Tally ho, now just go away

Fox hunting has been illegal for about an hour.

Good.

At long last a Labour manifesto commitment that dates back to 1997 has been fulfilled. Bliar should have done it in his first session of parliament; then the whole thing would have been forgotten about by the 2001 election let alone now. But he didn’t have the balls to take on the establishment then, in the same way he hasn’t really had the balls to implement any major reforms of the House of Lords. He’s only pushed the ban through now because so many core Labour supporters have left the party or, like myself sworn never to vote Labour again while Bliar is leader. How can anyone vote for the man who lied to Parliament and lied to the people in order to take the country into an illegal, immoral, unjustifiable war? (As an aside the invasion of Iraq was debated in the Commons for 9 hours. Hunting has had 252 hours. Priorities?)

Both sides of the hunting debate talk a lot of crap. The pro’s just lie. There are a myriad of modern ways to protect farms against foxes from chemical scents to ultrasonic horns. Any farmer that loses an animal to a fox is too lazy, too tight or too ignorant to really care.

On the anti side - I wish they would just be honest and say with huge pride “Yes, it is all about class you vile stains.” I grew up in a rural area and hunts aren’t an integral part of the community, loved by all and providing lots of local jobs. They are an arrogant, self serving clique of people with pretensions of grandeur. They have no regard for anyone or anything other than themselves. A friend of mine was constantly having to rebuild the fences around his land after the hunt tore through his private property without permission and without any offer of recompense. They considered themselves part of the ruling class and so beyond the laws and standards of conduct that govern you and I.

The ‘Countryside Alliance’ demonstrations in Westminster last autumn provided some of the funniest television I have ever watched. They simply could not understand in the tiniest of ways that the tide had turned. They were just apoplectic with impotent rage that someone had dared meddle with their way of life. They were all muttering about their contributions to the rural economy and their human rights as if we’d all suddenly say - ‘Oh go on then, carry on with your quaint, barbaric tradition’. The arguments they put forward about tradition and way of life are exactly the same as those used by slave traders prior to slavery being abolished. Or by the pro hanging brigade. But we evolve as a society, our values change and we should be proud of that. I don’t think that one single person amongst them, not one, really grasps that there is a genuine desire amongst the majority of people in the UK to see hunting banned. Now they are all talking darkly of breaking the law because they have been forced to. So what of the single mum ‘forced’ to steal to support her kids because state benefits are so meagre. Is that now OK? Can we all only follow the laws we think are just? Bring it on.

And where were these people when ‘we’ were protesting against the Poll Tax, Section 28, pit closures or the rise of the far right? Where is their concern for the human rights of the 100,000 miners who lost their jobs under Thatcher? They don’t give a f**k. But mess with their Saturday afternoon out and it’s a national disgrace. Michael Howard says he will lock up 30,000 more people if he becomes PM. I know where he can start.