Uncivil
I listened in some fascination to reports on the radio this morning, as I have all week, regarding the Fox Hunting Ban. This morning the focus is on the upcoming legal challenge to the Parliament Act, and also the campaign of 'civil disobedience' which hunt supporters are proposing.
I'll come to the Parliament Act in a minute, but the disobedience is interesting. To start with, there are some people who say they'll just carry on hunting anyway, which is their choice as far as breaking the law is concerned. The law will deal with them in its own way I'm sure, and there will be some suitable outrage in the Telegraph when people are arrested for breaking an unequivocal law.
On the other hand, entirely within the law, people are planning on denying access over their land to (non-government) people who currently need it. People who maintain waterways and railway lines for instance, or the power companies who have pylons sited on private land. One guy interviewed this morning apparently has three electricity pylons on his land that he's going to ask to have moved.
Depending on the actual number of landowners who are planning on undertaking this kind of campaign and how co-ordinated they are, it's possible that they will in fact create a significant amount of disruption. Someone appears to have been thinking this through.
On the subject of the Parliament Act, former Master of the Rolls Lord Donaldson was on Today this morning, and thinks that there's a case to be made for the Act as it stands not being 'legal'. But I have to say that the principle of the elected house being sovereign does somewhat undermine the argument in practice, which is that a Bill should go back and forth to the Lords over three years, rather than two.
(The point is that the original agreement between the Houses back in 1911 was that the Commons can impose a Bill against the wishes of the Lords if it's been presented to the Lords for revision over three sessions. The 1949 version, which the Lords rejected, brought that three down to two.)
November 19th, 2004 - 11:00
Ban it!!!
Fuck the bloody countryside murderers.
I’m sick of hearing about it now I just wish the government would .
November 19th, 2004 - 12:16
No, go on Darian, tell us how you really feel.
November 19th, 2004 - 15:08
the only reason it’s taken so long and people have been banging on about it so much is simply because for once we’re trying to change something in our society that people with money like to indulge in, rather than the usual approach of taking these things out on people who don’t have a voice.
Frankly it was part of the manifesto, they got elected on it, and if this is supposed to be a democracy then ban it, and sod all the toffy nosed shits who don’t like it when the shoes on the other foot. I hope they all get sent to prison, they’ll get some sense knocked into ‘em then!
and as for access, let’s make some helicopters available, and just airdrop people onto pylons or whatever else they need to get to. And cut the landowners power off, and telephone access, and whatever else they’re going to try and spoil.
if nothing else, it’ll be fun to watch their faces turn purple with rage
November 19th, 2004 - 15:09
(of course, i only support the notion of majority rule when it suits me, just like everyone else!
November 20th, 2004 - 12:14
If anything the whole debacle at the houses of parliament shows that the people involved in hunting have no respect for anyone, non-violent protests?
They riot over being told not to hunt foxes but when we protest against a war where thousands of human lives are at stake we manage to keep it civilised.
I lost all sympathy for them after that day. So ban it, and for god’s sake ban it now so we don’t have to keep hearing about it.
November 20th, 2004 - 18:44
I wonder how many people voted labour in the last election because of this specific item in the Manifesto? I suspect very few people were either bothered or had a view either way. The lack of a credible opposition and the general feeling of disgust with the Conservative party had more to do with it.
As someone asked on question time, why is it always that the majority has the right to dictate to the minority? Should the heterosexual majority have the right to dictate to the homosexual minority that they can’t marry?
Disclaimer: I’m straight and don’t hunt. But I see no reason why my personal preferences should be allowed to dictate whether someone should or shouldn’t do something that causes me no harm.
November 21st, 2004 - 13:06
although I do agree with you andy, the electoral process that we currently employ is surely only that – majority rule. I think it actually over states what those majorities are with the first past the post system … bring on the electoral reform review that is another manifesto commitment!!
And yes, you’ll probably find it wasn’t the top of many peoples’ list of reasons for voting labour. ,but I am not sure that it’s accurate to draw parallels between gay rights and the right to hunt – surely the the former is the right of two consenting adults doing what they want to do, whereas the latter is about protecting a vunerable creature from an unnecessary and cruel and death.
Of course, if you feel that the foxes don’t suffer as a result of hunting, or even if you do, but you don’t think it’s as important as maintaining a tradition that goes back however many years, then you are not going to support a ban on fox hunting. Personally I think it’s a mark of a society as a whole as to how it treats animals as well how it treats its minority groupings. Just because something is a tradition, doesn’t make it right, and the hunting movement can dress it up in all the different ways that they like, but tearing an animal apart limb from limb for our entertainment is wrong.
November 21st, 2004 - 14:11
Mike, it will be interesting to see whether there is any kind of electoral reform. On the basis that the Labour party has a strong majority and will for the foreseeable future, how likely are they to deliver on that manifesto promise? Only time will tell.
I’m not drawing parallels between the two, other than to say that they are not someing done out of choice by the majority. You ducked the question though, why should the majority have the right to dictate? Regardless of whether it’s a fluffy little fox or two consenting adults.
The fox is not being torn limb-from-limb for our entertainment. We don’t watch it, well I don’t, so it doesn’t really bother me much either way. The fact that in some areas foxes are dangerous vermin and that in those areas they are controlled in the way they are is immaterial to me.
Incidentally, that need for control will contunue and foxes will be poisoned, gassed, trapped or whatever. On the other hand there will be a lot of hounds that won’t be treated as well. They’re pack animals so will not be re-homed because they can’t be.
November 24th, 2004 - 15:21
heh, I won’t be holding my breath on electoral reform …
agreed the fox is not being torn limb from limb for my personal entertainment – I was using the our in the sense of people in general. Presumably the huntsmen and women get something out of it all, otherwise they could just go for a ride in the country.
I guess what I am getting at is that my understanding is that there are more humane ways to deal with foxes than the current hunting with dogs approach.
As for the majority having the right to dictate, I am not saying that they do – as I said ” i only support the notion of majority rule when it suits me”. i.e. when I happen to agree with what is being done in the name of the majority. In a lot of ways I think the government should actually be there to protect the rights of the minorities from being eroded and destroyed by the majority.
In the case of fox hunting, I realise that there will be a small minority of people who will be genuinely (i.e. livelihood) affected by the ban. But then they are guilty of exploiting a minority that is even less able to defend itself (the fox).
Frankly I am not hugely passionate about the fox hunting debate. My real irritation with it is that something that is in fact a fairly small issue has been blown out of all proportion, wasted countless hours of valuable parliamentary time, thousands of column inches, and the reason is that it’s because people with a voice are adversely affected for once. And that’s what it’s now come down to … so I say ban it just to show them they can’t always have it their own way.
(personally I’d rather the debate had been about a higher rate of tax for higher earners, and improvements in the re-distribution of wealth, but heaven forbid we’d have a political debate about something actually important!)