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I don't agree, it's his job to make sure his party stay in power and most people have an opinion on fox hunting one way or the other. He perceived, correctly, that most people were against it so promised to ban it. The more serious issues, people aren't always sure what they want. From where I'm standing it's just one big popularity contest.
The got elected. Now (finally) they're keeping their promise.
Only by weight of numbers.
Most city people, i.e Labour's heartlands, are against fox hunting. Tellingly, most rural people, i.e. the people who have to live with the vermin, are against a ban.
I think I know who's opinion is of more intelligence and relevance.
I don't like fox hunting, I don't like the "sport" aspect of it, and hunts aren't held regularly enough to combat foxes effectively. But if farmers believe that it IS the most effective way then that is an opinion that is worth more than any number of city folk.
It's not as if they exactly have a clean track record in various areas.
Many people believe that the perceived damage to crops and threat to livestock presented by foxes is much exaggerated by hunt supporters. I can post a link detailing the actual damage foxes are thought to be responsible for, but the information would come from either the RSPCA or the League Against Cruel Sports so I guess some people would dismiss them out of hand.
Farmers are generally quite honest, or they are in my experience. The big coporate farms aren't, and the NFU (like all trades unions) are beneath contempt, but independent farmers are honest and hard working. To insinuate otherwise is bordering on the slanderous.
I'm not sad to see fox hunting banned, but if we are going to go down the line of "not enjoying killing things" then fishing should be banned. Shoving a metal hook down a trout's mouth is cruel and barbaric.
Fox hunting has been banned for reasons that are unacceptable, and the simple reason why so many voted for that ban is the whole "teach the toffs a lesson" attitude. If it was working-class people from Liverpool doing ti, it would still be legal.
I'm not sure about this statement, I can't be bothered looking for sources but I'm pretty sure it wasn't the case. Living close to the countryside, I can say most people here are against it, the only people who really like it are those that go horseriding.
It depends if you class dog and cock fighting as blood sports or not, really.
They have no redeeming features, which is why they were banned.
Shyboy, it depends where in the country you live. Most people I speak to in Cumbria are against a ban, and its the same in rural Lancashire.
However, there was absolutely no justification for the force that the police used, I noticed one very elderly gentleman pushed to the front by people behind him, he tried to get out of the way but the police still took a swipe at him.
I am anti-hunt, but not because of any issue regarding cruelty to foxes, but because of the blatant disregard that the hunt has for property.
I was visiting some friends in Suffolk, I parked my car in their driveway, off the road, on private property, and the hunt galloped through that driveway and through my friends' back garden, and on their way they trampled by the car, scraped the paintwork violently, tore up my friends' back garden and damaged a valuable garden seat, and when we went to the organisers to ask for compensation they just denied it. We are in the process of suing them but it is long and costly, I would have been better off just having the damage repaired. The point is, no-one has the right to have total disregard for damage done to other people's property like that.
Of course they're bloodsports.
Don't forget that a lot of farmers hate the local hunt as they often ride roughshod over people's land, even when refused permission to. It is this arrogance (which is a hangover from our landed class system) which pisses a lot of people off.
That's not the case where I live. Nor do those in favour of a ban actually outweigh those against it. According to all the sources I have seen.
There are more MPs in favour of banning it, which really makes me wonder if they're actually interested in representing the country at all.
Funny how no one believes accounts of police violence when its a left wing demo innit.
What about fishing for food? Is our good intelligent friend Farmer Giles, who knows the best for the land, banned from fishing a salmon out of the river near his farm in Scotland to eat with his family for dinner?
I can't comment.
I haven't been a) posting on these boards and b) watching a left wing demo on the television at the same time, so I can't say one way or the other.
IMO hunting for food is OK, hunting for sport isn't.
I'm not talking about these boards in particular, just people/media in general.
another group of otherwise law abiding citezens to be criminalised for doing what they have always done.
more laws less justice.
to police this sucsessfully will mean installing cctv cameras on trees and in hedgerows!
some of you cannot see the grinding down of the human spirit.
we'll still be able to shoot them ...as a man with many chickens ...the free range kind most people in here would preffer ...i know about getting angry, cornering the bastard and shooting ...only to see it run off with half it's face missing.
but knowing the bastard won't live long enough to come back and eat my chikens is satisfaction enough.
i kill rats and ants as well ...by whatever means takes my fancy or is available to me.
i also shoot rabbit and hare for dinner ocassionaly.
