Local hunts are being urged to help and support the Conservative candidate Christine Emmett, a local businesswoman, in the Corby by-election. This is to ensure that an MP who is in favor of the repeal of the hunting act is elected. George Bowyer of Vote-OK - the lobby group that supports pro-repeal MPs - usually Tories, has told the Horse & Hound magazine he wanted hunting people to take an "active role" in helping Tory candidate. "We are organising people to go and campaign for the Conservatives," he said. "All the local hunts have received, or will soon receive, information about how to help."
VoteOK was set up by members of the hunting fraternity in 2001 to marshall an of army of hunt supporters to flood in and coordinate the ousting of marginal sitting Labour or Lib Dem anti-hunt MPs and have been in operation over the last three general elections and can be viewed as a pro-Tory support group. They dress in normal clothes and never mention hunting to potential voters as they know it will be a vote loser.
They have had some success when back in 2008 at the Crewe and Nantwich by election following the death of Gwyneth Dunwoody, who held the seat for Labour for 25 years. Edward Timpson won this seat for the Tories after a poor campaign by Labour where the ‘Toff’ issue was crudely put into play but back fired on them; perhaps it was all a matter of timing as it is clear that so many cabinet minsters are from the top public schools and the English aristocracy.
The picture below shows the winner with some of the local Hunt Supporters who were out pushing the message that Labour are failing and the NHS is in crisis. No mention of the countryside blood sports they wish to see repealed.
The Crewe and Nantwick by-election of 2008
At the last general election each hunt had a VoteOK representative to coordinate the targeting of both marginal and now winnable Labour and Lib Dem seats. This was coupled with the support that David Cameron had from the News International set of newspapers and other media formats. Gordon Brown and the tattered ‘New Labour’ were under siege from every corner, even with the blame of the global banking crisis suddenly being leveled solely at Labour's door!
However hunting provides a window into the world where the Chief Executives of RBS Stephen Hestor and News International Rebekah Brooks are members of their local hunts. Why even David Cameron’s father-in-law, Viscount Astor is chairman of the Old Berks hunt in David Cameron’s own consistency. Viscount Astor also vice-chairman of the Hunting Act Repeal Committee, which is to lead the campaign to repeal the ban, is a huntsman and a former director of public affairs at the British Field Sports Society; now known as the Countryside Alliance which he helped to set up!
Stephen Hester the current Chief Executive of RBS
But you can’t take for granted the Great British public, down on Labour, perhaps but not quite daft enough to give the New Tories a free reign with a big majority. That I am afraid was due to the Lib Dems and in particular their leader Nick Clegg after all he did start his political carrier writing speeches for Tory EU Commissioner Liam Britton in Brussels.
But if we keep selecting bankers, MPs and top civil servants from the very small gene pool things in this country may never change. As over fifty five years ago Harold Macmillan like David Cameron an ‘Old Etonian’ was elected as a Tory Prime Minster.
The rich get richer and the poor simply slip right off the Radar. We are seeing all the gains over the last half century disappear and it will be our children and children's children that will suffer as our grandparents did a century ago, where abject poverty with squalid housing and no health care was the norm.
VoteOK is rather like the Murdoch News International media group and the Countryside Alliance they are far to close to David Cameron; for example Simon Hart the former Countryside Alliance Chief Executive is now the Conservative MP for Carmarthen West & South Pembrokeshire. Even the new Executive Chairman of the Countryside Alliance is again is an other ‘Old Etonian’ Lieutenant General Sir Barnabas William Benjamin White-Spunner, KCB, CBE, a former British Army officer and a keen supporter of English blood sports.
Oh and by the way it was Labour that was to blame for the Global Financial crisis, the bakers were not the blame, they deserve every million of their well deserved bonus.
The rich will inherit the Earth and the Conservative Party will help then on their way!
