Countryside Connection - Killers At Large

With around 18 months to go before the general election people must now realise what exactly it’s like to have a hunter and shooter as the Prime Minster who is so immersed in both the aristocracy and heredity workings of our feudal system in this country.

We often hear about the number of millionaires in the cabinet and so many old school chums from Eton, but what does it mean in practice?

Well in practice those who support and share this vision of England will be rewarded and we are beginning to see that with the Badger Cull. The big wealthy landowners are represented by their ‘Trade Unions’ like the National Farmers Union (NFU) and the Country Land & Business Association (CLA) and they do not want the hassle of badgers with protected status. That gets in the way of new planning developments and of course pheasant shoots. The narrative emerging is that a badger is a pest and like other pests needs to be culled; and so the Badger Trust should be classified as another countryside enemy along with the RCPSA and the RSPB! It does not end there as Badgers, Buzzards, Cormorants, Eagles, Foxes, Mink, Otters and Grey Squirrels are to be banned from the BBC SpringWatch and AutumnWatch programs as they are misleading the general public who do not understand the ways of the countryside and how it is managed for the benefit of the few.

A return to Otter hunting?

The big wealthy landowners need an army of foot soldiers to manage the countryside in their vision and hence the Countryside Alliance comes into the frame. This organisation provides the overarching political groupings of fox hunters, hare coursers, game shooters and the array of other blood sport groups. The current architect of the badger cull Environment Minster Owen Paterson writes exclusively for this master the Countryside Alliance and he has total control over the Department for the Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and it seems Natural England as both the rules, goalposts and even the size of the pitch are continually moving in the two pilot cull zones.

DEFRA has asked the Law Commission to update wildlife law, with proposals to include plans to introduce new powers so that species such as grey squirrels, currently classed as vermin, could be wiped out in some areas. The badger would probably lose its protected species and could be classified as agricultural pest.

The Countryside Alliance members could benefit from the possible option of issuing wildlife licenses to allow the killing of certain 'troublesome animals' for a limited period of time. For example if cormorants are causing a problem for local fishermen or buzzards if it is proven they are affecting the local wildlife and economy by killing game birds, which are released in there thousands.

Hare today gone tomorrow!

This is the Grand Plan of Landowners to attempt to wipe out certain animals for the sake of the forestry, hunting, shooting, agro crops and livestock farming industries.

This is just one government department with both Owen Paterson and David Cameron being fox hunters and both want the ban repealed for their army of Countryside Alliance troops. A sneaky back door move is underway via the Federation of Welsh Farmers Packs (FWFP) which claim they need to use a full a full pack of hounds (rather than the limit of two) to deal with foxes causing lamb deaths on hill farms. But the figures just don’t add up as 95% of lamb deaths could be prevented by good husbandry. The idea that a full hunt is required It’s rather like calling out Dyno-Rod to clear your blocked drain and a thirty piece string orchestra turn up and start playing Handel’s Water Music Suite in G major! This I simply a rouse to hunting under the old rouse of pest control!

A few years ago a web site called Federation of Welsh Packs, (note the absence of the word farmer) existed and was owned by Tim Garratt who is the Countryside Alliance’s WebMaster and he is the register for dozens of domains owned by the Countryside Alliance!

Under this Tory led coalition government and its Holy Trinity of countryside supporters:-

1. National Farmers Union
2. Country Land & Business Association 
3. Countryside Alliance

Many other areas will be under attack, the NFU has already got the abolition of the Agricultural Wages Board, perhaps with farm export growth in the China and Asia markets they had the desire to suppress home wages so that profits from farm exports could be reaped!

Cattle wheel of furtune!

The dark hand of the CLA perhaps can be seen in the building on ‘Greenbelts’ and the loosening of planning regulations nationwide. We may hear the farmers’ new cry of: “Get off my land, the developers are coming!”

The Tory cry at the last election was vote blue and go green!; Well perhaps now it will be vote blue and go blood red as our wildlife is destroyed for bigger profits.

As wind farms bite the dust as solar farms multiply powering this new age farming solely for the benefit of the landowning few.

