BOXING DAY - When the Cruel, Rich and the Arrogant Ride into Town

This is one of the few days in the hunting calendar that you will see the hunt, riders and hounds out on parade. Many of the riders will be adorned with Christmas tinsel and their mounts will be superbly groomed. But what you are witnessing is the public face of a cruel and barbaric activity vested in our brutal feudal past. After the hunt has departed the Town centre the huntsmen and associated terrier-men mounted on Quad Bikes will be in two-way communication, using the latest GPS and terrain mapping facilities available on mobile devices. All these hounds, riders, terrier-men and followers after a lonely and terrified fox which has probably been bolted from its den earlier that morning. You can hardly call it hunting or indeed a tradition, it is simply the execution of wildlife for the sadistic enjoyment of the few who pretend to be the guardians of the countryside.

Cotley Hunt

This season the Countryside Alliance has initiated a programme to get more children introduced into countryside pursuits; suggesting that schools adopt a hound or arrange kennel visits at local hunts.

The children however must be very careful in case the hounds pass on tapeworm or parasites. This is because the hounds are fed on uncooked casualty farm stock, which would inevitably carry parasites, including the cystic larval stage of the tapeworm.  

A few years ago a premier English hunt had to paid compensation to a former employee who claimed his liver problems were caused by poor control of tapeworm in the hound pack. Now lawyers have been circulating details as a warning to hunts and farmers who run working dogs. They point out cattle and sheep could be carrying eggs from the same worms, making stock handlers vulnerable – and also eligible to sue. They quote DEFRA  figures showing more than nine per cent of hounds tested excreted the eggs of tapeworm (Echinococcus granulosus) and there was a substantial risk of human handlers picking one up. Not very nice to have on your town centre over the Christmas period.

Some hunts are now being requested to hold there Boxing Day meet out of town as it can have an adverse effect on trade and then there is the concern about the movement of traffic (normal and emergency services) as down in South Somerset we have four market towns (Chard, Castle Cary, Crewkerne and Ilminster) gridlocked on Boxing Day at eleven o’clock and the police just watch helplessly as the hunt ride by.

Maurice Adams writing in the 'Humane Review' in 1910, stated, "In England today hunting is an anachronism which survives only because land monopoly and an injust distribution inheritance have led our 'splended barbarians' in the absence of the need to work, the pressure of social distinctions and the want of higher mental development to seek release from boredom and fill up an aimless life by the indulgence and artificial stimulation of sub-human instincts."

This coalition government has not done anything to help the situation, in fact they have made the divide between the rich and the poor even bigger! 


Horses and Hounds and Dog Control Orders
Ordinary members of the public are limited by the numbers of dogs they can take out; each dog must be on a lead and have its identity available and be under control. If your dog worries farm stock it could be shot. However hunting hounds are exempt from all of these laws. No name tags nor collars are required, in fact the hunt may well be allowed to shoot the farmer if he interferes with the hounds, but I need to check this fact! There are also the issues surrounding horses and vehicles in the 21st century. The Highway Code does apply to horse riders, but it’s only as a guide, and therefore has no power behind it. If riders decide to block roads, there appears to be no law which can stop them. Should an accident occur between a horse and a vehicle there is also no requirement for a horse rider to supply a name and address. The rider can simply ride off into the sunset and leave you with the repair bill, whilst under the Road Traffic Act it is a legal requirement for the driver of a motor vehicle involved in a collision with a horse to supply a name and address and relevant insurance details to a person at the scene who has reasonable cause to require them, and it is the responsibility of the driver of that motor vehicle to report that collision to the Police. The Road Traffic Act places a clear responsibility on the driver of the vehicle and failure to comply is an offence. Horse riders do not require specific insurance for riding horses on the highway; it is not compulsory. If the rider is found to be at fault, the debt would be pursued by the Insurance Company for the driver either by making a claim from existing specific insurance policies or generic public liability insurance that the rider may have through other policies; i.e. household insurance or through the civil court or through the insurance policy held by the hunt, if they are a member of course. 

No More Controls on Farms Until They Start Killing Badgers!

