Anti-hunt campaigners in Broad Street

Adam Hewitt • Published 17 Feb 2010 10:00 6 Comments

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Cllr Bet Tickner, Roisin Fogarty and Anneliese Dodds

LABOUR Party campaigners warned shoppers that the fox hunting ban is at risk from a Tory Government.

Reading East candidate Anneliese Dodds and Cllr Bet Tickner joined anti-hunt campaigner Roisin Fogarty in Broad Street on Saturday to ask shoppers what they thought.

They handed out 500 leaflets and surveyed 52 people, all of whom backed the ban.

Ms Dodds said: "It seems that Reading people are, if anything, even more supportive of Labour's ban on fox-hunting than the population as a whole. Nationally around 75% of people support the ban. In Reading, it seems, virtually everyone agrees with it. Getting rid of the ban on fox hunting is one of the very few policies that the Conservatives have come out with - alongside cutting tax for the 3,000 richest estates."

The Tories have pledged a free vote in Parliament on the ban, and David Cameron said last year it was a bad piece of law, adding: "We would be better off without it."

Cllr Bet Tickner said: "This barbaric 'sport' belongs to medieval days, not the 21st century."

The current Act has been criticised for its many loopholes and there have been just a handful of convictions since it was passed in 2004. Countryside campaigners have called for its repeal, but anti-bloodsport groups and Labour MPs have been just as vociferous in their campaign to 'Back the Ban', launched on Boxing Day last year.

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Chris
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Feb 18, 18:47
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Well done to all involved! The Tories must be exposed for what they want to re-legalise. The barbarisms of hare coursing, stag hunting and hare coursing have no place in modern Britain. How can the Tories claim to have changed when they want to bring back such appalling cruelty in the name of fun!!??

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Cllr Numpty
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Feb 18, 21:28
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Well done councillors! At a time when we have social services and medical professionals failing to protect the children at risk in our society, Labour resort to spending even more time championing the fox hunting ban. I have no particluar like or dislike of foxes, but both parties should agree that the next party in can set fox law for the next 100 years. If labour win, the toffs sell their horses. If the Tories win, all the bushy tailed lovers must spend our money and their time on something useful.

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Alex M
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Feb 19, 09:19
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Fox Hunting is not a vote winning issue - your every day voter simply doesn't care.

The only people that would have signed this or be mildly interested would be liberal busybody green veggie hippies...

Foxes are pests so hunting them is fine IMO.

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samuel chatterton
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Feb 19, 12:39
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Alex M, you're right, but at least it's an actual dividing line between the main parties! So much of the debate at the moment is artificial, with synthetic outrage about this or that minor policy detail or the exactitude of timing of this or that measure.

Plus, you sort of answer your own question - liberal busybody green veggie hippies, i.e. people who might well vote for Dodds' left-of-centre opponents, Rob White and Gareth Epps!

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Nobby
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Feb 19, 16:52
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Pity that bird in the middle has that daft costume on. She looks a pretty foxy anyway.

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mhayworth
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Feb 19, 19:15
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As a Tory who won't be voting for Cameron over this issue, I can assure you that it does matter to a great many people and is already affecting how they will vote. You Tories who are so certain that Cameron is on to a winner, are actually driving the more decent people away from the party and into the fringes daily.

The 700 hours 'wasted' on the hunting act, was driven solely by the pro-hunt Tories trying desperately to make the debate run past the maximum time limit in the hopes it would be thrown out. Read the Hansard debates - they are all online.

You need to stop falling for the hype of the Countryside Alliance and see that even most farmers are sick to death of the hunts trampling their land, causing massive damage, intimidating them if they complain, and using this issue to divide them politically from their urban friends who actually do care about the real issues affecting them. As the Burns report concluded, lamping is the most effective way to dispatch a fox - if and when necessary. If the hunts would stop breeding them for their sport, of course, it would certainly be less often 'necessary'.

M. Hayworth

Campaign For Decencyrn

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Mar 1, 08:54
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