Free enterprise, ddividends and profits are not dirty words stated David Cameron, as people are forced to scramble for work in a private lead economy as our state and its assets are sold off to the wealthy. It’s a classic case of divide and rule where the pushy and greedy will inherit the crumbs that Cameron's friends have left behind. A hip replacement for Gran was what we see when we look at the NHS, but an investment opportunity is how Cameron’s Tories will see it, as again our state institutions are sold off. Thatcher did it so well with the sale of council houses and the legacy decades on is so few social housing for people in real need. Private landlords are of course available to rent out property that so many people just cannot afford to buy.

As energy bill rocket and our children find themselves on zero hour contracts as they attempt to find work and establish a career. We find the infrastructure of the state being dismantled and given out to tender, depriving us of so many training and educational opportunity disconnected from care and replace by free market incentives of dividends and profits.

Then there are the desperate drawn into the PayDay loans nightmare in a vain attempt to survive in Cameron’s Conservative Caring country.

The Tories do have a grand plan and it is being implemented with the help of the shameful Liberal Democrats, reduce the role of the state in peoples’ lives as the economy; is in their words is rebalanced! What this means in practice is low taxes for the rich and more investment opportunities for those with money. But increasing unemployment means wages are depressed as more people are desperate for work. State spending on NHS and education and social welfare are cut back and of course Labour blamed for the overspending and causing the global financial crisis. Under this smokescreen the opportunity exists to inflect real financial suffering on so many people that they will be too busy working to keep the wolves from the door that protests will be difficult and less frequent.

Cast your mind back two hundred years where factory or farm workers were paid a wage that failed to support them and their families, they had to grow their own vegetables and keep small animals to survive. Working long hours just simply to stay alive, the same people then were in charge as they are now; it’s all down to the inherited wealth of the few.

I quote from the West Country based Vice Chairman of the Countryside Alliance Lord Mancroft; writing in the Hunting Magazine, Spring 2008, this was when Labour were still in power:-

"The reason that we shall win the battle to preserve hunting and our way of life for future generations is simple. We will outlast our enemies. We will keep our hounds and horses, keep our wonderful staff, keep our communities together, keep our farmers' and landowners' support, and we shall put together the necessary resources, both financial and otherwise, to achieve all of this, and we shall continue to do this until this Labour Government falls."

Pro-hunt group to oust anti-hunt Labour & Lib Dem MPs

So there you have it the aristocracy and wealthy landowners will arrange for the demise of this Labour government as they had no business in meddling in their countryside affairs.

A year later the press was all lined up against poor old Gordon Brown, not the best Prime Minister this country has had but we were treated to an insight from David Cameron as at the 2009 remembrance Sunday parade that the long knifes of the Tory press came out as Gordon Brown, blind in one eye, and disorientated after almost losing his footing as he knelt to lay the wreath. He had forgotten to bow came the newspapers cry; certainly comes across as a lack of respect stated many servicemen attending; perhaps like Ed Milliband’s father, Ralph he perhaps  hates Britain; as he is not English and did not go to Eton!

David Cameron who was there as leader of the opposition offered no support and remained silent as his friends in the press went to town on Gordon Brown. At this time Cameron’s old hunting chums Charlie and Rebekah Brooks together with Andy Colson were running so much of the nation’s newspapers. Poor old Gordon Brown could not even write a letter of condolence to the parents of deceased service personnel, being blind in one eye and have dreadful handwriting was his handicap and the press hounding him on getting the names wrong. I sometimes wonder how any Labour MPs get elected never mind a Labour government! 

The Brooks arriving at court

Being a member of a trade union is becoming rather like being on the sex offenders register, a risk to companies profits and dividends; no living wage wanted here!

We started talking about the badger cull and how we treat animals and so I end with this quote from Immanuel Kant.

"He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals." 

The Countryside Alliance has an Educational Program: Get them young!

I think we all know the heart of this Cameron led government and it’s not just the badger that should be fearful; all our children are entering a new dawn of hostility, greed and selfishness with bedroom tax and badger culls being the order of the day.

Where Have All the Badgers Gone?

People are looking for answers into plummeting badger numbers in the run up to the cull with the apparent 50% decline over a year before the cull started appears to be unprecedented! Of course DEFRA officials have blamed the cold winter, disease or lack of food for the dwindling numbers.

But if people cast their minds back to the wet, wet summer of 2012, a group of Farmers in the West Country had set up a badger-protection group this was less than a month before a Government cull of badgers was due to begin.  The Badger Welfare Association (BWA) as they called themselves said it is dedicated to the creation of a healthy, balanced badger population. 

