This Can't Be A Vote Winner?

[sunny-dave]

Just how (over?) confident do you have to be to risk saying this?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2017-39861011

It surely has to be a vote loser anywhere except the absolute depths of Tory Backwoodsville?

[New Judge]

Unless you are a fox, foxhunting is very much a non-issue and I really don’t understand the fuss.

It’s certainly not something I’d choose to do, but then it’s certainly not something I’d bother to prevent other people doing. The issue is unlikely to sway anybody’s vote. Quite honestly, anybody who lets such a trivial issue alter the way they might vote needs to get out more. The UK will face enormous challenges over the life of the next Parliament and a free vote on the restoration of foxhunting is really two pennyworth of nothing in comparison.

[woofgang]

I am not sure its a matter of over confidence so much as scraping the bottom of the barrel in an effort to mobilise support.......but if I am right, its a very risky stratagem indeed.

[Jackdaw33]

Foxhunting was never banned. Hunting with dogs was. Still perfectly legal to hunt and kill foxes.

[EDDIE51]

While the large majority of the hunt saboteurs and anti hunting activists are law abiding and sensible it did / does attract a few thugs!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/countryside/11381666/We-have-to-unmask-the-anti-hunt-thugs.html

[jourdain2]

I agree with NJ 21.32. I would add that I never saw anything really wrong with foxhunting. Foxes have to be culled. This is one method and probably the most natural - the chaser/hunter is chased and hunted. Oh dear, I will have lost friends. Just because some people (I am not one of them) wish to use the necessity as a sport troubles me not at all. The hounds will chase and kill whatever -and the hunt followers will get a good gallop following them.

OK, I'm doomed on AB. But I'll tell you now that I much prefer this to the French method of sending dogs into one side of a copse and standing by at the other end with a rain of gunfire which targeted everything which emerged- including pet dogs and cats.
Driving down the road to the shops one day I was faced with a terrified doe, skittering around on the tarmac, guns to the right and left of her after she had emerged from the hedge. Not nice.
Our form of hunting is civilised in comparison and I have no objection.

[gness]

Oh dear, J......natural? Tearing an exhausted animal to shreds for a good gallop? Blooding? Live fox cubs thrown into a kennel full of dogs to train them?

Civilised?.....Do you know what really goes on...often in secret?

It's a sickening and heart breaking "sport".

[JaKohbi]

Hey how are you doing today?

[Baldric]

As one who was brought up with 50% of the family business being Poultry Breeding I never saw anything too bad in Fox Hunting, the other 50% was a Riding School which equipped people to go Fox Hunting so, win win!

[woofgang]

setting aside the cruelty to the foxes...are we all happy with what is done to the hounds who can’t or won’t hunt...and the horses whose useful days are over? Hounds are shot and horses are sold on to goodness knows where :(

[Jackdaw33]

Imagine the furore if she'd suggested repealing the smoking ban at the same time.

[Resolute]

It gives you some idea what we can expect for at least the next five years.

[gness]

Woof....I had a neighbour who bred and "trained" hounds for the Pytchley Hunt.....I know only too well how these dogs were "cared" for.....x

[andy-hughes]

jourdain - //I agree with NJ 21.32. I would add that I never saw anything really wrong with foxhunting. Foxes have to be culled. This is one method and probably the most natural - the chaser/hunter is chased and hunted. Oh dear, I will have lost friends. Just because some people (I am not one of them) wish to use the necessity as a sport troubles me not at all. The hounds will chase and kill whatever -and the hunt followers will get a good gallop following them. //

I would not say you will lose friends for your view, you are entitled to it, as are we all.

I would however, question some of the assertions you have made - I fail to see that hunting foxes from horseback with dogs is 'natural' in any sense of the term.

I would not dispute that foxes need to be controlled, but statistics show that hunting is absolutely not an effective way of doing so.

Which brings me to the main argument I have against hunting, and the defence of it -

People who hunt foxes don't do it to control the fox population, they do it because they like hunting foxes, and they are hypocrites not to admit their blood lust and take the hostility it causes.

If they want a good gallop, then have a good gallop why traipse a load of dogs around and hunt to death a fox? the two are not remotely connected.

// OK, I'm doomed on AB. But I'll tell you now that I much prefer this to the French method of sending dogs into one side of a copse and standing by at the other end with a rain of gunfire which targeted everything which emerged- including pet dogs and cats. //

Just because one form of hunting is marginally more barbaric than the other does not in itself excuse the barbarity of the first form. That is frankly no defence at all, but then, I believe that fox hunting is indefensible anyway.

[Jackdaw33]

Quelle surprise!

[andy-hughes]

Prudie - //I'm not in favour but there is still a huge misconception about what 'class' of people go hunting. //

I think the modern debate about fox hunting has largely debunked the myth that hunting is merely the sport of the idle rich.

I am perfectly happy to concede that fox-hunting is a classless sport - barbarity knows no boundaries, social class included.

[anneasquith]

Jourdain. You're post leaves me speechless. !!

[Jackdaw33]

Spelling police alert.

[Mamyalynne]

I doubt it's a vote winner but in making her stance clear she must think it isn't a big enough vote loser to cause a problem.


Which is sad in this instance.

[naomi24]

Good grief! Do get this into perspective! I don’t support fox hunting, but she’s not saying it because it’s a ‘vote winner’. I’m sure she knows it isn’t, but on the back of a leaked email written by someone else she’s simply saying that should the question be raised again she will allow a free vote - and that’s absolutely the right thing to do. I admire her honesty.

[Deskdiary]

I wonder how many people there are like me who could not possibly care any less one way or the other whether fox hunting is banned or not.

For me it is a complete irrelevance.