015. Opinion: My personal hope is that Labour will become our next UK government. They have promised to stop the badger cull and promote better biosecurity on farms together with a vaccination programme for badgers and cows. It was Labour who brought in the hunting Act and indeed it was only Labour who, throughout history, have ever done anything to improve the lives of animals, wild and domestic. With a Labour government in place, the power of the NFU and the Countryside Alliance will be significantly diminished. The NFU may advise but not dictate policy and the Countryside Alliance will have to accept that their cruel sport is finally history. We can work towards strengthening the hunting ban and closing the loopholes. Perhaps in the not too distant future, we can look forward to seeing those who continue to hunt out with the law receive a minimum of two years in prison. Related reading £7.3MILLION... the cost of killing badgers in 'disastrous' cull (with taxpayers picking up £5.8million of the bill) Nigel Farage shows his fox hunting support at Boxing Day chase - but 80% of Brits back the ban Countryside alliance
4 Comments
Clued-Up
5/11/2014 06:46:54 pm
The Gloucestershire Police Commissioner (Mr Surl) will be interviewing senior officers live on public TV tonight (Mon 12th May) to put the complaints received about their policing of the badger cull. Many of us think the police failed to uphold the law impartially and instead acted as if the NFU was their ally / employer. We'd argue that over the badger cull the NFU has successfully corrupted policing as well as government policy.
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eileen
5/11/2014 06:54:11 pm
Our condems already have too many suspect links to organisations with a vested interest in manipulation the law, The badger cull was a disgrace - on a financial level it was a waste of money when people are facing austerity measures. So on that point alone why was it allowed to go ahead? Then there is the cruel killing of the badgers when it served no real purpose except to save farmers paying out for vaccines.
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David Monaghan
5/25/2014 07:10:10 pm
I have just read a very disturbing report which seems to bear out what is being said that the NFU and others are secretly determining government policy. The report implies that the police are also taking orders from the unelected in society too. http://badger-killers.co.uk/police-corruption-exposed-in-shocking-report/
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eileen
5/25/2014 08:11:22 pm
Whilst it may not be surprising as we know what sh**bags they are it is shocking. Thanks for adding the link. Please read folks.
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