The BWA was campaigning for official recognition of the work of an Oakhampton farmer, who had acquired expertise in identifying which setts are occupied by TB infected badgers and which are not. I do not know what part of his autonomy used to determine a diseased sett, but I suspect he played it safe and classified all badger setts as diseased setts. The BWA says once diseased setts have been pinpointed, the occupants can be killed by pumping in carbon monoxide gas from the farm tractor. Modern farming techniques just take your breath away, literally for the badgers!

There have been three official attempts to count badgers in West Somerset and West Gloucestershire prior to the cull. The latest data suggests the population in both areas has fallen from around 8,000 badgers in October 2012, to around 4,000 badgers a year later in both zones. DEFRA have given a number of reasons for the apparent 50% decline, including the impact of last winter's bad weather, disease and lack of food. But funny they do not mention illegal badger killing; either shooting, gassing or via snares.

However many animal welfare charities are concerned that illegal killing of badgers may be the real reason behind this large fall in their numbers. As last week Sky News claimed that farmers in the Somerset cull zone had admitted on camera to gassing badgers via an informal syndicate that they had set up.

This is of grave concern as many farmers are in receipt of farming benefits for wildlife management and possibly also land and environmental stewardship schemes.

The bovine TB is the result of the incompetence of DEFRA and the NFU where they have failed to manage the spread of bovine TB by there reluctance to implement better bio-security measures and properly validated and enforced cattle movement controls but most critically failing to invest to improve TB testing, which is quite simply so inaccurate within the industry. They have allowed the disease to seep into the surrounding wildlife population and now they want to scapegoat the badger,

Now as the trial culls are extended and with more roll-outs expected next year. Many in different counties such as Dorset where the local Dorset West MP Oliver Letwin resides. He has stated he is looking forward to the badger cull in his home patch!

Oliver Letwin is yet another Old Etonian Cabinet Minster whose most recent claim to fame was dumping his paperwork in a London park!

Mr Letwin, was an adviser to Margaret Thatcher, is thought to be independently affluent (very rich). Mr Letwin is no stranger to controversy; he is reputedly the person who advised Baroness Thatcher to introduce the poll tax, which caused riots, and had to go into hiding during the 2001 general election campaign after advocating public spending cuts that went further than the Conservatives had announced.

Since 2004, he has claimed more than £80,000 of expenses for a cottage in Somerset close to his Dorset constituency. The property is in an isolated area and Mr Letwin claims for the cost of heating fuel and emptying the septic tank. 

The most controversial claim was made in September 2006. An invoice for £2,145 was submitted by Mr Letwin for works to lay a new 25mm pipeline to replace the existing leaking pipeline under the tennis court of his country home. He is also a non-executive director of NM Rothschild Corporate Finance. 

These badger culls are going to continue for years to come and the only hope is a change of government, but until then perhaps we can all opt to avoid both British meat and dairy as we try and halt this slaughter in the countryside.

The Badger Cull - A Wake up Call Dairy and Meat Products and the Welfare of the Animals

One thing for sure that the current debate regarding the Badger Cull raises is the fact that people are looking more closely at what they eat. This year alone we have had the horse meat scandal in which answers are not forth coming at present and the continuing wish for many in the farming sector to proceed at all costs with the extended Badger Cull for the next 25 years with legal gassing as a further cheaper option under consideration!

The police are working closely with the NFU Sponsored Shooters.

The shooting of free running badgers was pushed through by pro-hunt mad Environment Minster Owen Paterson who has very close links with the Countryside Alliance, so job done and another blood sport has been created for alliance members. With the low number of badgers in the cull zones perhaps due to the illegal gassing by farmers and current gassing research being undertaken by DEFRA, one wonders who is driving this debate, the NFU?

The madness continues as numbers are made up with cage trapping of badgers and then shooting them! Now just about everyone else using cage trapping is vaccinating the captured badgers, who probably got infected by bTB from cattle, but no not the NFU and the farmers; out comes the 12 bore shotgun and they are blasted around the farmyard. And guess what some farmers may be receiving grants as part of a ‘Countryside Guardianship’ scheme, this is complete madness and we are as taxpayers footing the bill and having no say in the process. 

This is a bit like the National Union of Shop Workers (NUSW) being give the authority to determine the opening hours for all high street and retail park shops, you just could not make it up! 

