So a plurality of Tory supporters oppose a trail hunting ban and less than half of Reform voters want to ban it either. The Boxing Day hunt also is a crucial part of village and rural life in areas like where I live. Hundreds turn out on the village green and the pub serves mulled wine as the hunt gathers and for its supporters in rural areas it is a big deal. Even if they have to hunt a trail or drag hunt now not a fox (whose numbers still need to be kept down).
Labour may try and ban trail hunting as most of its supporters want as it banned fox hunting but with Farage and Badenoch opposed to a trail hunting ban, if Labour lose power at the next general election it will be restored
There are perhaps only 170 hunt packs in England so this romanticised notion of every village welcoming its hunt with drinks and applause really needs to be challenged.
My only experience of this was in St Ives (Cornwall) several years ago when the Western Hunt paid the town a visit and it was all very congenial with a few supporters shouting and a small crowd applauding. For most, it was a curiousity and I suppose if there's a purpose to it, it shows urban people an aspect of rural life with which they would otherwise be unfamiliar.
I just think rural communities have a lot more serious issues than the future of the local Hunt.
Those foxhunts are spread across the country from Pembrokeshire to here in rural Essex, from Dumfriesshire to Wensleydale, the Cotswolds and Devon and will of course often stop at more than 1 village on a big hunt day than Boxing Day.
If Trail hunting supposedly doesn't kill foxes, what objection would hunts have to converting to Drag hunting? There doesn't seem to be one.
Also you keep bringing up the hunts keep the fox numbers down. If Trail hunts don't kill foxes how do they do that?
Also when fox hunts were allowed to kill they did not keep numbers down because that is not how Fox territories work. if you want I can go through the numbers for you but a simple example is to compare the City Fox to the Rural Fox. The City Fox has a much much much smaller territory than a Rural Fox (the territory is not controlled by extermination but food supply). Yet the City Office is effectively hunted and relentlessly so by the car. It is the major form of death for City Foxes and the average life span for a City Fox is 12 - 18 months but 3 years for a Rural Fox with some living up to 8 years.
So although the City Fox is culled and far more efficiently than a hunt its numbers are far greater. That is because food supply and not hunting is the determinant of the number of foxes.
Hunts used to kill 20 - 25,000 foxes a year. About 1.500,000 - 2,000,000 foxes are born each year. A killed foxes territory is simply taken over by another pair of foxes who will now breed.
If Trail hunting supposedly doesn't kill foxes why does it need to be banned?
Trail hunting also follows an animal based not artificial scent so is closer to the traditional sport of fox hunting Labour banned
Doh. Because they do kill foxes when they shouldn't. I think that has been shown quite clearly.
Which was of course the original purpose of the hunt until Labour in its class war banned it
I suspect it's becoming arguable that we should re-introduce deer hunting round here; both native species and muntjac are beginning to become pests. Guns, though, I think. Not packs of dogs.
Plenty of deer shot and venison eaten in the Highlands of Scotland
Plenty of deer shot everywhere. Just ask foresters and zoologists in England. It's not just the Red Deer but pest species such as muntjac .
Three of the species of deer here are invasive too.
I quite like the Chinese Water Deer.
A local pub/restuarant has venison on the menu every so often. Very tasty.
We used to buy Venison from Raby castle as they had a few herd and farmed them.
I agree, it is very very tasty.
Had it earlier in the year at a couple of local restaurants. It seems to be getting more and more popular rather than just high end places.
I’m really a fan of it.
Me too. Although I did have some once that was obviously hung for rather longer than I probably needed. I haven't had goat for a long time and have asked my butcher for some recently, so I am waiting for that. Should be interesting. Have also tried crocodile, ostrich and kangaroo. I enjoyed all. I also cooked horse in France. Haven't had rabbit for a long time and I don't think I have ever had hare.
I’ve had hare; similar to rabbit but more solid. Never tried crocodile or ostrich but seem to recall kangaroo. Also when in Australia tried witchetty grub; you need quite a few to make a meal, but tastes a bit like peanut flavoured scrambled egg. Had all sorts of strange things in Thailand; rat, frog, grasshopper. The legs of the latter can get stuck in one’s teeth.
Grasshoppers and locusts are the only kosher insects.
Never tried locust. I’m always up for a go, though; solid little bodies, so should be a good chew!
I haven't either but I remember my dad saying that he had eaten them in his early army days whilst they were messing around in the Middle East. He said that it wasn't easy to get them into his mouth as they did not exactly look appetising but once there they were pleasantly crunchy and tasty enough. A bit like whitebait.
So a plurality of Tory supporters oppose a trail hunting ban and less than half of Reform voters want to ban it either. The Boxing Day hunt also is a crucial part of village and rural life in areas like where I live. Hundreds turn out on the village green and the pub serves mulled wine as the hunt gathers and for its supporters in rural areas it is a big deal. Even if they have to hunt a trail or drag hunt now not a fox (whose numbers still need to be kept down).
Labour may try and ban trail hunting as most of its supporters want as it banned fox hunting but with Farage and Badenoch opposed to a trail hunting ban, if Labour lose power at the next general election it will be restored
There are perhaps only 170 hunt packs in England so this romanticised notion of every village welcoming its hunt with drinks and applause really needs to be challenged.
My only experience of this was in St Ives (Cornwall) several years ago when the Western Hunt paid the town a visit and it was all very congenial with a few supporters shouting and a small crowd applauding. For most, it was a curiousity and I suppose if there's a purpose to it, it shows urban people an aspect of rural life with which they would otherwise be unfamiliar.
I just think rural communities have a lot more serious issues than the future of the local Hunt.
Those foxhunts are spread across the country from Pembrokeshire to here in rural Essex, from Dumfriesshire to Wensleydale, the Cotswolds and Devon and will of course often stop at more than 1 village on a big hunt day than Boxing Day.
If Trail hunting supposedly doesn't kill foxes, what objection would hunts have to converting to Drag hunting? There doesn't seem to be one.
Also you keep bringing up the hunts keep the fox numbers down. If Trail hunts don't kill foxes how do they do that?
Also when fox hunts were allowed to kill they did not keep numbers down because that is not how Fox territories work. if you want I can go through the numbers for you but a simple example is to compare the City Fox to the Rural Fox. The City Fox has a much much much smaller territory than a Rural Fox (the territory is not controlled by extermination but food supply). Yet the City Office is effectively hunted and relentlessly so by the car. It is the major form of death for City Foxes and the average life span for a City Fox is 12 - 18 months but 3 years for a Rural Fox with some living up to 8 years.
So although the City Fox is culled and far more efficiently than a hunt its numbers are far greater. That is because food supply and not hunting is the determinant of the number of foxes.
Hunts used to kill 20 - 25,000 foxes a year. About 1.500,000 - 2,000,000 foxes are born each year. A killed foxes territory is simply taken over by another pair of foxes who will now breed.
If Trail hunting supposedly doesn't kill foxes why does it need to be banned?
Trail hunting also follows an animal based not artificial scent so is closer to the traditional sport of fox hunting Labour banned
Doh. Because they do kill foxes when they shouldn't. I think that has been shown quite clearly.
Which was of course the original purpose of the hunt until Labour in its class war banned it
I suspect it's becoming arguable that we should re-introduce deer hunting round here; both native species and muntjac are beginning to become pests. Guns, though, I think. Not packs of dogs.
Plenty of deer shot and venison eaten in the Highlands of Scotland
Plenty of deer shot everywhere. Just ask foresters and zoologists in England. It's not just the Red Deer but pest species such as muntjac .
Three of the species of deer here are invasive too.
I quite like the Chinese Water Deer.
A local pub/restuarant has venison on the menu every so often. Very tasty.
We used to buy Venison from Raby castle as they had a few herd and farmed them.
I agree, it is very very tasty.
Had it earlier in the year at a couple of local restaurants. It seems to be getting more and more popular rather than just high end places.
I’m really a fan of it.
Cheaper than beef or lamb at my local butcher - for diced.
You can use it in any receipe that calls for lamb and most for beef.
Venison lasagne is rather nice.
As a veggie option Lentils in a lasagne is rather nice too !
New year I’ll give venison lasagne a bash. The mince seems ideal, or maybe I’ll do a venison chilli con carne.
My wife makes a version of shepherd's pie that we call poachers pie: uses minced vensison and duck. (You could add some rabbit too.)
Very fine it is .
Love that name.
Does she mince her duck ?
I’ve bought breast and leg but never seen minced duck.
Shepherds pie is traditionally made from the left over roast. Lamb is about the only one of the standard meats that still carries enough flavour, although you can also make it with game or duck
When the fox hunting ban was proposed, the Countryside Alliance mobilised a huge protest including at racemeetings I attended where they were, to be blunt, aggressive in demanding support for opposing the ban but of course the ban happened and it seemed the world didn't end.
I've no issue with trail hunting except that it appears (I've no proof) to have been used as bait for actual killing of foxes by hounds (poor choice of words).
The disconnect between town and country is obvious but there's also a disconnect within rural communities too, it would seem and it may be there's pressure within communities not to be seen to be too vocally opposed to hunting with hounds - I don't know.
Is it a hill anyone would choose on which to die? Not a fox, I'd presume and I see a lot of foxes here in East London who live well off the gastronomic detritus of modern society (and they are incredibly adept at, for example, getting cold fried chicken leftovers out of the box. I'm not sure a group of hounds trying to work their way round East Ham would be anything more than a nuisance but the control of urban foxes is an issue too.
So, you're saying the solution is to extend fox hunting to urban areas?
Tally ho.
Morning to you, sir.
It's a thought for a chill Tuesday morning - I can certainly imagine the Plashet & Wall End Stag Hounds getting plenty of applause as they navigate up the High Street between the buses - as to whether the hounds would be diverted by the smells from the shawarma or fried chicken shops, I'm no expert and you certainly wouldn't want them going into the tube station and trying to get through the barriers - there are plenty trying to do that all the time.
I also suspect it would be hunting on ebikes rather than horses but again not the worst idea I've ever heard.
In the 1930s a group of peers put forward a suggestion for hunting foxes in London. They suggested horses and yellow jackets.
Can't remember who they were, but they later admitted they were just trolling the government.
So a plurality of Tory supporters oppose a trail hunting ban and less than half of Reform voters want to ban it either. The Boxing Day hunt also is a crucial part of village and rural life in areas like where I live. Hundreds turn out on the village green and the pub serves mulled wine as the hunt gathers and for its supporters in rural areas it is a big deal. Even if they have to hunt a trail or drag hunt now not a fox (whose numbers still need to be kept down).
Labour may try and ban trail hunting as most of its supporters want as it banned fox hunting but with Farage and Badenoch opposed to a trail hunting ban, if Labour lose power at the next general election it will be restored
There are perhaps only 170 hunt packs in England so this romanticised notion of every village welcoming its hunt with drinks and applause really needs to be challenged.
My only experience of this was in St Ives (Cornwall) several years ago when the Western Hunt paid the town a visit and it was all very congenial with a few supporters shouting and a small crowd applauding. For most, it was a curiousity and I suppose if there's a purpose to it, it shows urban people an aspect of rural life with which they would otherwise be unfamiliar.
I just think rural communities have a lot more serious issues than the future of the local Hunt.
Those foxhunts are spread across the country from Pembrokeshire to here in rural Essex, from Dumfriesshire to Wensleydale, the Cotswolds and Devon and will of course often stop at more than 1 village on a big hunt day than Boxing Day.
If Trail hunting supposedly doesn't kill foxes, what objection would hunts have to converting to Drag hunting? There doesn't seem to be one.
Also you keep bringing up the hunts keep the fox numbers down. If Trail hunts don't kill foxes how do they do that?
Also when fox hunts were allowed to kill they did not keep numbers down because that is not how Fox territories work. if you want I can go through the numbers for you but a simple example is to compare the City Fox to the Rural Fox. The City Fox has a much much much smaller territory than a Rural Fox (the territory is not controlled by extermination but food supply). Yet the City Office is effectively hunted and relentlessly so by the car. It is the major form of death for City Foxes and the average life span for a City Fox is 12 - 18 months but 3 years for a Rural Fox with some living up to 8 years.
So although the City Fox is culled and far more efficiently than a hunt its numbers are far greater. That is because food supply and not hunting is the determinant of the number of foxes.
Hunts used to kill 20 - 25,000 foxes a year. About 1.500,000 - 2,000,000 foxes are born each year. A killed foxes territory is simply taken over by another pair of foxes who will now breed.
If Trail hunting supposedly doesn't kill foxes why does it need to be banned?
Trail hunting also follows an animal based not artificial scent so is closer to the traditional sport of fox hunting Labour banned
Doh. Because they do kill foxes when they shouldn't. I think that has been shown quite clearly.
Which was of course the original purpose of the hunt until Labour in its class war banned it
I suspect it's becoming arguable that we should re-introduce deer hunting round here; both native species and muntjac are beginning to become pests. Guns, though, I think. Not packs of dogs.
Why Britain has a deer problem - leaving damage that costs millions
A lot of venison isn't wild these days, it's farmed. There's also a lot imported. I agree that having a lot more wild venison hunted and going into the food chain would be good.
We lead the world in country sports and coming over here to hunt should be far better promoted.
Wild deer are becoming quite a problem in parts of Highlands and Scotland. I would expect a fair bit more venison to end up on dinner plates soon
I was reading about this the other day. There are no predators to keep their numbers down so they are exploding.
There’s quite a few close to me. Get them in the local woods and along the coast to coast cycle path. As the years have gone on you see them more and more too.
Only the past few weeks I have eaten goose, pig trotters, pig intestines, chicken gizzards...and they are just the things which were identified.
I had chicken gizzards when visiting a toolmaker in Portugal. Very nice it was too in a lovely tomato sauce.
Stuff like Trotters as well as haslet, pork belly and other foods were cheap foods back 30 or so years. Not these days.
Never had intestines. Sounds unpleasant.
A mates ex wife is Jamaica . She once cooked a dish for us with pigs tails in. Cannot say I enjoyed them but the rest of the dish was banging.
Chicken gizzards are delicious - possibly the first solid meaty food my daughter had when they were tiny as they were on the menu at a friend's restaurant. They just hoovered them up. And Pierre Kauffman's stuffed pigs trotter is an absolute classic (Daniel Clifford at Midsummer House once made it for me and it was outstanding).
