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.