This Mall is Under Control of the NUSW

But here we have the NFU under the leadership of Kim Jong Kendall dictating to both DEFRA and Natural England that farmers want the badgers culled and vaccination is not an option for them, no badger or cattle vaccination will take place under there watch. The NFU is basically a Trade Association for large estates and farms and represents around 18% of all farmers, it is unelected and unaccountable, but is not short of money!

With the advances in technology and the economies of scale we all need to take stock of what we are prepared to accept in our life style. The science says we need to eat more plant food as the strains of meat production affects our climate.

The welfare of the animals, the environment, our moral position and the science states we need to change and change soon and doing nothing is no longer an option.

Who Is Going To Be A Prize Turkey This Christmas and Buy From British Farmers?

Regarding this Badger Cull I have to say that the true motivations behind the cull is only the tip of the iceberg with this government; as within days of taking office they cancelled 5 out of 6 vaccination programs that the previous government had set up. Was this a simple cost cutting measure and done in the ignorance of the high policing costs that has resulted for the two pilot culls, which could have been used effectively to vaccinate thousands of health badgers!

The Cull Money Could Have Vaccinated Thousands of Health Badgers!

The Badger Cull was only implemented by Owen Paterson because of his loyalty to the Countryside Alliance and the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) and with the NFU having a complete and totally undemocratic stranglehold on Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) where the science is being rewritten to suit this feudal blood thirsty minority. 

Owen Paterson, who is behind this badger cull, has always thought that the shooting of foxes is not humane and we lack the marksmen to shoot them. This was in defense of hunting foxes with hounds. So surely that means that we don’t have enough marksmen for shooting badgers humanely? 

Because of the badgers anatomy it is potentially more difficult to free-shoot a badger in a quick humane way than, say a fox or a deer. There is a real fear that many animals will be injured rather than killed quickly and humanely, and could suffer a slow, painful death as a result. But then the reluctance for the shooting of foxes may be because of Peterson’s loyalty to the fox hunting wishes of the Countryside Alliance. The word hypocrisy comes to mind in his reasoning.

Owen Paterson Write Exclusively for the Countryside Alliance.

But in all of this farmers have been lead by the nose and short changed by the NFU and the Tories. Culling badgers will not work and will only serve to further alienate there already impatient customer base, driving more and more people away from dairy and meat products on both health and animal welfare grounds.

Why the NFU are now pushing for a reduction in the ‘red tape’, stating that the farming industry knows best and will work better without too much Civil Service interference and silly rules and regulations that are designed to protect our food chain. I think with previous farming disasters like Mad Cow, Foot & Mouth, bovine TB, millions of unnecessary cattle movements and the recent horse meat scandal. That the last thing this industry needs is a reduction in our food production standards and environmental controls. We are already eating bovine infected cattle without being consulted or informed; the right to know about what we are eating by honest labeling has been taken away from us; we are treated with so much contempt by the NFU.

Horse on the Hoof – Countryside Alliance Demo Outside the Labour Party Conference

Make a Statement Any Way - Life No Object!

But the worst is yet to come according to Richard Haddock, Chairman of the Conservative Rural Affairs Group as he pushes Owen Paterson to roll out the next ten cull zones, with continued shooting and the possibility of using the cheaper option of gassing badger setts as an option to what one can only call mass exterminate the badger population using the most advanced technology available. Vaccination is just not an option for the NFU to consider, even with an oral option expected within the next few years. The rush is on to eliminate Mr. Brock from the countryside and Mr. Haddock has commented on  the Wounded Badger Patrols and Somerset Badger Patrols as just a mere sides show and I assume that the over 3000,000 people that signed Brian May’s Save Me petition don’t matter either, they are just misguided idiots to be ignored!

However the cull can never succeed as ‘Middle England’ is against this cull and they have the support of the Scots, Welsh and Irish on this matter. You only have to had visited the cull zones to determine that people from all these countries are coming together to help ‘Middle England’ protect her badgers and why? Simply because it’s wrong and unjust and being carried out by an unelected feudal minority groups who are not accountable but have great exercise of power through their friends in government. If the next ten zones are rolled out then the police will have to start a massive recruitment drive as more and more people flock to join the Badger Patrols in Dorset, Devon, Cornwall, Hereford and Wilshire to name just a few. All this taxpayers’ money and police effort to appease an unelected and unaccountable Trade Organisation that goes by the name NFU who just want to shift the blame onto an iconic member of our natural environment and a star of many wildlife programs.