Happy Nearly New Year everyone; I've delurked because food.
I gave most things a go in China, but chicken feet, which are hugely popular...as well as in soups, down the snack aisle they are available like Tyrrells crisps....I couldn't bring myself to eat those.
Given that they could use aniseed rather than animal scent, it's clearly just a ruse to continue actual fox hunting, do a ban seems justified. The actual control measure for fox numbers would seem to be the motor car. We have plenty of foxes in my urban area and they don't cause an issue if you secure your bins properly. Given I've seen the cubs being taught to raid bins while surrounded by grazing rabbits, I doubt they can be bothered with chickens either.
Next the clowns will want to ban driving cars
There’s a few who do, de growth is very much on the agenda for some. Limit the supply of energy and water and other key essentials and simply live within that and forget growth as it hurts the planet.
The EU has spent millions funding groups looking at it.
Climate change committee has made some suggestions on energy use which it wants to see implemented.
If energy supply is limited, I'd expect a big backlash from the masses. If taxes were put up on flying, transport, meat etc it would obviously favour the wealthy. I dont see how you could go for reduction in energy use without annoying a big part of the population
I’d agree so I expect they will do it by stealth rather than be open and above board about it. We need cheap energy. We’re not going to get it.
The Climate Change Committe is one of those unelected NGO’s that @Sandpit was referring to. It has no accountability. Get money from the govt and lobbies the govt on matters that will affect each and every one of us.
It would be better to abolish many of these NGO’s as the govt just subcontracts policy making to them.
So leave it all to Ed Miliband then?
Effectively we are already doing that with the Climate Change Committee. It’s merely there to lobby for what he/his team wants. Leave it to him and his department let them own it.
Or should we have governance by unelected NGO ?
That would seem to be the conclusion of Blair’s Third Way and Cameron’s Big Society.
Very much so.
I cannot see it changing either as these groups are so well entrenched. Any attempt to remove, or even reduce, them will be met with a robust response and media campaign as they are so well enmeshed with the media.
Irrespective of the facts the public will be convinced life will be worse without them.
Had to laugh at this passage from the CCCs 2025 progress report:
"Last year, we made making electricity cheaper our first recommendation. When people and businesses switch to electric technologies, they are paying more than the actual cost of supplying the extra electricity they demand, because of policy decisions taken many years ago. Removing policy costs from electricity would ensure the underlying cost-savings of switching to efficient electric technologies are captured by households and businesses, encouraging take-up. The Government has made no clear progress on removing policy costs since the election. Making electricity cheaper remains our first recommendation"
So far the government have been close to the opposite. Like so many other issues, it is aware of the problem but not doing anywhere near enough to address it. We are an energy abundant country, whether it is in wind, oil, gas, nuclear, solar.
The effort to reduce energy costs has been pathetic
The annoying thing is, if we had made the right decisions 10-15 years ago on tidal and nuclear we would now be almost energy independent and could tell Putin to go fuck himself.
Oh, and energy would be a lot cheaper.
But we didn't (with the partial exception of Scotland which I think does produce all of its energy from renewable domestic sources but doesn't have the infrastructure to manage it independently).
Construction at Hinkley Point C started in 2016, so we would have had to make decisions on nuclear back when Blair was PM, or before.
Although the dash for gas was beneficial in terms of reducing coal use, it seems to also have been a factor in stopping new nuclear build, along with privatisation.
21 years between the completion of Sizewell B in 1995 and the start of HPC in 2016. We'd be a lot better off without that gap.
Sizewell B construction apparently followed a four-year, 16 million-word public inquiry, so that's been an issue for at least four decades.
Kearns is a far left campaigner - indistinguishable from Polanski on policy - and sits at the heart of Kemi Badenoch’s team as Shadow Minister for National Security:
Kemi wants her to be the UK’s Minister for National Security.
So a plurality of Tory supporters oppose a trail hunting ban and less than half of Reform voters want to ban it either. The Boxing Day hunt also is a crucial part of village and rural life in areas like where I live. Hundreds turn out on the village green and the pub serves mulled wine as the hunt gathers and for its supporters in rural areas it is a big deal. Even if they have to hunt a trail or drag hunt now not a fox (whose numbers still need to be kept down).
Labour may try and ban trail hunting as most of its supporters want as it banned fox hunting but with Farage and Badenoch opposed to a trail hunting ban, if Labour lose power at the next general election it will be restored
There are perhaps only 170 hunt packs in England so this romanticised notion of every village welcoming its hunt with drinks and applause really needs to be challenged.
My only experience of this was in St Ives (Cornwall) several years ago when the Western Hunt paid the town a visit and it was all very congenial with a few supporters shouting and a small crowd applauding. For most, it was a curiousity and I suppose if there's a purpose to it, it shows urban people an aspect of rural life with which they would otherwise be unfamiliar.
I just think rural communities have a lot more serious issues than the future of the local Hunt.
Those foxhunts are spread across the country from Pembrokeshire to here in rural Essex, from Dumfriesshire to Wensleydale, the Cotswolds and Devon and will of course often stop at more than 1 village on a big hunt day than Boxing Day.
If Trail hunting supposedly doesn't kill foxes, what objection would hunts have to converting to Drag hunting? There doesn't seem to be one.
Also you keep bringing up the hunts keep the fox numbers down. If Trail hunts don't kill foxes how do they do that?
Also when fox hunts were allowed to kill they did not keep numbers down because that is not how Fox territories work. if you want I can go through the numbers for you but a simple example is to compare the City Fox to the Rural Fox. The City Fox has a much much much smaller territory than a Rural Fox (the territory is not controlled by extermination but food supply). Yet the City Office is effectively hunted and relentlessly so by the car. It is the major form of death for City Foxes and the average life span for a City Fox is 12 - 18 months but 3 years for a Rural Fox with some living up to 8 years.
So although the City Fox is culled and far more efficiently than a hunt its numbers are far greater. That is because food supply and not hunting is the determinant of the number of foxes.
Hunts used to kill 20 - 25,000 foxes a year. About 1.500,000 - 2,000,000 foxes are born each year. A killed foxes territory is simply taken over by another pair of foxes who will now breed.
If Trail hunting supposedly doesn't kill foxes why does it need to be banned?
Trail hunting also follows an animal based not artificial scent so is closer to the traditional sport of fox hunting Labour banned
Doh. Because they do kill foxes when they shouldn't. I think that has been shown quite clearly.
Which was of course the original purpose of the hunt until Labour in its class war banned it
Hang on, we are going around in circles here. I assume you are saying the original purpose of the hunt was killing foxes. Well obviously. But if you can get the enjoyment and spectacle without killing foxes then what is the problem.
And if you say to control fox numbers I am likely to punch a wall because:
a) Trail hunting supposedly doesn't kill foxes anyway (so what is your point in not moving to drag hunting where you can get the same enjoyment and definitely not kill a fox)) b) Fox hunting did not control numbers. See my post where I showed that.
Some sick fuckers enjoy seeing animals suffer.
That is what fox hunting is all about.
I am surprised that a follower of the teachings of Jesus, such as HY, is on the side of cruelty.
Yes foxes, lovely cuddly things, never rip rabbits and chickens to pieces and kill lambs, certainly not
Goodness this is getting ridiculous. Are you now arguing that Foxes should be hunted because they are cruel? That is nature. Do you want them to become vegetarians? Are we going to exterminate all predators? Not a lot of hope for us then. The issue is whether something is unnecessarily cruel and whether we can do something to ameliorate that, as we have done with our abattoirs.
You wouldn't be happy if you lived in my house. We always have a fox den at the end of the garden and when the cubs are around it is like an abattoir and they always decapitate the animals (I don't know why). Lots of pigeons, song birds, pheasants, rats, squirrels, and occasional bird of prey.
One can be sensitive and still realistic about nature. For instance I found a deer suffering in our garden (it had a head wound full of maggots). I called a deer charity. They came out and shot it and it was then left in some woods for other animals to eat. Nature but with some compassion.
I don't see hunting as unnecessarily cruel, in any way, and I suspect it's far better than what goes on (unseen) in abattoirs.
A gunshot is believed to be more humane but that very much depends on the quality of the shot and, in most instances, a predator will kill its prey with a quick bite to the neck as any nature documentary will show you.
Thanks for acknowledging my cock up of mangled English in my earlier post. Appreciated.
I probably never want to see the inside of an abattoir.
I say unnecessarily cruel not because it is necessarily particularly cruel. To be honest I have no idea whether it is or not, but because there is no real reason for killing the fox at all (poor wording by me again).
It isn't food.
It doesn't control numbers.
And pageantry and sport can continue without the killing, which supposedly is what is happening now, so the hunts shouldn't really have any issue with the change to drag hunting. One has to wonder what their motives are for objecting if the change has no consequences.
I see Anneleise Dodds has been made a Dame in the new years honours list, a minor consolation prize for not being deemed the best candidate for Chancellor of Exchequer
No reward for failure....
Imagine the psychological blow of being deemed worse than Rachel Reeves…
Only the past few weeks I have eaten goose, pig trotters, pig intestines, chicken gizzards...and they are just the things which were identified.
I had chicken gizzards when visiting a toolmaker in Portugal. Very nice it was too in a lovely tomato sauce.
Stuff like Trotters as well as haslet, pork belly and other foods were cheap foods back 30 or so years. Not these days.
Never had intestines. Sounds unpleasant.
A mates ex wife is Jamaica . She once cooked a dish for us with pigs tails in. Cannot say I enjoyed them but the rest of the dish was banging.
Chicken gizzards are delicious - possibly the first solid meaty food my daughter had when they were tiny as they were on the menu at a friend's restaurant. They just hoovered them up. And Pierre Kauffman's stuffed pigs trotter is an absolute classic (Daniel Clifford at Midsummer House once made it for me and it was outstanding).
Happy Nearly New Year everyone; I've delurked because food.
We’ve eaten at a few good Michelin star places. Daniel Clifford’s is on our list for a visit.
I’m glad you delurked to post as that’s reminded me.
Some of you may wish to watch the 1970s Jon Pertwee Dr Who serial "Frontier In Space", which is on Freeview channel 57 U&Eden. The Master has just turned up.
Changes in the risk-free real rate are a crucial driver of changes in house prices — the model predicts that a 1% sustained increase in index-linked gilt yields could ultimately (ie in the long run) result in a fall in real house prices of just under 20%.
Some of you may wish to watch the 1970s Jon Pertwee Dr Who serial "Frontier In Space", which is on Freeview channel 57 U&Eden. The Master has just turned up.
I will give it a go once I finish the Taggart I’m watching, Root of All Evil. Stellar cast and lots of axe murders of money lenders.
How much pro-Hunting stuff has your average British humanoid been exposed to over the past 20 years? Roughly the square root of fuck-all.
I'm more or less neutral on the issue, and against banning things on principle, but lets not pretend that there is any balance at all here. Being pro-Hunting is like being anti-NHS - there are solid, reasoned arguments to support the position but vanishingly few people will ever even get to hear them.
Kearns is a far left campaigner - indistinguishable from Polanski on policy - and sits at the heart of Kemi Badenoch’s team as Shadow Minister for National Security:
Kemi wants her to be the UK’s Minister for National Security.
Do you?
Wait till he hears what his leader has been saying about Jews.
"Against this backdrop, thoughtful dissenters will consider whether an early election could be forced by via some kind of general strike blended with a dose of fuel and port blockades."
So a plurality of Tory supporters oppose a trail hunting ban and less than half of Reform voters want to ban it either. The Boxing Day hunt also is a crucial part of village and rural life in areas like where I live. Hundreds turn out on the village green and the pub serves mulled wine as the hunt gathers and for its supporters in rural areas it is a big deal. Even if they have to hunt a trail or drag hunt now not a fox (whose numbers still need to be kept down).
Labour may try and ban trail hunting as most of its supporters want as it banned fox hunting but with Farage and Badenoch opposed to a trail hunting ban, if Labour lose power at the next general election it will be restored
There are perhaps only 170 hunt packs in England so this romanticised notion of every village welcoming its hunt with drinks and applause really needs to be challenged.
My only experience of this was in St Ives (Cornwall) several years ago when the Western Hunt paid the town a visit and it was all very congenial with a few supporters shouting and a small crowd applauding. For most, it was a curiousity and I suppose if there's a purpose to it, it shows urban people an aspect of rural life with which they would otherwise be unfamiliar.
I just think rural communities have a lot more serious issues than the future of the local Hunt.
Those foxhunts are spread across the country from Pembrokeshire to here in rural Essex, from Dumfriesshire to Wensleydale, the Cotswolds and Devon and will of course often stop at more than 1 village on a big hunt day than Boxing Day.
If Trail hunting supposedly doesn't kill foxes, what objection would hunts have to converting to Drag hunting? There doesn't seem to be one.
Also you keep bringing up the hunts keep the fox numbers down. If Trail hunts don't kill foxes how do they do that?
Also when fox hunts were allowed to kill they did not keep numbers down because that is not how Fox territories work. if you want I can go through the numbers for you but a simple example is to compare the City Fox to the Rural Fox. The City Fox has a much much much smaller territory than a Rural Fox (the territory is not controlled by extermination but food supply). Yet the City Office is effectively hunted and relentlessly so by the car. It is the major form of death for City Foxes and the average life span for a City Fox is 12 - 18 months but 3 years for a Rural Fox with some living up to 8 years.
So although the City Fox is culled and far more efficiently than a hunt its numbers are far greater. That is because food supply and not hunting is the determinant of the number of foxes.
Hunts used to kill 20 - 25,000 foxes a year. About 1.500,000 - 2,000,000 foxes are born each year. A killed foxes territory is simply taken over by another pair of foxes who will now breed.
If Trail hunting supposedly doesn't kill foxes why does it need to be banned?
Trail hunting also follows an animal based not artificial scent so is closer to the traditional sport of fox hunting Labour banned
Doh. Because they do kill foxes when they shouldn't. I think that has been shown quite clearly.