Reading in the local press about the comments made against Queen guitarist and Animal Welfare campaigner Brian May that he was ‘utterly hypocritical to allow deer culling on land he had just bought (being implemented by a local gamekeeper under the estates land current management plan). If it was me I might have stopped the cull right away, but Mr May seemed to err on the cautious side, perhaps not wanting to ride ruff-shod over everyone in an arrogant and bullying fashion.

However every pro-cull farmer seems to look on this as an opportunity to demonise and smear one of NFU biggest opponents over this mad, bad and daft badger cull.

I also read in the latest Farmers Weekly that the South West NFU Livestock Board is calling for planned changes to TB testing and cattle movement controls to be delayed until the badger cull is under way.

Now we all know that the poor badger probably got TB from cattle and everyone knows that the mayor part of the bTB eradication plan is better cattle testing and the need for much stricter movement controls and improved husbandry on farms.

But now the farmers don't’ want to play ball, this is complete madness and we as tax payers should not be funding this nightmare.

Now thats what I would call a five star hypocritical situation!

Is the new Environment Minster Owen Patterson dead in the water?

The Tory lead coalitions blood-sport's fanatical new Environment Minister Owen Patterson who has wasted no time in colluding with British Association of Shooting and Conservation (BASC), whose hobby shooters have apparently been lining up to take part in the badger killing spree just cancelled until next summer; what a bloody summer that will be!

But what about the major storm in his department, namely the Ash dieback which will change the English countryside forever.

Has Mr Patterson taken his eye of the tree problem in favor of keeping his fellow blood sports friends happy?
His predecessor Caroline Spelman was also mortally wounded early on in the job with the proposed forest sell off so has history repeated itself so soon?

It was interesting to note that the following biosecurity advice to help halt the spread of Ash dieback from the Forestry Commission and it includes:

• Where possible, before leaving the woodland, clean soil, mud, leaves and other plant material from footwear, clothing, dogs, the wheels and tyres of bicycles, baby buggies, carriages and other vehicles; 
• Remove any leaves which are sticking to your car;
• Before visiting other countryside sites, parks, garden centres and nurseries, thoroughly wash footwear, wheels and tyres in soapy water;

However Fox hunts are being allowed to carry on totally unaffected by these measures!

Now anyone who has ever see a hunt in action will know that with up to fifty hounds transversing wood to wood with mounted riders and a convoy of 4 x 4 vehicles resulting in  both farm livestock and wildlife being scared out of there lives. This is a true recipe for the perturbation effect with the badgers and the spread of the Ash dieback fungus.
But a hunting they will go and go on regardless of the consequences. “The unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable” is the correct line to use in these circumstances!

VoteOK is the Tally-ho Cry as the Countryside Cavalry Ride Into Town to the Aid of the Tory Seat of Crosby

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.

Please ensure that the hunters and bankers are exposed for what they are; agents of the privileged classes seeking to ensure that we remain in a feudal country. Hearing David Cameron's conference speech it is clear that those able an willing to grab for them selves what they can are the true Conservatives of tomorrow. Just push the plebs out of the way and let the less fortunate fend for them selves.
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!

http://www.besthuntinggoods.com/2012/10/02/hunts-urged-to-support-conservative-candidate-in-corby-by-election/

The Yellow Tories

Having watched Nick Clegg’s question and answer session at the party’s conference in Brighton I can see no way for this party to move forward and re-connect with its membership and supporters base, which tends to be made up of moderate fair minded people from both the working class and lower middle classes.

The comment that Lib Dem Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander is more right wing that the cost-cutting Tory Chancellor George Osbourne just resonates the unease that many Lib Dem supporters feel within this coalition partnership.

My very own Lib Dem MP down in there stronghold in the Westcountry is David Laws who was always on the right of the Lib Dem party so he seems to sit easy with his Tory colleagues. I assume that he travels up on the train each week to Westminster with the like of West Country Tory MPs; Hugo Squire, Richard Grosvenor Plunkett-Ernie-Erie-Drax and Oliver Letwin, all old Etonians and of course like Mr Laws all millionaires.

