Anyone remember the dear old Countryside Alliance that was set up about 10 years ago to help save rural Post Offices and ensure decent jobs and affordable rural housing for low-paid rural workers, etc? Well it looks like they've never had it so good. Pity about the rural Post Offices, decent jobs, affordable rural housing and low-paid rural workers though...
'Ten years ago, the hills of Britain glowed with 500 beacons to signal a campaign for "liberty and livelihood" in the countryside. About 400,000 descended on London in chartered trains and buses, hunting horns blaring and whistles shrieking in the biggest demonstration since the poll tax disturbances of 1990: the aristos from their country estates; the poorer workers at their gates; and the nouveau hunting and shooting set.
'"Listen to us," they screamed outside Westminster. Parliament didn't. The Hunting Act, ostensibly banning hunting with dogs, received royal assent in 2004, with a majority of MPs ignoring claims 16,000 jobs would go as a direct result, and hundreds of hounds destroyed. As I reported for the Guardian at the time, quoting respected rural academics ruthlessly criticised by a newly formed Countryside Alliance, the claims were alarmist in the extreme.
'Few, if any, jobs have been lost. The hunters keep hunting, albeit their hounds sometimes following trails of either aniseed or a concoction replicating fox scent. Foxes are still destroyed legally by shooting and illegally or otherwise by hounds that can't be diverted from following their traditional quarry. And who can prove - here's the crux of the act - whether an animal was "intentionally" killed or not? It's a legal minefield.' (Guardian article).
media-underground.net