News for SEPTEMBER .

News for SEPTEMBER ..........

"Kissy, Kissy", Peterborough write in the Daily Telegraph, 30th September
The Countryside Alliance ran into an old foe in Brighton on Thursday. As the Shropshire contingent of the rally marched past the official conference hotel, the unmistakable shape of the Deputy Prime Minister hove into view. "That awful man Prescott appeared on the balcony of his hotel room as we went around on the floats", says one marcher. "he smiled sarcastically and blew us a kiss. We just thought: 'Eeugh! Disgusting man'". Prescott saw things differently: "They gave John a wave, and he responded in kind," a spokesman says.

"Feel no pain" writes Auberon Waugh in his column Way of the World, Daily Telegraph, 30th September
The more I learn about genetically modified food, the more sensible it seems to pursue experiments into its various possibilities. Scientists who object to the fact that genetic programming could remove all stress from chickens produced for the mass market do not seem to be on the side of the chickens, so much as anxious to demonstrate their own soft hears in an area which is not appropriate to sentimentality. The masses have to be fed, after all, and anything which reduced the pain and stress involved should be welcomed.
One wonders whether it might reduced the urban opposition to the ancient country sport of fox-hunting if the foxes, through GM feeding, suffered no stress or pain. Not in the case of John Prescott, I fear. The Deputy Prime Minister's objections seem to be based on a mixture of class prejudice and hatred of country dwellers, rather than concern for animals. Horses and hounds, of course, adore the hunt. "I tell you this", he declared at the Labour Party Conference: "Every time I see this Countryside Alliance and their contorted faces, I redouble my determination to vote in the House of Commons to abolish fox-hunting forever."
The class war is a ancient a pastime as fox-hunting, of course, but what mr Prescott may not have noticed is that things have changed. The middle class is now in a majority throughout England - even in the north it is creeping up. Does it occur to him that we might find his stupid working-class face and attitudes as irritating a he finds ours? If the class war is to be encouraged, there are few sports we can ban in order to annoy the "workers", but we can take other opportunities. Whenever Prescott puts his face into some predominantly middle-class gathering, like a House of Commons committee meeting, the other members might groan and hold their noses: "Watch out, everybody. Here comes one of them. Phew, what a pong. Open the window, somebody. Needless to say, this sort of behaviour would be judged deeply repugnant to all our national traditions, as well a unkind and unjust, but, as I say, times are changing. If Mr. Prescott wants a class war, we would be foolish to let him win it by defualt.

West Turns out in force as huntsmen make sure their voices are heard, Western Daily Press, 27th September
The last time Captain Dick Lloyd was in Brighton was 55 years ago when he drove a self-propelled gun along the seafront before embarking for war in the Far East. Yesterday he was back for another war - against a Labour Party that is poised to put an end to his personal passion, hunting. Captain Lloyd, a former chairman of the Devon & Somerset Staghounds and a leading authority on red deer, joined more than 2,000 West Country field sports supporters who descended on Brighton to lay seige to the conference centre. And, like other members of the Endangered Exmoor Campaign with whom he had travelled, he was still incensed by Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott's jibe the previous day over the "contorted faces" of the Countryside Alliance. "It is the ignorance of the man that is so frightening", said Captain lloyd. "But that goes for so many of them. They may not like hunting and they may not approve of it, ut at least they could try to understand it and I am convinced that if they did they would change their tune".
Yesterday was West Country day at the conference where the Alliance is organising demonstrations across the whole four days. The effect has been to spread its supporters more thinly - yesterday's march, led by a row of police horses, had only a fraction of the impact of that by more than 16,000 people through Bournemouth last year. Some of the demonstrators had left Cornwall at 3am to join a protest that came to a halt outside the conference centre after police in riot gear had cleared a small number of anti-hunt protestors. Joining the Endangered Exmoor supporters were hunt members from across the West Country which, said Alliance regional organiser, Mal Treharne, showed that a hear on from Bournemouth, determination was still running high. "These people are dedicated", he said. "You have to admire them when they are up against a Government which patently does not want to listen. And when you add to that the problem on Exmoor where they have a Liberal Democrat MP who will not even talk to them, it is amazing that they are still protesting tolerantly".
But Richard Burge, chief executive of the Alliance, declared the campaign was beginning to get results and brought a cheer from the crowd when he hit back at Mr prescott, describing him as "a man whose every breath breathes the halitosis of hate and bigotry over us." But he said: "The cracks are beginning to appear. It may seem that there is a hell of a lot of pain and that things may still get worse. But every time we come here we rattle the Ministers and we rattle the MPs. But it was Labour peeress Baroness Anne Mallalieu, an enthusiastic hunter, who brought the demonstration to a crescendo with her condemnation of John Prescott. "That remark was vindictive, insensitive, arrogant and illiberal," she said. "It was an attack on people who had done no more than exercise their constitutional right to protest peacefully to their government within the law. Out oponents are badly rattlewd. They have lost the argument so they are turning to smear. That remark is one that John Prescott, if he is a decent man, will come to regret. It demeans both him and the office he currently holds. But, Mr Prescott, I give you my prediction. Your voice will cease to ring round the conference halls of Britain long before the hunting horn is silenced in the hills."

OPERATION WARNING SHOT !
Somerset, Devon, Cornwall and Wales will be demonstrating through the centre of Brighton on Tuesday, 26th September at the Labour Party Conference. The Theme will be LIBERTY and the COUNTRYSIDE UNITED. Please join us, we need you there!
Exmoor has coaches leaving Exford, Brushford and Blackmoor Gate at 5.30a.m. PROMPT at £8.50 each. To reserve seats please contact: info@exmoor.org.uk.

Endangered Exmoor gets its warning message across, Somerset County Gazette, 1st September
At least 3,500 Bank Holiday visitors to Exmoor were given a personal warning of the threat to the area's future when rural campaigners set up road checkpoints to lobby motorists. The pro-hunting group, Endangered Exmoor, staged the action and rallies last Friday at five different points on the moor, including wheddon Cross and Porlock, to win the support of tourists. Kevin Lamacraft, one of the organisers, said the events were an overwhelming success. "The reaction from motorists was really quite incredible", he said. "Only two or three people were actually less than enthusiastic about what we were trying to do or minded being stopped on their journeys". Several of the checkpoints ran out of leaflets to hand out to visitors and the accompanying rallies attracted at least 50 supporters at each of the sites.
The group, formed last year, wanted to highlight what it perceives as a threat to the rural way of life from the proposed legislation to outlaw hunting, coupled with the crisis affecting the area's agricultural industry. Mr Lamacraft, who runs a hunter hire business in Timberscombe, was co-ordinating the Wheddon Cross checkpoint, visited by Bridgwater MP Tom King and Labour peer Baroness Ann Mallalieu, who are both opposed to a hunt ban. "We wanted to get out message out to the public and we feel we have certainly achieved that. I think politicians should take on board the fact that although we are a minority, we are a very motivated minority and we will be voting 100 per cent at the next General Election".
Endangered Exmoor will now take its fight to the Labour Party conference in Brighton where it will support the Countryside Alliance's demonstrations.

News for August

News for June and July

Archive news