It is hard to believe that the current Liberal Democrat party is reportedly to be a centre to centre-left, socially liberal party when they formed in 1988 via the merger of the Social Democrat Party and the Liberal Party.

The current leadership has changed all that with Nick Clegg’s Spanish wife reportedly earning a whopping £500,000 a year as a corporate lawyer and I understand that she was commissioned by US food giant Crafts to help in the takeover of Cadbury a few years ago in Bristol. But that’s history rather like the old Cadbury factory.

Even the Lib Dem's steadfast beliefs against Nuclear energy has been kicked into touch and like the Tories it will be full steam ahead with a new Nuclear build program. Perhaps we may even hear the mutated Cameron cry of “Vote yellow and turn green!”

An Eton Mess

We have Baron Von Clapp-Trap, the Old Etonian George Gideon Oliver Osborne as chancellor who is the son and heir of a 17th Baronet and perhaps when he assumes ownership of that Baronetcy he would like to see the return the country to as is was a few centuries ago with a few wealthy ruling Barons and a sea of peasants trapped in poverty, uneducated and living in poor housing conditions.

The Prime Minster David Cameron is also an Old Etonian also but he has married into the aristocracy, with Lord Astor is his father-in-law. 

Together they have created a right royal Eton Mess of the economy as they inherited a slow recovery and in just over two years created a double dip recession.

To end on a lighter note; is it just me or perhaps I just drank too much wine of late, but having just watched an old episode of The New Statesman, the 80s comedy spoof of the Thatcher era.

I can’t help seeing the roles being played out today with David Cameron and George Osborne starring as Alan B’stard (Osbourne) and Piers Fletcher-Dervish (Cameron).

Having made that connection I was then trying to relate the same comedy pairing to the Cameron and Clegg double act but cannot find a match as good as the Alan and Piers above. 

Perhaps your Facebook friends may have other ideas?

Morecambe and Wise but without the sunshine!

Old Apprenticeships; New Internships

Until very recent times no one, from the working and lower middle class had ever heard of internships. Working for nothing was never an option for many people as work has expenses that people need to cover before they break even, whether is be traveling fairs, lunches, laundry and dry cleaning etc.

However in todays changing work environment where divide and rule seems the key to big profits to the shareholders and company directors. Get your workers working harder, faster and for less money and internships provide a ready supply of free labour, as gone are the days of plentiful apprenticeships.

I think we all know that in most towns the partners and directors of firms like legal practices, accountancy firms, general services and light engineering companies know who they will employ as future partners and directors and its usually there own sons and daughters or their friends networking via the old school tie. Something that former ‘Ships Steward’ John Prescott would have much to say about and I must say its very hard to see another Ships Steward rising to become Deputy Prime Minister these daysin the House of Commons! Eton and Oxbridge seems to be the requisite requirements as our current Prime Minster and Chancellor so readily portray.

But to return to apprenticeships which in the good old days of British manufacturing, these ran for about four years, usually from the age of sixteen to twenty. The trades such as plumber, electrician, mechanic, carpenter and gardener usually required taking apprentices from knowing virtually nothing to being experiences tradesman during that period with day release during the academic period for the theory of the trade and business.

The starting salary or wage was low to cover the apprentices traveling expenses and incidentals that occur during the working week. The wage would increase year on year as was right as the apprentices gained more experience and of course became more productive.

There is an overhead for companies to run apprenticeship schemes but it was considered the right way to acquire and train the workforce of the future and was generally fully supported by trades unions and management organisations to ensure a credible, certifiable and skilled workforce. Here diversity and awareness could be instilled into the young person during this training period, setting him up well for many of life's challenges.

But in these cost cutting times I fail to see the current use of internships other than a way to gain entry into employment that would have been best achieved via a properly managed apprenticeship or graduate training scheme. This would be fair to both the apprentice/graduate and the company providing the training and possible future employment.

To offer apprenticeships that last twenty-six weeks and no onward employment to consolidate the knowledge is in my view worthless and does the young person no good at all.

Unless we address our training in the workplace we will continue to rely on plumber, plasters and electricians from Poland and the like and ultimately become inefficient as a nation.