I really have mixed feelings about the Countryside March currently clogging up London. I think hunting with dogs is a revolting, barbaric thing that belongs in the dustbin of history along with bear-baiting. However, is that a good enough reason for banning something? I can imagine a vindictive future Tory party led by someone scary like Ann Widdecombe banning things that heavy metal music or role-playing games, just because a few Daily Mail-reading fundamentalist twits dislike such things.
I believe issues like this must be decided at a local, not a national level. As an urban resident is it really any of my business whether people hunt with dogs in somewhere like Cumbria? As long as my taxes aren’t subsidising it, surely it’s the business the people in the local area to decide whether to allow hunting in their neck of the woods or not. Devolve this power the relevant local authorities, and let them decide!
On the other hand, this Countryside March claims to be about other rural issues, like lack of rural bus services and closure of local shops and post offices, and of course, the problems of the farming industry. Will Hutton, in this Guardian article a week ago, identifies some of the issues, and claims that the solutions to the real economic problems of rural Britain are the complete opposite of the rightwing agenda of the Countryside Alliance.
The Countryside Alliance should be pressing for Britain to join the euro, and for enforced and increased inheritance tax, an end to right-to-buy legislation, support for specialist farming banks and powerful co-operatives, the reregulation of rural transport and a drive to diversify the rural economy around a recast CAP. Instead, it offers reheated euro-scepticism, self-pity and a call to protect fox-hunting. Those who live and work in rural Britain deserve much, much better. They are lions lead by scarlet-jacketed and braying donkeys.