Which was of course the original purpose of the hunt until Labour in its class war banned it
Hang on, we are going around in circles here. I assume you are saying the original purpose of the hunt was killing foxes. Well obviously. But if you can get the enjoyment and spectacle without killing foxes then what is the problem.
And if you say to control fox numbers I am likely to punch a wall because:
a) Trail hunting supposedly doesn't kill foxes anyway (so what is your point in not moving to drag hunting where you can get the same enjoyment and definitely not kill a fox)) b) Fox hunting did not control numbers. See my post where I showed that.
Some sick fuckers enjoy seeing animals suffer.
That is what fox hunting is all about.
I am surprised that a follower of the teachings of Jesus, such as HY, is on the side of cruelty.
Yes foxes, lovely cuddly things, never rip rabbits and chickens to pieces and kill lambs, certainly not
As a religious nutter, who believes in the uniqueness of humanity as compared to the animals, aren’t we supposed to operate on a higher plane?
Seems to follow the bible to me. An eye for an eye. The little bastards rip rabbits and chickens apart to let's rip them apart.
Kearns is a far left campaigner - indistinguishable from Polanski on policy - and sits at the heart of Kemi Badenoch’s team as Shadow Minister for National Security:
Kemi wants her to be the UK’s Minister for National Security.
Do you?
Didn’t she start off as a member of the Youth Parliament (heaven help us) then aspired to be a lawyer at Amnesty and was an activist before getting into parliament.
She’s never struck me as a Tory but, I guess, the party is a broad church.
I suspect the main parties will close rank over this and kick it into touch with an inquiry as they are all as equally culpable for signing off their support for this loathsome man who had a well funded lobbying group behind him.
So a plurality of Tory supporters oppose a trail hunting ban and less than half of Reform voters want to ban it either. The Boxing Day hunt also is a crucial part of village and rural life in areas like where I live. Hundreds turn out on the village green and the pub serves mulled wine as the hunt gathers and for its supporters in rural areas it is a big deal. Even if they have to hunt a trail or drag hunt now not a fox (whose numbers still need to be kept down).
Labour may try and ban trail hunting as most of its supporters want as it banned fox hunting but with Farage and Badenoch opposed to a trail hunting ban, if Labour lose power at the next general election it will be restored
There are perhaps only 170 hunt packs in England so this romanticised notion of every village welcoming its hunt with drinks and applause really needs to be challenged.
My only experience of this was in St Ives (Cornwall) several years ago when the Western Hunt paid the town a visit and it was all very congenial with a few supporters shouting and a small crowd applauding. For most, it was a curiousity and I suppose if there's a purpose to it, it shows urban people an aspect of rural life with which they would otherwise be unfamiliar.
I just think rural communities have a lot more serious issues than the future of the local Hunt.
Those foxhunts are spread across the country from Pembrokeshire to here in rural Essex, from Dumfriesshire to Wensleydale, the Cotswolds and Devon and will of course often stop at more than 1 village on a big hunt day than Boxing Day.
If Trail hunting supposedly doesn't kill foxes, what objection would hunts have to converting to Drag hunting? There doesn't seem to be one.
Also you keep bringing up the hunts keep the fox numbers down. If Trail hunts don't kill foxes how do they do that?
Also when fox hunts were allowed to kill they did not keep numbers down because that is not how Fox territories work. if you want I can go through the numbers for you but a simple example is to compare the City Fox to the Rural Fox. The City Fox has a much much much smaller territory than a Rural Fox (the territory is not controlled by extermination but food supply). Yet the City Office is effectively hunted and relentlessly so by the car. It is the major form of death for City Foxes and the average life span for a City Fox is 12 - 18 months but 3 years for a Rural Fox with some living up to 8 years.
So although the City Fox is culled and far more efficiently than a hunt its numbers are far greater. That is because food supply and not hunting is the determinant of the number of foxes.
Hunts used to kill 20 - 25,000 foxes a year. About 1.500,000 - 2,000,000 foxes are born each year. A killed foxes territory is simply taken over by another pair of foxes who will now breed.
If Trail hunting supposedly doesn't kill foxes why does it need to be banned?
Trail hunting also follows an animal based not artificial scent so is closer to the traditional sport of fox hunting Labour banned
Doh. Because they do kill foxes when they shouldn't. I think that has been shown quite clearly.
Which was of course the original purpose of the hunt until Labour in its class war banned it
Hang on, we are going around in circles here. I assume you are saying the original purpose of the hunt was killing foxes. Well obviously. But if you can get the enjoyment and spectacle without killing foxes then what is the problem.
And if you say to control fox numbers I am likely to punch a wall because:
a) Trail hunting supposedly doesn't kill foxes anyway (so what is your point in not moving to drag hunting where you can get the same enjoyment and definitely not kill a fox)) b) Fox hunting did not control numbers. See my post where I showed that.
Some sick fuckers enjoy seeing animals suffer.
That is what fox hunting is all about.
I am surprised that a follower of the teachings of Jesus, such as HY, is on the side of cruelty.
Yes foxes, lovely cuddly things, never rip rabbits and chickens to pieces and kill lambs, certainly not
Getting into the realms of morality here but foxes don't rip apart chickens and kill lambs out of deliberate cruelty.
So why do they? It isn’t for food if you have ever seen a chicken coop after a fox has visited
Kearns is a far left campaigner - indistinguishable from Polanski on policy - and sits at the heart of Kemi Badenoch’s team as Shadow Minister for National Security:
Kemi wants her to be the UK’s Minister for National Security.
Do you?
Alicia Kearns is a One Nation Tory, if Reform are going to call even One Nation Tories 'far left' how do they expect to win centrist swing voters at the next GE?
I've been wondering about this speech ever since it happened, so these details are interesting.
"Blair ignored warnings WI speech would be a disaster Labour leader was urged to steer clear of ‘capital P politics’ ahead of his infamous address at Wembley"
So a plurality of Tory supporters oppose a trail hunting ban and less than half of Reform voters want to ban it either. The Boxing Day hunt also is a crucial part of village and rural life in areas like where I live. Hundreds turn out on the village green and the pub serves mulled wine as the hunt gathers and for its supporters in rural areas it is a big deal. Even if they have to hunt a trail or drag hunt now not a fox (whose numbers still need to be kept down).
Labour may try and ban trail hunting as most of its supporters want as it banned fox hunting but with Farage and Badenoch opposed to a trail hunting ban, if Labour lose power at the next general election it will be restored
There are perhaps only 170 hunt packs in England so this romanticised notion of every village welcoming its hunt with drinks and applause really needs to be challenged.
My only experience of this was in St Ives (Cornwall) several years ago when the Western Hunt paid the town a visit and it was all very congenial with a few supporters shouting and a small crowd applauding. For most, it was a curiousity and I suppose if there's a purpose to it, it shows urban people an aspect of rural life with which they would otherwise be unfamiliar.
I just think rural communities have a lot more serious issues than the future of the local Hunt.
Those foxhunts are spread across the country from Pembrokeshire to here in rural Essex, from Dumfriesshire to Wensleydale, the Cotswolds and Devon and will of course often stop at more than 1 village on a big hunt day than Boxing Day.
If Trail hunting supposedly doesn't kill foxes, what objection would hunts have to converting to Drag hunting? There doesn't seem to be one.
Also you keep bringing up the hunts keep the fox numbers down. If Trail hunts don't kill foxes how do they do that?
Also when fox hunts were allowed to kill they did not keep numbers down because that is not how Fox territories work. if you want I can go through the numbers for you but a simple example is to compare the City Fox to the Rural Fox. The City Fox has a much much much smaller territory than a Rural Fox (the territory is not controlled by extermination but food supply). Yet the City Office is effectively hunted and relentlessly so by the car. It is the major form of death for City Foxes and the average life span for a City Fox is 12 - 18 months but 3 years for a Rural Fox with some living up to 8 years.
So although the City Fox is culled and far more efficiently than a hunt its numbers are far greater. That is because food supply and not hunting is the determinant of the number of foxes.
Hunts used to kill 20 - 25,000 foxes a year. About 1.500,000 - 2,000,000 foxes are born each year. A killed foxes territory is simply taken over by another pair of foxes who will now breed.
If Trail hunting supposedly doesn't kill foxes why does it need to be banned?
Trail hunting also follows an animal based not artificial scent so is closer to the traditional sport of fox hunting Labour banned
Doh. Because they do kill foxes when they shouldn't. I think that has been shown quite clearly.
Which was of course the original purpose of the hunt until Labour in its class war banned it
I suspect it's becoming arguable that we should re-introduce deer hunting round here; both native species and muntjac are beginning to become pests. Guns, though, I think. Not packs of dogs.
Plenty of deer shot and venison eaten in the Highlands of Scotland
Plenty of deer shot everywhere. Just ask foresters and zoologists in England. It's not just the Red Deer but pest species such as muntjac .
Three of the species of deer here are invasive too.
I quite like the Chinese Water Deer.
A local pub/restuarant has venison on the menu every so often. Very tasty.
So a plurality of Tory supporters oppose a trail hunting ban and less than half of Reform voters want to ban it either. The Boxing Day hunt also is a crucial part of village and rural life in areas like where I live. Hundreds turn out on the village green and the pub serves mulled wine as the hunt gathers and for its supporters in rural areas it is a big deal. Even if they have to hunt a trail or drag hunt now not a fox (whose numbers still need to be kept down).
Labour may try and ban trail hunting as most of its supporters want as it banned fox hunting but with Farage and Badenoch opposed to a trail hunting ban, if Labour lose power at the next general election it will be restored
There are perhaps only 170 hunt packs in England so this romanticised notion of every village welcoming its hunt with drinks and applause really needs to be challenged.
My only experience of this was in St Ives (Cornwall) several years ago when the Western Hunt paid the town a visit and it was all very congenial with a few supporters shouting and a small crowd applauding. For most, it was a curiousity and I suppose if there's a purpose to it, it shows urban people an aspect of rural life with which they would otherwise be unfamiliar.
I just think rural communities have a lot more serious issues than the future of the local Hunt.
Those foxhunts are spread across the country from Pembrokeshire to here in rural Essex, from Dumfriesshire to Wensleydale, the Cotswolds and Devon and will of course often stop at more than 1 village on a big hunt day than Boxing Day.
If Trail hunting supposedly doesn't kill foxes, what objection would hunts have to converting to Drag hunting? There doesn't seem to be one.
Also you keep bringing up the hunts keep the fox numbers down. If Trail hunts don't kill foxes how do they do that?
Also when fox hunts were allowed to kill they did not keep numbers down because that is not how Fox territories work. if you want I can go through the numbers for you but a simple example is to compare the City Fox to the Rural Fox. The City Fox has a much much much smaller territory than a Rural Fox (the territory is not controlled by extermination but food supply). Yet the City Office is effectively hunted and relentlessly so by the car. It is the major form of death for City Foxes and the average life span for a City Fox is 12 - 18 months but 3 years for a Rural Fox with some living up to 8 years.
So although the City Fox is culled and far more efficiently than a hunt its numbers are far greater. That is because food supply and not hunting is the determinant of the number of foxes.
Hunts used to kill 20 - 25,000 foxes a year. About 1.500,000 - 2,000,000 foxes are born each year. A killed foxes territory is simply taken over by another pair of foxes who will now breed.
If Trail hunting supposedly doesn't kill foxes why does it need to be banned?
Trail hunting also follows an animal based not artificial scent so is closer to the traditional sport of fox hunting Labour banned
Doh. Because they do kill foxes when they shouldn't. I think that has been shown quite clearly.
Which was of course the original purpose of the hunt until Labour in its class war banned it
Hang on, we are going around in circles here. I assume you are saying the original purpose of the hunt was killing foxes. Well obviously. But if you can get the enjoyment and spectacle without killing foxes then what is the problem.
And if you say to control fox numbers I am likely to punch a wall because:
a) Trail hunting supposedly doesn't kill foxes anyway (so what is your point in not moving to drag hunting where you can get the same enjoyment and definitely not kill a fox)) b) Fox hunting did not control numbers. See my post where I showed that.
Some sick fuckers enjoy seeing animals suffer.
That is what fox hunting is all about.
I am surprised that a follower of the teachings of Jesus, such as HY, is on the side of cruelty.
Yes foxes, lovely cuddly things, never rip rabbits and chickens to pieces and kill lambs, certainly not
Getting into the realms of morality here but foxes don't rip apart chickens and kill lambs out of deliberate cruelty.
So why do they? It isn’t for food if you have ever seen a chicken coop after a fox has visited
I just assume it is a natural instinct to kill all they can for future use. I mentioned in an earlier post that at the time of the cubs the back of our garden is covered in bodies (all headless). They do all disappear eventually. They also bury bodies and dig them up later. I have filmed them doing this. I have cameras in my garden. I have no idea why they decapitate bodies though regardless of the animal caught. Anyone know?
Kearns is a far left campaigner - indistinguishable from Polanski on policy - and sits at the heart of Kemi Badenoch’s team as Shadow Minister for National Security:
Kemi wants her to be the UK’s Minister for National Security.
Do you?
Didn’t she start off as a member of the Youth Parliament (heaven help us) then aspired to be a lawyer at Amnesty and was an activist before getting into parliament.
She’s never struck me as a Tory but, I guess, the party is a broad church.
I suspect the main parties will close rank over this and kick it into touch with an inquiry as they are all as equally culpable for signing off their support for this loathsome man who had a well funded lobbying group behind him.
She is one of my local MPs, and she is pretty much what the Tory party used to be like. A posh lawyer parachuted into a safe seat who potters around village fetes and agricultural shows. She is a decent sort in an old school noblese oblige sort of way that matches Rutland and Stamford quite well, moderate of opinion.
10 years ago she fitted well within Cameron's type of politics, now she seems person non-grata amongst the populist right. She has one of the safest seats in the country, and would be one of the handful of Dark Blue Tories to survive a Turqouise tsunami. I don't think she would support a Faragist government.
Some of you may wish to watch the 1970s Jon Pertwee Dr Who serial "Frontier In Space", which is on Freeview channel 57 U&Eden. The Master has just turned up.
Well that’s not worked. My freeview goes from 56 to 58
Kearns is a far left campaigner - indistinguishable from Polanski on policy - and sits at the heart of Kemi Badenoch’s team as Shadow Minister for National Security:
Kemi wants her to be the UK’s Minister for National Security.
