News for OCTOBER .

News for OCTOBER ..........

Alliance releases further details of plans for London March, 30th October 2000
Its official - the Countryside March will be held in London on Sunday, 18th March 2001. All appropriate reservations have been made with the London authorities.
As for the 1998 March a Sunday has been chosen both so as to minimise disruption to people who live and work in London and also to enable the maximum number of people to attend. The route will be similar to the 1998 March starting on the Embankment and ending in Hyde Park but the aim this time is to incorporate a loop via the Houses of Parliament.
Alliance Chief Executive, Richard Burge explained: "Our objetive in putting together what is likely to prove the largest gathering of its type ever een in London is to demonstrate the strength and depth of collective eeling within the rural communities of the United Kingdom against the threats to their liberty, livelihoods and way of life. Last time nearly 300,000 people gave up a day of their time to express their support for the countryside so this time, given the current strength of eelings, we hope to see 350,000 or more".

Alliance march receives support, Peter Whittlesea of the Western Morning News examines how the Countryside Alliance is trying to unite rural England with its biggest-ever protest, 30th October 2000
The Countryside Alliance claims it has changed from a single issue pro-hunting pessure group into an organisation which represents the views of rural people. So to highlight the plight of rural Britain to the Government, the alliance has organised a march in London next year which it hopes will unite country people. The Alliance has evolved since it was first established and now campaigns on many countryside issues. These campaigns to halt the decline of rural services have struck a chord with many country folk who fear their way of life is under threat, and now they are prepared to join the Alliance's Countryside March on 18th March.
The Alliance still remains true to its stand on hunting, which remains high on its political agenda, but it has also published a policy document that sets out its view on important rural issues ranging from right to roam to unemployment in the rural communities. Pat Bawden of Endangered Exmoor, said countryside people from all over Britain were now fed up with the behaviour of the Government. "I think people who have nothing to do with hunting will realise this march is about countryside issues and unite to protest at how this Government has disregarded the views of rural people. Everybody in the country is fed up with the Government, especially over high fuel prices - it has hit rural people really hard" she said.

Daggers drawn at National Trust, Financial Mail on Sunday, 29th October 2000
The National Trust's annual meeting in Manchester on Saturday promises to be a stormy affair. The 105-year-old charity, established to preserve sites of natural beauty and historic interest for the nation, is facing a constitutional challenge from some of the most senior legal minds in the country. A strongly worded resolution, proposed by Queen's Counsel Timothy Cassel and supported by eight other QCs, deplores the use of discretionary proxy votes in recent national Trust council elections by the trust chairman, Charles Nunneley. Though the trust has nearly 2.8 million members, last year only 107,000 voted in the elections in person or by post. Many entrust their votes to the chairman, who traditionally casts them in the same proportions as votes from members who attend the annual meeting. But Nunneley has said that he will no longer necessarily follow this course, but will use the proxy votes in what he considersz to be the best interests of the trust.
At the root of the electoral dispute is the controversial issue of staghunting, which the trust banned on its land in 1997. Cassel's supporters ee the chairman's actions as an attempt to keep the pro-hunting members out of the council. They say that banning staghunting on the Holnicote estate on Exmoor was against the wishes of the donor of the land, and that membership and bequests to the trust are being adversely affected. The anti-hunting side argue that scientific studies show that deer hunting is excessively cruel, and say that membership and legacies are showing healthy growth.
Another resolution protests at rent increases on three trust-owned estates, including Holnicote. This agenda item is supported by Labour peer Baroness Mallalieu, president of the pro-hunting Countryside Alliance and married to Cassel.

COACHES for the National Trust AGM on Saturday, 4th November 2000 will depart Exmoor. For further details and to book seats, please contact: Mrs Sue Batten - Tel: 01984 623266.