you city people are becoming mindless automatons ...willingly.
your begging for a sterile world!
when your mothers being raped and your granfather lay bludgeoned to daeth ...the police will be chasing people who actualy enjoy some basic primitiveness ...
heres the problem ...people enjoy blood sports and todays 21st century mass produced people can't comrehend it.
your water is in a tap ...you don't see the lakes.
your heating is across the other side of the city ...but your connected by a fuel hungry planet gobbling switch.
you see paper and know nothing of the massive lumber and saw mill trade in my part of the world.
you moan and groan about everything whilst you consume consume consume ...your confuckingsuming your selves!
the hunts that used to take place where i lived were very respectful of our land (8 acers) and would not enter it, the head hunts person would come round before and check.
hunting is emotive, and for me made more so when to go to the chicken run you find 3/4 of your birds with severed heads. when faced with this one feels tempted to phone the hunt and say get down here now.
I think MR has some interesting points, living in the country is messy, is unpleasent at times, its not sterile it is full of shit, blood and guts
The only difference about this particular incident is that for what must be the first time ever, it was middle and upper class toffs who got a beating from the police instead of working class/anarchists/greens/miners/etc.
the vast majority of hunters are not toffs.
tha scrap yard kid hunts.
o local copper hunts but will now be in a compromised position.
come time to blow pheasants out of the sky ...local teenagers get paid fifty quid a day as beaters ...so try telling them that you city people are going to dictate to them what happens in our countryside.
life is about birth and death ...creation and destruction ...nurture and nature.
next time one of you drives out into the country ...have a look at woodlands and forrest ...have a look at moorland ...imagine living in it and on it and with it ...it will appear very damp and hostile after your false city lives ...i live it and work it ...things die ...things are born and protected ...animals are turned into glue and sizling steak ...for you.
you can't understand blood sport ...pleasure from blood and death ...so alien to your clockwork lives.
I work in Chelsea mate and every other local car- and virtually every estate and posh 4 x 4- has a bloody Countryside Alliance sticker on it.
The ones on the horses are generaly toffs. The terrier men are generally working class.
again, how many farmers actually have the proper time to go hunting? what is wrong with inviting somebody else to do it for you??
But I live in Leicestershire where we're renowned for our foxes - it's our football team's mascot and things. There is more than one hunt over Leicestershire. I mean, my girlfriend goes hutning occasionally and so does one of my best friends, and my girlfriend isn't that bothered about a ban because she just enjoyed the ride, and my best friend is annoyed but she also agrees that hunting with dogs isn't the most effective way of getting rid of the fox. Both of these people do own ponies and do pony things... but everyone else I know round here is against it. Worst people for it are my old humanities teachers :mad: they're so biased they mess up your coursework!
http://www.nfws.org.uk/pro/pests.htm
To be fair i'm not sure what that has to do with much although large numbers of the foxes actually populate the urbanised areas not the countryside, i always see them driving to work and that's in Beaumont Leys
I don't know where abouts in Leicestershire you live ShyBoy, but are you familar with the Quorn hunt at all? It stretches over quite a bit of Leicestershire, and many areas are not exactly the most 'rural' of places, its more a song and dance of an affair with the red jackets and hounds etc and is blatently just a sport.
All of my mums side of the family live and have lived in the countryside and have been associated with fox hunting, where there it is really a nessicity becuase the fox's do eat livestock and obviously it is still a way of life to some people and the majority of my family that still live there agree with hunting, where as people who are not associated with country life will naturally see it as unessecary and barbaric, maybe without knowing all the facts.
Personally i don't agree with fox hunting with hounds, and i will be in no way sad to see it dismissed, but it seems the options for other measures are limited and maybe a total ban is not the way to go but i guess we can only find out through trial and error.
I would like to point out that is probably going to be a bias source, since it comes from the 'national fox welfare society'.
...and this is really what it's all about. A war on the upper class. For many it has very little to do with the fox, and a lot to do with toff bashing.
Unfortunately those which see this as a purely toff sport are very much mistaken. Many middle and working class people either rideout as well, or are involved heavilly with other aspects - a lot of people livelyhoods depend on hunting.
At the moment I only have to go down the local (where working class mix with toffs) for me to hear how they are all united by one thing - the neglect of the countryside and the people that live there.
It's a pretty sad state of affairs when the Countryside MP isn't even welcome in the countrside. Somethings gone wrong don't you think?