Do you?
Siri, show me what JD Vance would be like if he was more hysterical and still more ignorant.
Speaking of blood sports. As a teenager I witnessed a scorpion fight a few doors down from my local Wetherspoons in an abandoned building, which was rather random.
Never heard of a fox hunt with dogs in these parts, despite being pretty rural. Pheasant shoots are ten a penny.
Any scorpion that fights a few doors (presumably winning some) is obviously a hard bastard of a scorpion.
Bet he gets lots of space at the bar at the ‘spoons.
I’m more intrigued by the Wetherspoons being in an abandoned building
Kearns is a far left campaigner - indistinguishable from Polanski on policy - and sits at the heart of Kemi Badenoch’s team as Shadow Minister for National Security:
Kemi wants her to be the UK’s Minister for National Security.
Do you?
Alicia Kearns is a One Nation Tory, if Reform are going to call even One Nation Tories 'far left' how do they expect to win centrist swing voters at the next GE?
She’s also excercise extremely poor judgement over this British/Egyptian guy but, unlike most others who did, has come out on the attack over it and I don’t think it’s doing her any favours.
Speaking of blood sports. As a teenager I witnessed a scorpion fight a few doors down from my local Wetherspoons in an abandoned building, which was rather random.
Never heard of a fox hunt with dogs in these parts, despite being pretty rural. Pheasant shoots are ten a penny.
Any scorpion that fights a few doors (presumably winning some) is obviously a hard bastard of a scorpion.
Bet he gets lots of space at the bar at the ‘spoons.
I’m more intrigued by the Wetherspoons being in an abandoned building
I presume the scorpion drinks snakebite at the ‘spoons?
God, I hate this Labour MP, he makes me look bad, particularly as my major achievement on Christmas Day was making a trifle.
None of you understand the pressure/disappointment of Pakistani heritage parents when you don’t become a doctor.
Glasgow MP performs kidney transplant on Christmas Day to give patient 'gift' of life
Dr Zubir Ahmed, MP for Glasgow South West, worked his 18th Christmas Day shift at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, saying he was "thinking about all the medical and nursing staff who worked alongside me"
10 years ago she fitted well within Cameron's type of politics
Cameron was obviously captured by the same type of NGO-driven politics that has led to the latest embarrassment. Keeping the foreign aid target while imposing austerity on people at home was indefensible.
Given that they could use aniseed rather than animal scent, it's clearly just a ruse to continue actual fox hunting, do a ban seems justified. The actual control measure for fox numbers would seem to be the motor car. We have plenty of foxes in my urban area and they don't cause an issue if you secure your bins properly. Given I've seen the cubs being taught to raid bins while surrounded by grazing rabbits, I doubt they can be bothered with chickens either.
Next the clowns will want to ban driving cars
There’s a few who do, de growth is very much on the agenda for some. Limit the supply of energy and water and other key essentials and simply live within that and forget growth as it hurts the planet.
The EU has spent millions funding groups looking at it.
Climate change committee has made some suggestions on energy use which it wants to see implemented.
If energy supply is limited, I'd expect a big backlash from the masses. If taxes were put up on flying, transport, meat etc it would obviously favour the wealthy. I dont see how you could go for reduction in energy use without annoying a big part of the population
I’d agree so I expect they will do it by stealth rather than be open and above board about it. We need cheap energy. We’re not going to get it.
The Climate Change Committe is one of those unelected NGO’s that @Sandpit was referring to. It has no accountability. Get money from the govt and lobbies the govt on matters that will affect each and every one of us.
It would be better to abolish many of these NGO’s as the govt just subcontracts policy making to them.
So leave it all to Ed Miliband then?
Effectively we are already doing that with the Climate Change Committee. It’s merely there to lobby for what he/his team wants. Leave it to him and his department let them own it.
Or should we have governance by unelected NGO ?
That would seem to be the conclusion of Blair’s Third Way and Cameron’s Big Society.
Very much so.
I cannot see it changing either as these groups are so well entrenched. Any attempt to remove, or even reduce, them will be met with a robust response and media campaign as they are so well enmeshed with the media.
Irrespective of the facts the public will be convinced life will be worse without them.
Had to laugh at this passage from the CCCs 2025 progress report:
"Last year, we made making electricity cheaper our first recommendation. When people and businesses switch to electric technologies, they are paying more than the actual cost of supplying the extra electricity they demand, because of policy decisions taken many years ago. Removing policy costs from electricity would ensure the underlying cost-savings of switching to efficient electric technologies are captured by households and businesses, encouraging take-up. The Government has made no clear progress on removing policy costs since the election. Making electricity cheaper remains our first recommendation"
So far the government have been close to the opposite. Like so many other issues, it is aware of the problem but not doing anywhere near enough to address it. We are an energy abundant country, whether it is in wind, oil, gas, nuclear, solar.
The effort to reduce energy costs has been pathetic
This is so obvious it drives me nuts. Electricity is already much cleaner than the alternatives (particularly somewhere like Scotland), and over the next 25 years it's the source of energy that the UK will depend on the most. If we want to encourage people to use it, it has to be falling in cost relative to the alternatives, not the opposite. To be fair on the Labour government, they have removed a bunch of the green levies from electricty, which is sensible.
But the fact this obvious advice has been ignored so long rather proves that the CCC does not have the kind of power that the conspiracists think they do. The same goes for the OBR - Truss and Kwarteng bypassed them with ease and actually passed a budget with no oversight at all.
Kearns is a far left campaigner - indistinguishable from Polanski on policy - and sits at the heart of Kemi Badenoch’s team as Shadow Minister for National Security:
Kemi wants her to be the UK’s Minister for National Security.
Do you?
Didn’t she start off as a member of the Youth Parliament (heaven help us) then aspired to be a lawyer at Amnesty and was an activist before getting into parliament.
She’s never struck me as a Tory but, I guess, the party is a broad church.
I suspect the main parties will close rank over this and kick it into touch with an inquiry as they are all as equally culpable for signing off their support for this loathsome man who had a well funded lobbying group behind him.
She is one of my local MPs, and she is pretty much what the Tory party used to be like. A posh lawyer parachuted into a safe seat who potters around village fetes and agricultural shows. She is a decent sort in an old school noblese oblige sort of way that matches Rutland and Stamford quite well, moderate of opinion.
10 years ago she fitted well within Cameron's type of politics, now she seems person non-grata amongst the populist right. She has one of the safest seats in the country, and would be one of the handful of Dark Blue Tories to survive a Turqouise tsunami. I don't think she would support a Faragist government.
She went to a comprehensive school so isn't that posh, even if she went to Fitzwilliam college, Cambridge after. She worked in communications and as a press officer rather than as a lawyer but otherwise agree.
She is perfectly suited to Rutland as a moderate hard working constituency MP whatever the Farage hordes throw at her
Changes in the risk-free real rate are a crucial driver of changes in house prices — the model predicts that a 1% sustained increase in index-linked gilt yields could ultimately (ie in the long run) result in a fall in real house prices of just under 20%.
Yes, and up to a point, increases in money supply put downward pressure on the risk free rate (more money competing results in reduced returns).
But it’s like an elastic band - one you push it too much the market switches to worrying about inflationary pressures which causes a rise in the risk free rate
Changes in the risk-free real rate are a crucial driver of changes in house prices — the model predicts that a 1% sustained increase in index-linked gilt yields could ultimately (ie in the long run) result in a fall in real house prices of just under 20%.
Nice to see someone still unashamedly using Computer Modern.
Kearns is a far left campaigner - indistinguishable from Polanski on policy - and sits at the heart of Kemi Badenoch’s team as Shadow Minister for National Security:
Kemi wants her to be the UK’s Minister for National Security.
Do you?
Didn’t she start off as a member of the Youth Parliament (heaven help us) then aspired to be a lawyer at Amnesty and was an activist before getting into parliament.
She’s never struck me as a Tory but, I guess, the party is a broad church.
I suspect the main parties will close rank over this and kick it into touch with an inquiry as they are all as equally culpable for signing off their support for this loathsome man who had a well funded lobbying group behind him.
She is one of my local MPs, and she is pretty much what the Tory party used to be like. A posh lawyer parachuted into a safe seat who potters around village fetes and agricultural shows. She is a decent sort in an old school noblese oblige sort of way that matches Rutland and Stamford quite well, moderate of opinion.
10 years ago she fitted well within Cameron's type of politics, now she seems person non-grata amongst the populist right. She has one of the safest seats in the country, and would be one of the handful of Dark Blue Tories to survive a Turqouise tsunami. I don't think she would support a Faragist government.
I wouldn't rule out Reform winning the seat at the general election.
Kearns is a far left campaigner - indistinguishable from Polanski on policy - and sits at the heart of Kemi Badenoch’s team as Shadow Minister for National Security:
Kemi wants her to be the UK’s Minister for National Security.
Do you?
Didn’t she start off as a member of the Youth Parliament (heaven help us) then aspired to be a lawyer at Amnesty and was an activist before getting into parliament.
She’s never struck me as a Tory but, I guess, the party is a broad church.
I suspect the main parties will close rank over this and kick it into touch with an inquiry as they are all as equally culpable for signing off their support for this loathsome man who had a well funded lobbying group behind him.
She is one of my local MPs, and she is pretty much what the Tory party used to be like. A posh lawyer parachuted into a safe seat who potters around village fetes and agricultural shows. She is a decent sort in an old school noblese oblige sort of way that matches Rutland and Stamford quite well, moderate of opinion.
10 years ago she fitted well within Cameron's type of politics, now she seems person non-grata amongst the populist right. She has one of the safest seats in the country, and would be one of the handful of Dark Blue Tories to survive a Turqouise tsunami. I don't think she would support a Faragist government.
She went to a comprehensive school so isn't that posh, even if she went to Fitzwilliam college, Cambridge after. She worked in communications and as a press officer rather than as a lawyer but otherwise agree.
She is perfectly suited to Rutland as a moderate hard working constituency MP whatever the Farage hordes throw at her
This follows the Trump playbook in labelling all opponents as far left.
Sadly, eating Burmese pythons is not recommended, since they have too much mercury. But Florida would love it if you came to hunt that invasive species, anyway: https://flpythonchallenge.org/
(That photo of the Florida governor makes me wonder whether their skins could be used for soccer balls.)
Kearns is a far left campaigner - indistinguishable from Polanski on policy - and sits at the heart of Kemi Badenoch’s team as Shadow Minister for National Security:
Kemi wants her to be the UK’s Minister for National Security.
Do you?
Alicia Kearns is a One Nation Tory, if Reform are going to call even One Nation Tories 'far left' how do they expect to win centrist swing voters at the next GE?
Sadly, eating Burmese pythons is not recommended, since they have too much mercury. But Florida would love it if you came to hunt that invasive species, anyway: https://flpythonchallenge.org/
(That photo of the Florida governor makes me wonder whether their skins could be used for soccer balls.)
Australia has a major problem with giant toads too.
Some of you may wish to watch the 1970s Jon Pertwee Dr Who serial "Frontier In Space", which is on Freeview channel 57 U&Eden. The Master has just turned up.
Well that’s not worked. My freeview goes from 56 to 58
I know selection of specific channels can be difficult depending on menu options. It may help if you press "57" directly but I don't know if that will mess up your specific settings. ☹️
Kearns is a far left campaigner - indistinguishable from Polanski on policy - and sits at the heart of Kemi Badenoch’s team as Shadow Minister for National Security:
Kemi wants her to be the UK’s Minister for National Security.
Kearns is a far left campaigner - indistinguishable from Polanski on policy - and sits at the heart of Kemi Badenoch’s team as Shadow Minister for National Security:
Kemi wants her to be the UK’s Minister for National Security.
Do you?
Didn’t she start off as a member of the Youth Parliament (heaven help us) then aspired to be a lawyer at Amnesty and was an activist before getting into parliament.
She’s never struck me as a Tory but, I guess, the party is a broad church.
I suspect the main parties will close rank over this and kick it into touch with an inquiry as they are all as equally culpable for signing off their support for this loathsome man who had a well funded lobbying group behind him.
She is one of my local MPs, and she is pretty much what the Tory party used to be like. A posh lawyer parachuted into a safe seat who potters around village fetes and agricultural shows. She is a decent sort in an old school noblese oblige sort of way that matches Rutland and Stamford quite well, moderate of opinion.
10 years ago she fitted well within Cameron's type of politics, now she seems person non-grata amongst the populist right. She has one of the safest seats in the country, and would be one of the handful of Dark Blue Tories to survive a Turqouise tsunami. I don't think she would support a Faragist government.
I wouldn't rule out Reform winning the seat at the general election.
It is too posh to vote Reform I think. Nowcast has Reform projected to win 330 MPs and a small majority but Rutland and Stamford one of 55 seats the Tories would still hold with 36% for Kearns and 26% for Reform and 14% for the LDs https://electionmaps.uk/nowcast
Basically the likeliest Tory holds are relatively rural, relatively posh and wealthy and only narrowly voted Leave in 2016 much like Rutland and Stamford (with a few Tory gains from Labour maybe in strong Jewish seats in Barnet or very wealthy bits of west London which also won't go Reform)
Kearns is a far left campaigner - indistinguishable from Polanski on policy - and sits at the heart of Kemi Badenoch’s team as Shadow Minister for National Security:
Kemi wants her to be the UK’s Minister for National Security.
Do you?
yep, no nutters in reform at all
Yusuf is probably this generation's Mandelson or Osborne. Not someone to be underestimated.
Kearns is a far left campaigner - indistinguishable from Polanski on policy - and sits at the heart of Kemi Badenoch’s team as Shadow Minister for National Security:
Kemi wants her to be the UK’s Minister for National Security.
Do you?
yep, no nutters in reform at all
Yusuf is probably this generation's Mandelson or Osborne. Not someone to be underestimated.
Yusuf isn't really good enough to be a Mandelson or Osborne tribute act, let alone the real thing
Kearns is a far left campaigner - indistinguishable from Polanski on policy - and sits at the heart of Kemi Badenoch’s team as Shadow Minister for National Security:
Kemi wants her to be the UK’s Minister for National Security.