For details of how to vote contact: Jo & Charles Collins at FONT (Friends of the National Trust) - Email: font.group@talk21.com

Countryside gears up for election march - Western Morning News 19th October 2000
Countryside campaigners are planning to disrupt new labour's election preparations by staging a massive demonstration in central London just weeks before the expected date of the next General Election. The WMN has learned that the Countryside Alliance has pencilled in March 18th as the likely date or a huge rally, which is expected to attract hundreds of thousands of demonstrators to the capital to protest about the Government's rural policies.
Jeanette Branton of Endangered Exmoor who took part in the 1998 demonstration said she would be happy to march in London agaoin. Mrs Branton who runs a livery stable and whose husband is a sheep farmer said, "I would certainly do it again, I am sure all of us would. Rural areas are facing such problems at the moment. My livelihood depends on hunting, but everything is interlinked in rural areas, especially in a place like Exmoor. I think only another huge march will make this Government listen".

Country people ... yokel underclass? Gloria Schofield writes in the WMN, 19th October
John prescott spoke at the Labour Party conference of the "contorted faces" of the countryside campaigners. He said they made him want to redouble his efforts to see hunting banned. This is the sort of remark which simply underlines urban New Labour's contempt for country people, and their utter indifference to rural concerns. We already know that Tony Blair's government views those of us who live in rural areas as a yokel underclass. Mr Prescott simply spelled out the message more loudly and clearly than his colleagues. The peasants may be revolting, but they'll soon be put in their place. Already, the government has managed to bring the British agricultural industry to its knees, and made life in rural areas ever more untenable by raising fuel prices, inerfering with the perfectly good Post Office system and promoting ludicrous, damaging "rights to roam". But Westminster's city slickers won't really be happy until they have struck at the heart of rural life - and destroyed the sporting and social traditions of hunting with hounds. They think, because it's perceived as a toffs' sport, that this will be a vote winner.
But on the subject of passion for a cause, there are few to match the most fanatical animal rights campaigners. Their latest target is Clarissa Dickson Wright, formerly one of the Two Fat Ladies and now appearing in a series about huntin', shootin' and fishin'. The Special Branch is so alarmed about the declared intentions of militant activists that it has warned Clarissa to take extreme safety precuations. If Mr Prescott finds protesting farmers fearsome to behold, he has obviously never seen an anti-hunt campaigner in full spitting, venomous fury. But then, they've usually got their balaclavas on when they go about their vengeful business.

Helping the police - Auberon Waugh, Daily Telegraph, 18th October 2000
Anti-hunt fanatics already present a serious threat to law and order, as the television chef Clarissa Dickson Wright has discovered. She is threatened by telephone calls because she is suspected of being in favour of foxhunting and other field sports. She has been advised by Special Branch on her safety after anti-hunt protestors have tried to confront her while filming. It is interesting that the police can offer only advice, rather than protection, against these violent elements in society. They are grievously under strength and many new recruits, we are told, are liable to have only one leg. No doubt their advice took the form of urging her to tone down her support of hunting. With the best will in the world - and many, if not most, policemen are basically on the right side - they cannot be expected to tackle all the wrongheadedness in society. So programmed are they to remember the rights of criminals that they can easily forget their own. Many will have been struck by reports of a case before magistrates at King's Lynn earlier this month. There a 35 year old father was annoyed to find his 17 year old son among a group swearing at policemen in the street. The boy had been in court seven or eight times for similar offences. On this occasion, he stoppefd his car and slapped his son on the face. The officers immediately arrested the father and charged him with affray. Nobody is allowed to take the side of the police against our young people.

"Broken Trust" .......... Letter in the Daily Telegraph, 10th October 2000
from Nigel Muers Raby of Quantock Staghounds andTom Yandle of Devon & Somerset Staghounds
The National Trust, predictably, failed to respond to the request to reissue licences to hunt on its land when its council met last wee. Despite a detailed submission by the hunts, which included the Burns Inquiry's scientific evidence, the trust has not even had the courtesy to respond with its reasons for continuing the ban. Once again, rather than seeking to work with its neighbours and tenants, it has sought confrontation.
The National Trust now appears to prefer to make decisions based on ethics and morality rather than science. This is a dangerous omen. Country sportsmen everywhere will do well to remember that the National Trust set the agenda for the current hunting debate three years ago when it banned deer hunting.
The trust's AGM in Manchester on 4th November should provide an opportunity to demonstrate the anger it has aroused and the opposition it will face the further it treads its present path.

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