The Hunters Hunted

Yesterday the judicial committee of the House of Lords has dismissed the challenge of the Countryside Alliance to the legality of the Hunting Act 2004. C`est fini for the hunting supporters in the domestic courts and I gather it is inconceivable that the European Courts will come to a different conclusion. I have certain interest in this because the sitting MP for my new home is one Norman Baker, who after a glittering career managing an Our Price record shop became the mystifyingly popular Liberal MP for Lewes. Mystifying because in a town with a clear pride in its country and its military past he hates the Royal family , drivels on about fluffy bunnies and their rights detests hunters and is a member of the beverage ( ok Beveridge ), group a far lefty tax and spend appeasing fidgety self righteous nuisance cabal .
On animal rights I am incredulous of the time wasted in Parliament. They taste nice as they are less likely to die surrounded with weeping relatives than with the salivating maugh of a predator . They are not furry people and opponents of it are driven by a bizarre pot-pourri of class resentment half baked pseudo religion and general wetness. Their strongest argument is that we have banned cock fighting, dog fighting, badger baiting, bear baiting and the like on grounds of cruelty. I would point out that we are tolerant of far crueller halal and kosher butchery as well as shooting and fishing . These are either popular and therefore immune from the busy bodies or enshrined in an ethnic tradition .I agree that the place of actions within a culture has a bearing on the way we judge them. We broadly accept that context is part of an acts meaning .We ban urban animal torture we did not ban immemorial country pursuits like hunting which take place where the life and death of animals is deeply written into its seasonal rhythms. Of course Blair’s interest in the ban was to appease the dogs on string nits that support the Labour Party
We have to kill foxes anyway and if some people like chasing them around what on earth is the problem The fox population in England and Wales is about 217,000. It doubles during the breeding season and reverts to its starting level . Foxes are a pest and the fox population has to be culled . In the period before the 2004 Act, some 21,000-25,000 foxes were killed by hunting each year (roughly 10% of those who died from all causes), up to 11,000 of these being dug out by terriers) Of those foxes which are not killed each year by hunting or on the road, the great majority, perhaps 80,000, are shot.

Would Norman Baker like to have law whereby animals are prevented from being cruel to each-other. Perhaps he would like them to come and live in his house ? We can assume they will not be allowed to smoke if they do for he failed, like a good Libertarian , to vote against the smoking ban inflicted on a sullen and bitter England by the “Party of the Working Man” aka photo-genic Nu-Lab media studies bimbo Caroline Flint .Don’t Liberals love banning things , unless of course they are ethnic customs ( every ethnicity except the English that is.)