Do you?
yep, no nutters in reform at all
Yusuf is probably this generation's Mandelson or Osborne. Not someone to be underestimated.
So a plurality of Tory supporters oppose a trail hunting ban and less than half of Reform voters want to ban it either. The Boxing Day hunt also is a crucial part of village and rural life in areas like where I live. Hundreds turn out on the village green and the pub serves mulled wine as the hunt gathers and for its supporters in rural areas it is a big deal. Even if they have to hunt a trail or drag hunt now not a fox (whose numbers still need to be kept down).
Labour may try and ban trail hunting as most of its supporters want as it banned fox hunting but with Farage and Badenoch opposed to a trail hunting ban, if Labour lose power at the next general election it will be restored
There are perhaps only 170 hunt packs in England so this romanticised notion of every village welcoming its hunt with drinks and applause really needs to be challenged.
My only experience of this was in St Ives (Cornwall) several years ago when the Western Hunt paid the town a visit and it was all very congenial with a few supporters shouting and a small crowd applauding. For most, it was a curiousity and I suppose if there's a purpose to it, it shows urban people an aspect of rural life with which they would otherwise be unfamiliar.
I just think rural communities have a lot more serious issues than the future of the local Hunt.
Those foxhunts are spread across the country from Pembrokeshire to here in rural Essex, from Dumfriesshire to Wensleydale, the Cotswolds and Devon and will of course often stop at more than 1 village on a big hunt day than Boxing Day.
If Trail hunting supposedly doesn't kill foxes, what objection would hunts have to converting to Drag hunting? There doesn't seem to be one.
Also you keep bringing up the hunts keep the fox numbers down. If Trail hunts don't kill foxes how do they do that?
Also when fox hunts were allowed to kill they did not keep numbers down because that is not how Fox territories work. if you want I can go through the numbers for you but a simple example is to compare the City Fox to the Rural Fox. The City Fox has a much much much smaller territory than a Rural Fox (the territory is not controlled by extermination but food supply). Yet the City Office is effectively hunted and relentlessly so by the car. It is the major form of death for City Foxes and the average life span for a City Fox is 12 - 18 months but 3 years for a Rural Fox with some living up to 8 years.
So although the City Fox is culled and far more efficiently than a hunt its numbers are far greater. That is because food supply and not hunting is the determinant of the number of foxes.
Hunts used to kill 20 - 25,000 foxes a year. About 1.500,000 - 2,000,000 foxes are born each year. A killed foxes territory is simply taken over by another pair of foxes who will now breed.
If Trail hunting supposedly doesn't kill foxes why does it need to be banned?
Trail hunting also follows an animal based not artificial scent so is closer to the traditional sport of fox hunting Labour banned
Doh. Because they do kill foxes when they shouldn't. I think that has been shown quite clearly.
Which was of course the original purpose of the hunt until Labour in its class war banned it
I suspect it's becoming arguable that we should re-introduce deer hunting round here; both native species and muntjac are beginning to become pests. Guns, though, I think. Not packs of dogs.
Why Britain has a deer problem - leaving damage that costs millions
A lot of venison isn't wild these days, it's farmed. There's also a lot imported. I agree that having a lot more wild venison hunted and going into the food chain would be good.
We lead the world in country sports and coming over here to hunt should be far better promoted.
Wild deer are becoming quite a problem in parts of Highlands and Scotland. I would expect a fair bit more venison to end up on dinner plates soon
I was reading about this the other day. There are no predators to keep their numbers down so they are exploding.
There’s quite a few close to me. Get them in the local woods and along the coast to coast cycle path. As the years have gone on you see them more and more too.
Which is why we need to reintroduce lynx to the British Isles!
Kearns is a far left campaigner - indistinguishable from Polanski on policy - and sits at the heart of Kemi Badenoch’s team as Shadow Minister for National Security:
Kemi wants her to be the UK’s Minister for National Security.
Do you?
yep, no nutters in reform at all
Yusuf is probably this generation's Mandelson or Osborne. Not someone to be underestimated.
Yusuf isn't really good enough to be a Mandelson or Osborne tribute act, let alone the real thing
Kearns is a far left campaigner - indistinguishable from Polanski on policy - and sits at the heart of Kemi Badenoch’s team as Shadow Minister for National Security:
Kemi wants her to be the UK’s Minister for National Security.
Do you?
I’m wondering whether it’s possible that Yusuf is wrong and that Kearns is not indistinguishable from Polanski on policy.
So a plurality of Tory supporters oppose a trail hunting ban and less than half of Reform voters want to ban it either. The Boxing Day hunt also is a crucial part of village and rural life in areas like where I live. Hundreds turn out on the village green and the pub serves mulled wine as the hunt gathers and for its supporters in rural areas it is a big deal. Even if they have to hunt a trail or drag hunt now not a fox (whose numbers still need to be kept down).
Labour may try and ban trail hunting as most of its supporters want as it banned fox hunting but with Farage and Badenoch opposed to a trail hunting ban, if Labour lose power at the next general election it will be restored
There are perhaps only 170 hunt packs in England so this romanticised notion of every village welcoming its hunt with drinks and applause really needs to be challenged.
My only experience of this was in St Ives (Cornwall) several years ago when the Western Hunt paid the town a visit and it was all very congenial with a few supporters shouting and a small crowd applauding. For most, it was a curiousity and I suppose if there's a purpose to it, it shows urban people an aspect of rural life with which they would otherwise be unfamiliar.
I just think rural communities have a lot more serious issues than the future of the local Hunt.
Those foxhunts are spread across the country from Pembrokeshire to here in rural Essex, from Dumfriesshire to Wensleydale, the Cotswolds and Devon and will of course often stop at more than 1 village on a big hunt day than Boxing Day.
If Trail hunting supposedly doesn't kill foxes, what objection would hunts have to converting to Drag hunting? There doesn't seem to be one.
Also you keep bringing up the hunts keep the fox numbers down. If Trail hunts don't kill foxes how do they do that?
Also when fox hunts were allowed to kill they did not keep numbers down because that is not how Fox territories work. if you want I can go through the numbers for you but a simple example is to compare the City Fox to the Rural Fox. The City Fox has a much much much smaller territory than a Rural Fox (the territory is not controlled by extermination but food supply). Yet the City Office is effectively hunted and relentlessly so by the car. It is the major form of death for City Foxes and the average life span for a City Fox is 12 - 18 months but 3 years for a Rural Fox with some living up to 8 years.
So although the City Fox is culled and far more efficiently than a hunt its numbers are far greater. That is because food supply and not hunting is the determinant of the number of foxes.
Hunts used to kill 20 - 25,000 foxes a year. About 1.500,000 - 2,000,000 foxes are born each year. A killed foxes territory is simply taken over by another pair of foxes who will now breed.
If Trail hunting supposedly doesn't kill foxes why does it need to be banned?
Trail hunting also follows an animal based not artificial scent so is closer to the traditional sport of fox hunting Labour banned
Doh. Because they do kill foxes when they shouldn't. I think that has been shown quite clearly.
Which was of course the original purpose of the hunt until Labour in its class war banned it
I suspect it's becoming arguable that we should re-introduce deer hunting round here; both native species and muntjac are beginning to become pests. Guns, though, I think. Not packs of dogs.
Why Britain has a deer problem - leaving damage that costs millions
A lot of venison isn't wild these days, it's farmed. There's also a lot imported. I agree that having a lot more wild venison hunted and going into the food chain would be good.
We lead the world in country sports and coming over here to hunt should be far better promoted.
Wild deer are becoming quite a problem in parts of Highlands and Scotland. I would expect a fair bit more venison to end up on dinner plates soon
I was reading about this the other day. There are no predators to keep their numbers down so they are exploding.
There’s quite a few close to me. Get them in the local woods and along the coast to coast cycle path. As the years have gone on you see them more and more too.
Which is why we need to reintroduce lynx to the British Isles!
Well, I hope lynx are more traffic-aware than deer.
Given that they could use aniseed rather than animal scent, it's clearly just a ruse to continue actual fox hunting, do a ban seems justified. The actual control measure for fox numbers would seem to be the motor car. We have plenty of foxes in my urban area and they don't cause an issue if you secure your bins properly. Given I've seen the cubs being taught to raid bins while surrounded by grazing rabbits, I doubt they can be bothered with chickens either.
Next the clowns will want to ban driving cars
There’s a few who do, de growth is very much on the agenda for some. Limit the supply of energy and water and other key essentials and simply live within that and forget growth as it hurts the planet.
The EU has spent millions funding groups looking at it.
Climate change committee has made some suggestions on energy use which it wants to see implemented.
If energy supply is limited, I'd expect a big backlash from the masses. If taxes were put up on flying, transport, meat etc it would obviously favour the wealthy. I dont see how you could go for reduction in energy use without annoying a big part of the population
I’d agree so I expect they will do it by stealth rather than be open and above board about it. We need cheap energy. We’re not going to get it.
The Climate Change Committe is one of those unelected NGO’s that @Sandpit was referring to. It has no accountability. Get money from the govt and lobbies the govt on matters that will affect each and every one of us.
It would be better to abolish many of these NGO’s as the govt just subcontracts policy making to them.
So leave it all to Ed Miliband then?
Effectively we are already doing that with the Climate Change Committee. It’s merely there to lobby for what he/his team wants. Leave it to him and his department let them own it.
Or should we have governance by unelected NGO ?
That would seem to be the conclusion of Blair’s Third Way and Cameron’s Big Society.
Very much so.
I cannot see it changing either as these groups are so well entrenched. Any attempt to remove, or even reduce, them will be met with a robust response and media campaign as they are so well enmeshed with the media.
Irrespective of the facts the public will be convinced life will be worse without them.
Had to laugh at this passage from the CCCs 2025 progress report:
"Last year, we made making electricity cheaper our first recommendation. When people and businesses switch to electric technologies, they are paying more than the actual cost of supplying the extra electricity they demand, because of policy decisions taken many years ago. Removing policy costs from electricity would ensure the underlying cost-savings of switching to efficient electric technologies are captured by households and businesses, encouraging take-up. The Government has made no clear progress on removing policy costs since the election. Making electricity cheaper remains our first recommendation"
So far the government have been close to the opposite. Like so many other issues, it is aware of the problem but not doing anywhere near enough to address it. We are an energy abundant country, whether it is in wind, oil, gas, nuclear, solar.
The effort to reduce energy costs has been pathetic
This is so obvious it drives me nuts. Electricity is already much cleaner than the alternatives (particularly somewhere like Scotland), and over the next 25 years it's the source of energy that the UK will depend on the most. If we want to encourage people to use it, it has to be falling in cost relative to the alternatives, not the opposite. To be fair on the Labour government, they have removed a bunch of the green levies from electricty, which is sensible.
But the fact this obvious advice has been ignored so long rather proves that the CCC does not have the kind of power that the conspiracists think they do. The same goes for the OBR - Truss and Kwarteng bypassed them with ease and actually passed a budget with no oversight at all.
The problem is not a conspiracy - but systemic culture. Much of government is wired to implement rationing/reduction in energy usage. tap water = energy usage, therefore.
This is because, until a decade or two ago, the idea that we really could get to net zero with abundant energy usage was seen as impossible.
Electric cars came out of no-where - from the point of view of governments. They were on a path to hydrogen vehicles - and rationing those.
I saw this, when talking with an ex-Cabinet Office chap. When I started to talk about cheap green energy slowing a massive expansion of consumption, he actually said “but the policy….”
So we need to change the culture from “squeeze energy usage” to “luxuriate in cheap, green energy”
A simple example is the extreme dislike of air conditioning - which is complicating building and raising costs. Not to mention is needed when temperatures regularly go above 27c or so.
So a plurality of Tory supporters oppose a trail hunting ban and less than half of Reform voters want to ban it either. The Boxing Day hunt also is a crucial part of village and rural life in areas like where I live. Hundreds turn out on the village green and the pub serves mulled wine as the hunt gathers and for its supporters in rural areas it is a big deal. Even if they have to hunt a trail or drag hunt now not a fox (whose numbers still need to be kept down).
Labour may try and ban trail hunting as most of its supporters want as it banned fox hunting but with Farage and Badenoch opposed to a trail hunting ban, if Labour lose power at the next general election it will be restored
There are perhaps only 170 hunt packs in England so this romanticised notion of every village welcoming its hunt with drinks and applause really needs to be challenged.
My only experience of this was in St Ives (Cornwall) several years ago when the Western Hunt paid the town a visit and it was all very congenial with a few supporters shouting and a small crowd applauding. For most, it was a curiousity and I suppose if there's a purpose to it, it shows urban people an aspect of rural life with which they would otherwise be unfamiliar.
I just think rural communities have a lot more serious issues than the future of the local Hunt.
Those foxhunts are spread across the country from Pembrokeshire to here in rural Essex, from Dumfriesshire to Wensleydale, the Cotswolds and Devon and will of course often stop at more than 1 village on a big hunt day than Boxing Day.
If Trail hunting supposedly doesn't kill foxes, what objection would hunts have to converting to Drag hunting? There doesn't seem to be one.
Also you keep bringing up the hunts keep the fox numbers down. If Trail hunts don't kill foxes how do they do that?
Also when fox hunts were allowed to kill they did not keep numbers down because that is not how Fox territories work. if you want I can go through the numbers for you but a simple example is to compare the City Fox to the Rural Fox. The City Fox has a much much much smaller territory than a Rural Fox (the territory is not controlled by extermination but food supply). Yet the City Office is effectively hunted and relentlessly so by the car. It is the major form of death for City Foxes and the average life span for a City Fox is 12 - 18 months but 3 years for a Rural Fox with some living up to 8 years.
So although the City Fox is culled and far more efficiently than a hunt its numbers are far greater. That is because food supply and not hunting is the determinant of the number of foxes.
Hunts used to kill 20 - 25,000 foxes a year. About 1.500,000 - 2,000,000 foxes are born each year. A killed foxes territory is simply taken over by another pair of foxes who will now breed.
If Trail hunting supposedly doesn't kill foxes why does it need to be banned?
Trail hunting also follows an animal based not artificial scent so is closer to the traditional sport of fox hunting Labour banned
Doh. Because they do kill foxes when they shouldn't. I think that has been shown quite clearly.
