Isbister
Well-Known Member
I am beginning to doubt it.
Just before Christmas, while standing in a queue outside an Italian restaurant in Borough Market, I (and the entire queue) was harangued by a sandal-clad vegan with a megaphone. Turning it to max, and standing about 10 feet away, he roundly scolded us in a vaguely offensive way for patronising that utterly blameless establishment. I don't mind vegetarianism or veganism at all, but if I did, I hope I won't behave in the same way as Mr Sandal.
Yesterday I learned of a petition aimed at putting a stop to the Ashford Valley's traditional Boxing Day meet in Tenterden. Something similar was reported in the West Country also. The petition has been put together by LACS, accompanied by the usual type of invective and silly anti-hunting propaganda.
South of London, saboteurs are behaving with increasing boldness, using drones and intimidating farmers, landowners, publicans and others all with a view to preventing perfectly lawful hunts from going about their business. Some farmers may feel it is not worth the risk of exposing their families and farm machinery to criminal attacks from the balaclava thugs, and will think twice about allowing the hunt over their land.
In my view, the ongoing Brexit debate has served to expose an extreme form of joyless and puritanical intolerance that is fast becoming the norm in this country. It is a form of fascism, pure and simple - my way or the highway. You see someone doing something you don't understand, or having a bit of fun, and you put a stop to it.
Real hunting was pretty much run off the road by Blair. Modern hunting, and drag-hunting, are merely pale imitations of the real thing. Here and there (I won't say where) there are a few hunts still managing to do things in a reasonably authentic way, but even they are steadily losing their country to the creeping urbanisation that is the reality of modern England, not to mention the financial aspects.
I'm not being defeatist, merely a realist. Contrary to what the Countryside Alliance might wish for, I suspect the time may soon be upon us when we will say that hunting has had its day.
Just before Christmas, while standing in a queue outside an Italian restaurant in Borough Market, I (and the entire queue) was harangued by a sandal-clad vegan with a megaphone. Turning it to max, and standing about 10 feet away, he roundly scolded us in a vaguely offensive way for patronising that utterly blameless establishment. I don't mind vegetarianism or veganism at all, but if I did, I hope I won't behave in the same way as Mr Sandal.
Yesterday I learned of a petition aimed at putting a stop to the Ashford Valley's traditional Boxing Day meet in Tenterden. Something similar was reported in the West Country also. The petition has been put together by LACS, accompanied by the usual type of invective and silly anti-hunting propaganda.
South of London, saboteurs are behaving with increasing boldness, using drones and intimidating farmers, landowners, publicans and others all with a view to preventing perfectly lawful hunts from going about their business. Some farmers may feel it is not worth the risk of exposing their families and farm machinery to criminal attacks from the balaclava thugs, and will think twice about allowing the hunt over their land.
In my view, the ongoing Brexit debate has served to expose an extreme form of joyless and puritanical intolerance that is fast becoming the norm in this country. It is a form of fascism, pure and simple - my way or the highway. You see someone doing something you don't understand, or having a bit of fun, and you put a stop to it.
Real hunting was pretty much run off the road by Blair. Modern hunting, and drag-hunting, are merely pale imitations of the real thing. Here and there (I won't say where) there are a few hunts still managing to do things in a reasonably authentic way, but even they are steadily losing their country to the creeping urbanisation that is the reality of modern England, not to mention the financial aspects.
I'm not being defeatist, merely a realist. Contrary to what the Countryside Alliance might wish for, I suspect the time may soon be upon us when we will say that hunting has had its day.