Why only the other day a government farm inspector who on her private Twitter account as home had tweeted critical animal welfare comments about the badger cull has been sacked after the NFU complained to ministers about her views. She had worked for the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) since 2001, visiting farms to ensure claims for agricultural grants were not being falsified! This is a win-win situation for the NFU as another anti-cull voice muted and fewer farm checks on them will be carried out!

The NFU have now joined the Countryside Alliance with the onslaught against the RSPCA and no one it seems is allowed to be the companionate voice of our wildlife. As the Countryside Alliance shooters bang away at wildfowl the RSPB is told to sod off with its comments regarding lead shot pollution and the RSPCA told to sod off and look after the cats and dogs on housing estates, you are not welcome in the countryside. Anyway the sheep you see limping are not lame but partaking in there funny walk now “Get off my bloody land you peasant”!

Golden Eagle Poisoned near Grouse Shooting Estate in Scotland

Wildlife Crime Officer with Dead Golden Eagle

Taunton the county town of Somerset is a hub of blood sports activity, with the Blackbrook location at the M5 J25, of critical interest as its home of the law firm Clarke Willmott which acts as agents for the Countryside Alliance. As lawyer Jamie Foster defends local hunting cases and is right next door to the NFU building. Also DEFRAs Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency (AHVLA) also use this location for its staff overseeing the badger cull, a truly vortex of a holy trinity of badger blood! I assume bath and bed at the Holiday Inn after a bloody night of Badger Burning!

Dead Badgers Burnt and not Tested for Bovine TB

Why Did They Need to Die?

It was several centuries ago that the church use to offer a penny reward for any dead foxes or badgers brought to the local clergy. The church was heavily into slavery also at that point in time. Now with the current Archbishop Justin Welby turning down the role of Vice Paton of the RSPCA we are now finding out the true reason for the abandonment of the RSPCA by the Archbishop. One can only assume that he was advised by his Eton chums at Westminster to step aside away from the RSCPA as it’s about to be destroyed by the heavily financed  and armed armies of the Countryside Alliance and the NFU.

What the NFU have instigated for the police in this process is a role to protect the killers of a protected species the badger. Is this perhaps the British Farming Industries greatest public relations disaster! 

The independence of the police is now called into question; Gloucestershire Constabulary has been partially affected and has probably undone many years of outreach effort engaging with local communities. Avon & Somerset has fared better but many will start to analyse the police actions and there closeness to the NFU. As I understand that at the nightly police briefings officers were given a list of vehicle registrations to look out for and conduct stop and search activities to impend the movement of Badger Patrols as these were the vehicles associated with people attending the Badger Patrols. This, I understand was to allow the NFU hired shooters to kill as many badgers as possible while patrol members were tied up with the police as they inspected the colour of lamps vehicles were using or the number or tires on each vehicle.

To have the NFU exert such control over police operations can only be a sign that our democracy is like the badgers blood seeping away from us. The NFU is nothing more that a Trade Association that seeks to fulfill the demands of rich farmers and so should have no control of our police forces.

Could This Be Some of the NFU Badger Cull Security?

The bovine TB crises is the direct result of the actions of DEFRA and the NFU where they have failed to manage the spread of bovine TB by refusing to invest and support vaccine programs for both badgers and cattle. For failing to implement good bio-security measures and implement an enforceable cattle movement regime and most critically failing to invest to improved TB testing, which is quite simply a joke within the industry. They have allowed the disease to seep into the surrounding wildlife population and now they want to scapegoat the badger, symbol of all the Wildlife Trusts. The shear arrogance to these people, culling badgers is a waste of time, money and precious life and will not work as the science has proved.

Perhaps now is the time for the NFU to instigate and pay for a nationwide badger vaccine program to repair the damage they have inflected onto the countryside. However I suspect that those so closely involved will blissfully allow the badger cull poison seep into the Conservative party. At least until someone realises that the support from ‘Middle England’ slowly slipping away, with Caring Conservatism totally at odds with Gassing Badgers and the ritual butchering of our native wildlife.

The Polluter Should Pay for the clean-up of the mess they made!