Which was of course the original purpose of the hunt until Labour in its class war banned it
I suspect it's becoming arguable that we should re-introduce deer hunting round here; both native species and muntjac are beginning to become pests. Guns, though, I think. Not packs of dogs.
Why Britain has a deer problem - leaving damage that costs millions
A lot of venison isn't wild these days, it's farmed. There's also a lot imported. I agree that having a lot more wild venison hunted and going into the food chain would be good.
We lead the world in country sports and coming over here to hunt should be far better promoted.
Wild deer are becoming quite a problem in parts of Highlands and Scotland. I would expect a fair bit more venison to end up on dinner plates soon
I was reading about this the other day. There are no predators to keep their numbers down so they are exploding.
There’s quite a few close to me. Get them in the local woods and along the coast to coast cycle path. As the years have gone on you see them more and more too.
Which is why we need to reintroduce lynx to the British Isles!
Some of you may wish to watch the 1970s Jon Pertwee Dr Who serial "Frontier In Space", which is on Freeview channel 57 U&Eden. The Master has just turned up.
Well that’s not worked. My freeview goes from 56 to 58
I know selection of specific channels can be difficult depending on menu options. It may help if you press "57" directly but I don't know if that will mess up your specific settings. ☹️
So a plurality of Tory supporters oppose a trail hunting ban and less than half of Reform voters want to ban it either. The Boxing Day hunt also is a crucial part of village and rural life in areas like where I live. Hundreds turn out on the village green and the pub serves mulled wine as the hunt gathers and for its supporters in rural areas it is a big deal. Even if they have to hunt a trail or drag hunt now not a fox (whose numbers still need to be kept down).
Labour may try and ban trail hunting as most of its supporters want as it banned fox hunting but with Farage and Badenoch opposed to a trail hunting ban, if Labour lose power at the next general election it will be restored
There are perhaps only 170 hunt packs in England so this romanticised notion of every village welcoming its hunt with drinks and applause really needs to be challenged.
My only experience of this was in St Ives (Cornwall) several years ago when the Western Hunt paid the town a visit and it was all very congenial with a few supporters shouting and a small crowd applauding. For most, it was a curiousity and I suppose if there's a purpose to it, it shows urban people an aspect of rural life with which they would otherwise be unfamiliar.
I just think rural communities have a lot more serious issues than the future of the local Hunt.
Those foxhunts are spread across the country from Pembrokeshire to here in rural Essex, from Dumfriesshire to Wensleydale, the Cotswolds and Devon and will of course often stop at more than 1 village on a big hunt day than Boxing Day.
If Trail hunting supposedly doesn't kill foxes, what objection would hunts have to converting to Drag hunting? There doesn't seem to be one.
Also you keep bringing up the hunts keep the fox numbers down. If Trail hunts don't kill foxes how do they do that?
Also when fox hunts were allowed to kill they did not keep numbers down because that is not how Fox territories work. if you want I can go through the numbers for you but a simple example is to compare the City Fox to the Rural Fox. The City Fox has a much much much smaller territory than a Rural Fox (the territory is not controlled by extermination but food supply). Yet the City Office is effectively hunted and relentlessly so by the car. It is the major form of death for City Foxes and the average life span for a City Fox is 12 - 18 months but 3 years for a Rural Fox with some living up to 8 years.
So although the City Fox is culled and far more efficiently than a hunt its numbers are far greater. That is because food supply and not hunting is the determinant of the number of foxes.
Hunts used to kill 20 - 25,000 foxes a year. About 1.500,000 - 2,000,000 foxes are born each year. A killed foxes territory is simply taken over by another pair of foxes who will now breed.
If Trail hunting supposedly doesn't kill foxes why does it need to be banned?
Trail hunting also follows an animal based not artificial scent so is closer to the traditional sport of fox hunting Labour banned
Doh. Because they do kill foxes when they shouldn't. I think that has been shown quite clearly.
Which was of course the original purpose of the hunt until Labour in its class war banned it
I suspect it's becoming arguable that we should re-introduce deer hunting round here; both native species and muntjac are beginning to become pests. Guns, though, I think. Not packs of dogs.
Why Britain has a deer problem - leaving damage that costs millions
A lot of venison isn't wild these days, it's farmed. There's also a lot imported. I agree that having a lot more wild venison hunted and going into the food chain would be good.
We lead the world in country sports and coming over here to hunt should be far better promoted.
Wild deer are becoming quite a problem in parts of Highlands and Scotland. I would expect a fair bit more venison to end up on dinner plates soon
I was reading about this the other day. There are no predators to keep their numbers down so they are exploding.
There’s quite a few close to me. Get them in the local woods and along the coast to coast cycle path. As the years have gone on you see them more and more too.
Which is why we need to reintroduce lynx to the British Isles!
Other brands of shower gel are also available.
Not as attractive to young females though. Allegedly.
Never needed it myself. Wasn't available then, anyway!!
So a plurality of Tory supporters oppose a trail hunting ban and less than half of Reform voters want to ban it either. The Boxing Day hunt also is a crucial part of village and rural life in areas like where I live. Hundreds turn out on the village green and the pub serves mulled wine as the hunt gathers and for its supporters in rural areas it is a big deal. Even if they have to hunt a trail or drag hunt now not a fox (whose numbers still need to be kept down).
Labour may try and ban trail hunting as most of its supporters want as it banned fox hunting but with Farage and Badenoch opposed to a trail hunting ban, if Labour lose power at the next general election it will be restored
There are perhaps only 170 hunt packs in England so this romanticised notion of every village welcoming its hunt with drinks and applause really needs to be challenged.
My only experience of this was in St Ives (Cornwall) several years ago when the Western Hunt paid the town a visit and it was all very congenial with a few supporters shouting and a small crowd applauding. For most, it was a curiousity and I suppose if there's a purpose to it, it shows urban people an aspect of rural life with which they would otherwise be unfamiliar.
I just think rural communities have a lot more serious issues than the future of the local Hunt.
Those foxhunts are spread across the country from Pembrokeshire to here in rural Essex, from Dumfriesshire to Wensleydale, the Cotswolds and Devon and will of course often stop at more than 1 village on a big hunt day than Boxing Day.
If Trail hunting supposedly doesn't kill foxes, what objection would hunts have to converting to Drag hunting? There doesn't seem to be one.
Also you keep bringing up the hunts keep the fox numbers down. If Trail hunts don't kill foxes how do they do that?
Also when fox hunts were allowed to kill they did not keep numbers down because that is not how Fox territories work. if you want I can go through the numbers for you but a simple example is to compare the City Fox to the Rural Fox. The City Fox has a much much much smaller territory than a Rural Fox (the territory is not controlled by extermination but food supply). Yet the City Office is effectively hunted and relentlessly so by the car. It is the major form of death for City Foxes and the average life span for a City Fox is 12 - 18 months but 3 years for a Rural Fox with some living up to 8 years.
So although the City Fox is culled and far more efficiently than a hunt its numbers are far greater. That is because food supply and not hunting is the determinant of the number of foxes.
Hunts used to kill 20 - 25,000 foxes a year. About 1.500,000 - 2,000,000 foxes are born each year. A killed foxes territory is simply taken over by another pair of foxes who will now breed.
If Trail hunting supposedly doesn't kill foxes why does it need to be banned?
Trail hunting also follows an animal based not artificial scent so is closer to the traditional sport of fox hunting Labour banned
Doh. Because they do kill foxes when they shouldn't. I think that has been shown quite clearly.
Which was of course the original purpose of the hunt until Labour in its class war banned it
I suspect it's becoming arguable that we should re-introduce deer hunting round here; both native species and muntjac are beginning to become pests. Guns, though, I think. Not packs of dogs.
Why Britain has a deer problem - leaving damage that costs millions
A lot of venison isn't wild these days, it's farmed. There's also a lot imported. I agree that having a lot more wild venison hunted and going into the food chain would be good.
We lead the world in country sports and coming over here to hunt should be far better promoted.
Wild deer are becoming quite a problem in parts of Highlands and Scotland. I would expect a fair bit more venison to end up on dinner plates soon
I was reading about this the other day. There are no predators to keep their numbers down so they are exploding.
There’s quite a few close to me. Get them in the local woods and along the coast to coast cycle path. As the years have gone on you see them more and more too.
Which is why we need to reintroduce lynx to the British Isles!
Speaking of blood sports. As a teenager I witnessed a scorpion fight a few doors down from my local Wetherspoons in an abandoned building, which was rather random.
Never heard of a fox hunt with dogs in these parts, despite being pretty rural. Pheasant shoots are ten a penny.
Any scorpion that fights a few doors (presumably winning some) is obviously a hard bastard of a scorpion.
Bet he gets lots of space at the bar at the ‘spoons.
I’m more intrigued by the Wetherspoons being in an abandoned building
To be fair to Spoons, plenty of their pubs have given a new lease of life to abandoned buildings, especially former banks.
Some of you may wish to watch the 1970s Jon Pertwee Dr Who serial "Frontier In Space", which is on Freeview channel 57 U&Eden. The Master has just turned up.
Well that’s not worked. My freeview goes from 56 to 58
I know selection of specific channels can be difficult depending on menu options. It may help if you press "57" directly but I don't know if that will mess up your specific settings. ☹️
So a plurality of Tory supporters oppose a trail hunting ban and less than half of Reform voters want to ban it either. The Boxing Day hunt also is a crucial part of village and rural life in areas like where I live. Hundreds turn out on the village green and the pub serves mulled wine as the hunt gathers and for its supporters in rural areas it is a big deal. Even if they have to hunt a trail or drag hunt now not a fox (whose numbers still need to be kept down).
Labour may try and ban trail hunting as most of its supporters want as it banned fox hunting but with Farage and Badenoch opposed to a trail hunting ban, if Labour lose power at the next general election it will be restored
There are perhaps only 170 hunt packs in England so this romanticised notion of every village welcoming its hunt with drinks and applause really needs to be challenged.
My only experience of this was in St Ives (Cornwall) several years ago when the Western Hunt paid the town a visit and it was all very congenial with a few supporters shouting and a small crowd applauding. For most, it was a curiousity and I suppose if there's a purpose to it, it shows urban people an aspect of rural life with which they would otherwise be unfamiliar.
I just think rural communities have a lot more serious issues than the future of the local Hunt.
Those foxhunts are spread across the country from Pembrokeshire to here in rural Essex, from Dumfriesshire to Wensleydale, the Cotswolds and Devon and will of course often stop at more than 1 village on a big hunt day than Boxing Day.
If Trail hunting supposedly doesn't kill foxes, what objection would hunts have to converting to Drag hunting? There doesn't seem to be one.
Also you keep bringing up the hunts keep the fox numbers down. If Trail hunts don't kill foxes how do they do that?
Also when fox hunts were allowed to kill they did not keep numbers down because that is not how Fox territories work. if you want I can go through the numbers for you but a simple example is to compare the City Fox to the Rural Fox. The City Fox has a much much much smaller territory than a Rural Fox (the territory is not controlled by extermination but food supply). Yet the City Office is effectively hunted and relentlessly so by the car. It is the major form of death for City Foxes and the average life span for a City Fox is 12 - 18 months but 3 years for a Rural Fox with some living up to 8 years.
So although the City Fox is culled and far more efficiently than a hunt its numbers are far greater. That is because food supply and not hunting is the determinant of the number of foxes.
Hunts used to kill 20 - 25,000 foxes a year. About 1.500,000 - 2,000,000 foxes are born each year. A killed foxes territory is simply taken over by another pair of foxes who will now breed.
If Trail hunting supposedly doesn't kill foxes why does it need to be banned?
Trail hunting also follows an animal based not artificial scent so is closer to the traditional sport of fox hunting Labour banned
Doh. Because they do kill foxes when they shouldn't. I think that has been shown quite clearly.
Which was of course the original purpose of the hunt until Labour in its class war banned it
I suspect it's becoming arguable that we should re-introduce deer hunting round here; both native species and muntjac are beginning to become pests. Guns, though, I think. Not packs of dogs.
Why Britain has a deer problem - leaving damage that costs millions
A lot of venison isn't wild these days, it's farmed. There's also a lot imported. I agree that having a lot more wild venison hunted and going into the food chain would be good.
We lead the world in country sports and coming over here to hunt should be far better promoted.
Wild deer are becoming quite a problem in parts of Highlands and Scotland. I would expect a fair bit more venison to end up on dinner plates soon
I was reading about this the other day. There are no predators to keep their numbers down so they are exploding.
There’s quite a few close to me. Get them in the local woods and along the coast to coast cycle path. As the years have gone on you see them more and more too.
Which is why we need to reintroduce lynx to the British Isles!
Other brands of shower gel are also available.
It’s Alan Partridges favourite so probably not for the trendy out there.
"Against this backdrop, thoughtful dissenters will consider whether an early election could be forced by via some kind of general strike blended with a dose of fuel and port blockades."
Little dig at the Telegraph there. Sure the article can’t be irrational and is well reasoned.
Clicks on article
Sees it’s Isobel Oakshott.
Clicks off promptly.
Reform know their only chance is to get an early election - within the next 12-18 months - while it is still Labour vs Not Labour and they can look an attractive and viable alternative to the current Government.
After that, it becomes more problematic as one of a number of things might happen (and I stress these are neither in order of likelihood nor desirability).
Labour gets its act together and economy starts improving The Conservative messaging on the economy in particular starts to resonate Reform's own internal contradictions start tearing it apart
Some of you may wish to watch the 1970s Jon Pertwee Dr Who serial "Frontier In Space", which is on Freeview channel 57 U&Eden. The Master has just turned up.
Well that’s not worked. My freeview goes from 56 to 58
I know selection of specific channels can be difficult depending on menu options. It may help if you press "57" directly but I don't know if that will mess up your specific settings. ☹️
Invalid channel comes up
I’ve tried to refresh too.
Maybe we don’t get it in Tyne Tees.
I’ve got the Blu Ray as well as the DVD anyway.
And it’s on iPlayer.
Indeed. I watched the glorious Power of Kroll on it on Xmas Eve.
Kearns is a far left campaigner - indistinguishable from Polanski on policy - and sits at the heart of Kemi Badenoch’s team as Shadow Minister for National Security:
Kemi wants her to be the UK’s Minister for National Security.
Do you?
I’m wondering whether it’s possible that Yusuf is wrong and that Kearns is not indistinguishable from Polanski on policy.
It is complete tripe. And I had thought he was one of the more sane voices in Reform.
I’d love to know just how far into the organs of state this high profile campaign and deification of this unpleasant Egyptian chap and his equally unpleasant family went exactly as well as wilful ignorance of their output.
“ This is @AndrewMarr9 in 2022 "Alaa is clearly a very very important probably the most important activist and pro democracy campaigner in his region and he's also a very very fine writer."
Given that they could use aniseed rather than animal scent, it's clearly just a ruse to continue actual fox hunting, do a ban seems justified. The actual control measure for fox numbers would seem to be the motor car. We have plenty of foxes in my urban area and they don't cause an issue if you secure your bins properly. Given I've seen the cubs being taught to raid bins while surrounded by grazing rabbits, I doubt they can be bothered with chickens either.
Next the clowns will want to ban driving cars
There’s a few who do, de growth is very much on the agenda for some. Limit the supply of energy and water and other key essentials and simply live within that and forget growth as it hurts the planet.
The EU has spent millions funding groups looking at it.
Climate change committee has made some suggestions on energy use which it wants to see implemented.
If energy supply is limited, I'd expect a big backlash from the masses. If taxes were put up on flying, transport, meat etc it would obviously favour the wealthy. I dont see how you could go for reduction in energy use without annoying a big part of the population
I’d agree so I expect they will do it by stealth rather than be open and above board about it. We need cheap energy. We’re not going to get it.
The Climate Change Committe is one of those unelected NGO’s that @Sandpit was referring to. It has no accountability. Get money from the govt and lobbies the govt on matters that will affect each and every one of us.
It would be better to abolish many of these NGO’s as the govt just subcontracts policy making to them.
So leave it all to Ed Miliband then?
Effectively we are already doing that with the Climate Change Committee. It’s merely there to lobby for what he/his team wants. Leave it to him and his department let them own it.
Or should we have governance by unelected NGO ?
That would seem to be the conclusion of Blair’s Third Way and Cameron’s Big Society.
Very much so.
I cannot see it changing either as these groups are so well entrenched. Any attempt to remove, or even reduce, them will be met with a robust response and media campaign as they are so well enmeshed with the media.
Irrespective of the facts the public will be convinced life will be worse without them.
Had to laugh at this passage from the CCCs 2025 progress report:
"Last year, we made making electricity cheaper our first recommendation. When people and businesses switch to electric technologies, they are paying more than the actual cost of supplying the extra electricity they demand, because of policy decisions taken many years ago. Removing policy costs from electricity would ensure the underlying cost-savings of switching to efficient electric technologies are captured by households and businesses, encouraging take-up. The Government has made no clear progress on removing policy costs since the election. Making electricity cheaper remains our first recommendation"
So far the government have been close to the opposite. Like so many other issues, it is aware of the problem but not doing anywhere near enough to address it. We are an energy abundant country, whether it is in wind, oil, gas, nuclear, solar.
The effort to reduce energy costs has been pathetic
The annoying thing is, if we had made the right decisions 10-15 years ago on tidal and nuclear we would now be almost energy independent and could tell Putin to go fuck himself.
Oh, and energy would be a lot cheaper.
But we didn't (with the partial exception of Scotland which I think does produce all of its energy from renewable domestic sources but doesn't have the infrastructure to manage it independently).
We clearly aren't bothered about becoming energy independent. Otherwise,the government wouldn't be funding new-build CCGT and blue hydrogen capacity at the same time as blocking exploration and development of indigenous natural gas reserves.
I don't think I've mentioned this for at least a fortnight, so nice to give it another airing before the year is out.
Some of you may wish to watch the 1970s Jon Pertwee Dr Who serial "Frontier In Space", which is on Freeview channel 57 U&Eden. The Master has just turned up.
Well that’s not worked. My freeview goes from 56 to 58
He's truly evil, that Master. Can bend time and space...
"Against this backdrop, thoughtful dissenters will consider whether an early election could be forced by via some kind of general strike blended with a dose of fuel and port blockades."
Little dig at the Telegraph there. Sure the article can’t be irrational and is well reasoned.
Clicks on article
Sees it’s Isobel Oakshott.
Clicks off promptly.
Reform know their only chance is to get an early election - within the next 12-18 months - while it is still Labour vs Not Labour and they can look an attractive and viable alternative to the current Government.
After that, it becomes more problematic as one of a number of things might happen (and I stress these are neither in order of likelihood nor desirability).
Labour gets its act together and economy starts improving The Conservative messaging on the economy in particular starts to resonate Reform's own internal contradictions start tearing it apart
1 won’t happen. Labours goose is cooked and any replacement for SKS and Reeves will be economically worse.
2 has started already. The Tories would be insane to get rid of her in my view.
3 given his track record I’d say there’s a strong chance of that but if it doesn’t happen then it’s game on.
So a plurality of Tory supporters oppose a trail hunting ban and less than half of Reform voters want to ban it either. The Boxing Day hunt also is a crucial part of village and rural life in areas like where I live. Hundreds turn out on the village green and the pub serves mulled wine as the hunt gathers and for its supporters in rural areas it is a big deal. Even if they have to hunt a trail or drag hunt now not a fox (whose numbers still need to be kept down).
Labour may try and ban trail hunting as most of its supporters want as it banned fox hunting but with Farage and Badenoch opposed to a trail hunting ban, if Labour lose power at the next general election it will be restored
There are perhaps only 170 hunt packs in England so this romanticised notion of every village welcoming its hunt with drinks and applause really needs to be challenged.
My only experience of this was in St Ives (Cornwall) several years ago when the Western Hunt paid the town a visit and it was all very congenial with a few supporters shouting and a small crowd applauding. For most, it was a curiousity and I suppose if there's a purpose to it, it shows urban people an aspect of rural life with which they would otherwise be unfamiliar.
I just think rural communities have a lot more serious issues than the future of the local Hunt.
Those foxhunts are spread across the country from Pembrokeshire to here in rural Essex, from Dumfriesshire to Wensleydale, the Cotswolds and Devon and will of course often stop at more than 1 village on a big hunt day than Boxing Day.
If Trail hunting supposedly doesn't kill foxes, what objection would hunts have to converting to Drag hunting? There doesn't seem to be one.
Also you keep bringing up the hunts keep the fox numbers down. If Trail hunts don't kill foxes how do they do that?
Also when fox hunts were allowed to kill they did not keep numbers down because that is not how Fox territories work. if you want I can go through the numbers for you but a simple example is to compare the City Fox to the Rural Fox. The City Fox has a much much much smaller territory than a Rural Fox (the territory is not controlled by extermination but food supply). Yet the City Office is effectively hunted and relentlessly so by the car. It is the major form of death for City Foxes and the average life span for a City Fox is 12 - 18 months but 3 years for a Rural Fox with some living up to 8 years.
So although the City Fox is culled and far more efficiently than a hunt its numbers are far greater. That is because food supply and not hunting is the determinant of the number of foxes.
Hunts used to kill 20 - 25,000 foxes a year. About 1.500,000 - 2,000,000 foxes are born each year. A killed foxes territory is simply taken over by another pair of foxes who will now breed.
If Trail hunting supposedly doesn't kill foxes why does it need to be banned?
Trail hunting also follows an animal based not artificial scent so is closer to the traditional sport of fox hunting Labour banned
Doh. Because they do kill foxes when they shouldn't. I think that has been shown quite clearly.
Which was of course the original purpose of the hunt until Labour in its class war banned it
I suspect it's becoming arguable that we should re-introduce deer hunting round here; both native species and muntjac are beginning to become pests. Guns, though, I think. Not packs of dogs.
Why Britain has a deer problem - leaving damage that costs millions
A lot of venison isn't wild these days, it's farmed. There's also a lot imported. I agree that having a lot more wild venison hunted and going into the food chain would be good.
We lead the world in country sports and coming over here to hunt should be far better promoted.
Wild deer are becoming quite a problem in parts of Highlands and Scotland. I would expect a fair bit more venison to end up on dinner plates soon
They are a problem in England too - for nightingales. Nightingales are skulking bastards that love dense scrub. The deer just smash through it and destroy it - and the nightingale habitat is gone. With it, their wondrous song.
Kearns is a far left campaigner - indistinguishable from Polanski on policy - and sits at the heart of Kemi Badenoch’s team as Shadow Minister for National Security:
Kemi wants her to be the UK’s Minister for National Security.
Do you?
yep, no nutters in reform at all
Yusuf is probably this generation's Mandelson or Osborne. Not someone to be underestimated.
Speaking of blood sports. As a teenager I witnessed a scorpion fight a few doors down from my local Wetherspoons in an abandoned building, which was rather random.
Never heard of a fox hunt with dogs in these parts, despite being pretty rural. Pheasant shoots are ten a penny.
Any scorpion that fights a few doors (presumably winning some) is obviously a hard bastard of a scorpion.
Bet he gets lots of space at the bar at the ‘spoons.
I’m more intrigued by the Wetherspoons being in an abandoned building
To be fair to Spoons, plenty of their pubs have given a new lease of life to abandoned buildings, especially former banks.
Although not a Spoons this place used to be a bank.
When I catch the bus to,the toon go past it and I’ve never been tempted to get off and go in, the sight of half a dozen surly looking blokes chain smoking outside puts me off a little.
The Russian fake news story about Ukraine’s alleged attack on Putin’s residence near Lake Valdai appears to have been a spontaneous response to reports of a positive outcome from the Trump–Zelensky meeting at Mar-a-Lago last Sunday.. https://x.com/A_SHEKH0VTS0V/status/2005951437411385656
Trump doesn't seem to be only one gullible enough to fall for a clearly fake story.
Modi also publicly expressed his "deep concern" for the murderous dictator.
Given that they could use aniseed rather than animal scent, it's clearly just a ruse to continue actual fox hunting, do a ban seems justified. The actual control measure for fox numbers would seem to be the motor car. We have plenty of foxes in my urban area and they don't cause an issue if you secure your bins properly. Given I've seen the cubs being taught to raid bins while surrounded by grazing rabbits, I doubt they can be bothered with chickens either.
Next the clowns will want to ban driving cars
There’s a few who do, de growth is very much on the agenda for some. Limit the supply of energy and water and other key essentials and simply live within that and forget growth as it hurts the planet.
The EU has spent millions funding groups looking at it.
Climate change committee has made some suggestions on energy use which it wants to see implemented.
If energy supply is limited, I'd expect a big backlash from the masses. If taxes were put up on flying, transport, meat etc it would obviously favour the wealthy. I dont see how you could go for reduction in energy use without annoying a big part of the population
I’d agree so I expect they will do it by stealth rather than be open and above board about it. We need cheap energy. We’re not going to get it.
The Climate Change Committe is one of those unelected NGO’s that @Sandpit was referring to. It has no accountability. Get money from the govt and lobbies the govt on matters that will affect each and every one of us.
It would be better to abolish many of these NGO’s as the govt just subcontracts policy making to them.
So leave it all to Ed Miliband then?
Effectively we are already doing that with the Climate Change Committee. It’s merely there to lobby for what he/his team wants. Leave it to him and his department let them own it.
Or should we have governance by unelected NGO ?
That would seem to be the conclusion of Blair’s Third Way and Cameron’s Big Society.
Very much so.
I cannot see it changing either as these groups are so well entrenched. Any attempt to remove, or even reduce, them will be met with a robust response and media campaign as they are so well enmeshed with the media.
Irrespective of the facts the public will be convinced life will be worse without them.
Had to laugh at this passage from the CCCs 2025 progress report:
"Last year, we made making electricity cheaper our first recommendation. When people and businesses switch to electric technologies, they are paying more than the actual cost of supplying the extra electricity they demand, because of policy decisions taken many years ago. Removing policy costs from electricity would ensure the underlying cost-savings of switching to efficient electric technologies are captured by households and businesses, encouraging take-up. The Government has made no clear progress on removing policy costs since the election. Making electricity cheaper remains our first recommendation"
So far the government have been close to the opposite. Like so many other issues, it is aware of the problem but not doing anywhere near enough to address it. We are an energy abundant country, whether it is in wind, oil, gas, nuclear, solar.
The effort to reduce energy costs has been pathetic
This is so obvious it drives me nuts. Electricity is already much cleaner than the alternatives (particularly somewhere like Scotland), and over the next 25 years it's the source of energy that the UK will depend on the most. If we want to encourage people to use it, it has to be falling in cost relative to the alternatives, not the opposite. To be fair on the Labour government, they have removed a bunch of the green levies from electricty, which is sensible.
But the fact this obvious advice has been ignored so long rather proves that the CCC does not have the kind of power that the conspiracists think they do. The same goes for the OBR - Truss and Kwarteng bypassed them with ease and actually passed a budget with no oversight at all.
The problem is not a conspiracy - but systemic culture. Much of government is wired to implement rationing/reduction in energy usage. tap water = energy usage, therefore.
This is because, until a decade or two ago, the idea that we really could get to net zero with abundant energy usage was seen as impossible.
Electric cars came out of no-where - from the point of view of governments. They were on a path to hydrogen vehicles - and rationing those.
I saw this, when talking with an ex-Cabinet Office chap. When I started to talk about cheap green energy slowing a massive expansion of consumption, he actually said “but the policy….”
So we need to change the culture from “squeeze energy usage” to “luxuriate in cheap, green energy”
A simple example is the extreme dislike of air conditioning - which is complicating building and raising costs. Not to mention is needed when temperatures regularly go above 27c or so.
The insane cheapness of solar panels probably shouldn't have been a surprise- it was just extrapolating the exisiting trend. The cheapness of batteries (which really do change the dynamics) rather more so. It means that the 'net 5%' solution is pretty obvious; solar wherever we can, wind where it's easy, lots of batteries and gas on standby. We just have to put in the capital spending to make it happen. On top of that, one of the arguments against CO2 extraction solutions (olivine weathering, for example) has tended to be the energy-intensiveness of the processes. Intuitively, it feels like there is a solution where they are used to mop up excess electricity at times of peak production.
On the aircon thing, didn't the government relax the rules this summer?
The more interesting question is when will those on the right notice that their support for fossil fuels really is utterly quixotic?
So a plurality of Tory supporters oppose a trail hunting ban and less than half of Reform voters want to ban it either. The Boxing Day hunt also is a crucial part of village and rural life in areas like where I live. Hundreds turn out on the village green and the pub serves mulled wine as the hunt gathers and for its supporters in rural areas it is a big deal. Even if they have to hunt a trail or drag hunt now not a fox (whose numbers still need to be kept down).
Labour may try and ban trail hunting as most of its supporters want as it banned fox hunting but with Farage and Badenoch opposed to a trail hunting ban, if Labour lose power at the next general election it will be restored
There are perhaps only 170 hunt packs in England so this romanticised notion of every village welcoming its hunt with drinks and applause really needs to be challenged.
My only experience of this was in St Ives (Cornwall) several years ago when the Western Hunt paid the town a visit and it was all very congenial with a few supporters shouting and a small crowd applauding. For most, it was a curiousity and I suppose if there's a purpose to it, it shows urban people an aspect of rural life with which they would otherwise be unfamiliar.
I just think rural communities have a lot more serious issues than the future of the local Hunt.
Those foxhunts are spread across the country from Pembrokeshire to here in rural Essex, from Dumfriesshire to Wensleydale, the Cotswolds and Devon and will of course often stop at more than 1 village on a big hunt day than Boxing Day.
If Trail hunting supposedly doesn't kill foxes, what objection would hunts have to converting to Drag hunting? There doesn't seem to be one.
Also you keep bringing up the hunts keep the fox numbers down. If Trail hunts don't kill foxes how do they do that?
Also when fox hunts were allowed to kill they did not keep numbers down because that is not how Fox territories work. if you want I can go through the numbers for you but a simple example is to compare the City Fox to the Rural Fox. The City Fox has a much much much smaller territory than a Rural Fox (the territory is not controlled by extermination but food supply). Yet the City Office is effectively hunted and relentlessly so by the car. It is the major form of death for City Foxes and the average life span for a City Fox is 12 - 18 months but 3 years for a Rural Fox with some living up to 8 years.
So although the City Fox is culled and far more efficiently than a hunt its numbers are far greater. That is because food supply and not hunting is the determinant of the number of foxes.
Hunts used to kill 20 - 25,000 foxes a year. About 1.500,000 - 2,000,000 foxes are born each year. A killed foxes territory is simply taken over by another pair of foxes who will now breed.
If Trail hunting supposedly doesn't kill foxes why does it need to be banned?
Trail hunting also follows an animal based not artificial scent so is closer to the traditional sport of fox hunting Labour banned
Doh. Because they do kill foxes when they shouldn't. I think that has been shown quite clearly.
Which was of course the original purpose of the hunt until Labour in its class war banned it
I suspect it's becoming arguable that we should re-introduce deer hunting round here; both native species and muntjac are beginning to become pests. Guns, though, I think. Not packs of dogs.
Why Britain has a deer problem - leaving damage that costs millions
A lot of venison isn't wild these days, it's farmed. There's also a lot imported. I agree that having a lot more wild venison hunted and going into the food chain would be good.
We lead the world in country sports and coming over here to hunt should be far better promoted.
Wild deer are becoming quite a problem in parts of Highlands and Scotland. I would expect a fair bit more venison to end up on dinner plates soon
They are a problem in England too - for nightingales. Nightingales are skulking bastards that love dense scrub. The deer just smash through it and destroy it - and the nightingale habitat is gone. With it, their wondrous song.
"Against this backdrop, thoughtful dissenters will consider whether an early election could be forced by via some kind of general strike blended with a dose of fuel and port blockades."
Little dig at the Telegraph there. Sure the article can’t be irrational and is well reasoned.
Clicks on article
Sees it’s Isobel Oakshott.
Clicks off promptly.
Reform know their only chance is to get an early election - within the next 12-18 months - while it is still Labour vs Not Labour and they can look an attractive and viable alternative to the current Government.
After that, it becomes more problematic as one of a number of things might happen (and I stress these are neither in order of likelihood nor desirability).
Labour gets its act together and economy starts improving The Conservative messaging on the economy in particular starts to resonate Reform's own internal contradictions start tearing it apart
1 won’t happen. Labours goose is cooked and any replacement for SKS and Reeves will be economically worse.
2 has started already. The Tories would be insane to get rid of her in my view.
3 given his track record I’d say there’s a strong chance of that but if it doesn’t happen then it’s game on.
We're a long way off an election and it's wishful thinking to imagine Labour can't or won't recover. In any case, IF economic perceptions change and people start to "feel" better (even if the truth is otherwise) that will lead a rebound in Labour polling numbers.
As for Badenoch, I've said on here a number of times she has had a good autumn but it's probable the May local elections will be painful and that will be the point of challenge. Don't underestimate the ability of people to do silly things and if 60 Conservative MPs see their seats going to Reform, that might be enough for a successful challenge.
As for Reform, the prospect of victory does wonders for party unity (look at how little trouble the "left" gave Blair after he became leader and started looking popular) so as long as they look the next Government internal dissent will be silenced but as soon as it starts becoming clear they won't win - let's say a winnable by-election isn't won - the knives will be out.
The window of opportunity for Reform isn't going to be open for ever but they are in no position to force an election and encouraging what amounts to civil insurrection to get one is ludicrous. The only way there would be an election is if Labour MPs wanted one and on most polling numbers most won't.
So a plurality of Tory supporters oppose a trail hunting ban and less than half of Reform voters want to ban it either. The Boxing Day hunt also is a crucial part of village and rural life in areas like where I live. Hundreds turn out on the village green and the pub serves mulled wine as the hunt gathers and for its supporters in rural areas it is a big deal. Even if they have to hunt a trail or drag hunt now not a fox (whose numbers still need to be kept down).
Labour may try and ban trail hunting as most of its supporters want as it banned fox hunting but with Farage and Badenoch opposed to a trail hunting ban, if Labour lose power at the next general election it will be restored
There are perhaps only 170 hunt packs in England so this romanticised notion of every village welcoming its hunt with drinks and applause really needs to be challenged.
My only experience of this was in St Ives (Cornwall) several years ago when the Western Hunt paid the town a visit and it was all very congenial with a few supporters shouting and a small crowd applauding. For most, it was a curiousity and I suppose if there's a purpose to it, it shows urban people an aspect of rural life with which they would otherwise be unfamiliar.
I just think rural communities have a lot more serious issues than the future of the local Hunt.
Those foxhunts are spread across the country from Pembrokeshire to here in rural Essex, from Dumfriesshire to Wensleydale, the Cotswolds and Devon and will of course often stop at more than 1 village on a big hunt day than Boxing Day.
If Trail hunting supposedly doesn't kill foxes, what objection would hunts have to converting to Drag hunting? There doesn't seem to be one.
Also you keep bringing up the hunts keep the fox numbers down. If Trail hunts don't kill foxes how do they do that?
Also when fox hunts were allowed to kill they did not keep numbers down because that is not how Fox territories work. if you want I can go through the numbers for you but a simple example is to compare the City Fox to the Rural Fox. The City Fox has a much much much smaller territory than a Rural Fox (the territory is not controlled by extermination but food supply). Yet the City Office is effectively hunted and relentlessly so by the car. It is the major form of death for City Foxes and the average life span for a City Fox is 12 - 18 months but 3 years for a Rural Fox with some living up to 8 years.
So although the City Fox is culled and far more efficiently than a hunt its numbers are far greater. That is because food supply and not hunting is the determinant of the number of foxes.
Hunts used to kill 20 - 25,000 foxes a year. About 1.500,000 - 2,000,000 foxes are born each year. A killed foxes territory is simply taken over by another pair of foxes who will now breed.
If Trail hunting supposedly doesn't kill foxes why does it need to be banned?
Trail hunting also follows an animal based not artificial scent so is closer to the traditional sport of fox hunting Labour banned
Doh. Because they do kill foxes when they shouldn't. I think that has been shown quite clearly.
Which was of course the original purpose of the hunt until Labour in its class war banned it
I suspect it's becoming arguable that we should re-introduce deer hunting round here; both native species and muntjac are beginning to become pests. Guns, though, I think. Not packs of dogs.
Why Britain has a deer problem - leaving damage that costs millions
A lot of venison isn't wild these days, it's farmed. There's also a lot imported. I agree that having a lot more wild venison hunted and going into the food chain would be good.
We lead the world in country sports and coming over here to hunt should be far better promoted.
Wild deer are becoming quite a problem in parts of Highlands and Scotland. I would expect a fair bit more venison to end up on dinner plates soon
I was reading about this the other day. There are no predators to keep their numbers down so they are exploding.
There’s quite a few close to me. Get them in the local woods and along the coast to coast cycle path. As the years have gone on you see them more and more too.
Aw yuk. Exploding deer.
Need wolves, or venison on the menu more.
We used to have a lot around us, but I haven't seen one for awhile. I have caught quite a few on the video cameras in my garden. The last one we had in the garden was a couple of years ago now. He came in frequently, but as I mentioned earlier he got a head wound that was full of maggots. I knew something was wrong when he didn't run away from me. I put a rope around his neck and sat with him until someone came from a deer charity we had called. They shot him and took him away. They said he would be left in a wood for other animals.
Our dog finds deer carcasses in the wood on our walks regularly.
We also hit a deer in the car (my wife was driving!). It went underneath and came out the back and got up and ran away. I looked for it but couldn't find it. Difficult to believe it wasn't badly injured. The headlight was smashed and there was a lot of hair on the front of the car.
Given that they could use aniseed rather than animal scent, it's clearly just a ruse to continue actual fox hunting, do a ban seems justified. The actual control measure for fox numbers would seem to be the motor car. We have plenty of foxes in my urban area and they don't cause an issue if you secure your bins properly. Given I've seen the cubs being taught to raid bins while surrounded by grazing rabbits, I doubt they can be bothered with chickens either.
Next the clowns will want to ban driving cars
There’s a few who do, de growth is very much on the agenda for some. Limit the supply of energy and water and other key essentials and simply live within that and forget growth as it hurts the planet.
The EU has spent millions funding groups looking at it.
Climate change committee has made some suggestions on energy use which it wants to see implemented.
If energy supply is limited, I'd expect a big backlash from the masses. If taxes were put up on flying, transport, meat etc it would obviously favour the wealthy. I dont see how you could go for reduction in energy use without annoying a big part of the population
I’d agree so I expect they will do it by stealth rather than be open and above board about it. We need cheap energy. We’re not going to get it.
The Climate Change Committe is one of those unelected NGO’s that @Sandpit was referring to. It has no accountability. Get money from the govt and lobbies the govt on matters that will affect each and every one of us.
It would be better to abolish many of these NGO’s as the govt just subcontracts policy making to them.
So leave it all to Ed Miliband then?
Effectively we are already doing that with the Climate Change Committee. It’s merely there to lobby for what he/his team wants. Leave it to him and his department let them own it.
Or should we have governance by unelected NGO ?
That would seem to be the conclusion of Blair’s Third Way and Cameron’s Big Society.
Very much so.
I cannot see it changing either as these groups are so well entrenched. Any attempt to remove, or even reduce, them will be met with a robust response and media campaign as they are so well enmeshed with the media.
Irrespective of the facts the public will be convinced life will be worse without them.
Had to laugh at this passage from the CCCs 2025 progress report:
"Last year, we made making electricity cheaper our first recommendation. When people and businesses switch to electric technologies, they are paying more than the actual cost of supplying the extra electricity they demand, because of policy decisions taken many years ago. Removing policy costs from electricity would ensure the underlying cost-savings of switching to efficient electric technologies are captured by households and businesses, encouraging take-up. The Government has made no clear progress on removing policy costs since the election. Making electricity cheaper remains our first recommendation"
So far the government have been close to the opposite. Like so many other issues, it is aware of the problem but not doing anywhere near enough to address it. We are an energy abundant country, whether it is in wind, oil, gas, nuclear, solar.
The effort to reduce energy costs has been pathetic
The annoying thing is, if we had made the right decisions 10-15 years ago on tidal and nuclear we would now be almost energy independent and could tell Putin to go fuck himself.
Oh, and energy would be a lot cheaper.
But we didn't (with the partial exception of Scotland which I think does produce all of its energy from renewable domestic sources but doesn't have the infrastructure to manage it independently).
We clearly aren't bothered about becoming energy independent. Otherwise,the government wouldn't be funding new-build CCGT and blue hydrogen capacity at the same time as blocking exploration and development of indigenous natural gas reserves.
I don't think I've mentioned this for at least a fortnight, so nice to give it another airing before the year is out.
That's because it's impossible for us to become energy independent with domestic gas generation. There simply isn't enough of it, even if we allowed everything and ploughed billions in subsidy for new development. If you're serious about energy independence, the quickest way to achieve that is to reduce our gas and oil consumption as quickly as possinle.
New CCGT still makes sense makes because we still don't have a solution to those cold and still weeks we get in the winter (like today). We need to couple with that with significantly increased gas storage to tide us over those periods. We'd still need it even if 90% of the time we aren't using any gas at all.
Speaking of blood sports. As a teenager I witnessed a scorpion fight a few doors down from my local Wetherspoons in an abandoned building, which was rather random.
Never heard of a fox hunt with dogs in these parts, despite being pretty rural. Pheasant shoots are ten a penny.
Any scorpion that fights a few doors (presumably winning some) is obviously a hard bastard of a scorpion.
Bet he gets lots of space at the bar at the ‘spoons.
I’m more intrigued by the Wetherspoons being in an abandoned building
To be fair to Spoons, plenty of their pubs have given a new lease of life to abandoned buildings, especially former banks.
Although not a Spoons this place used to be a bank.
When I catch the bus to,the toon go past it and I’ve never been tempted to get off and go in, the sight of half a dozen surly looking blokes chain smoking outside puts me off a little.
You can go for a beer in the Old Bank of England on Fleet St. It is impressive in there. It used to hold gold and apparently the crown jewels at some time. Now a pub.
"Against this backdrop, thoughtful dissenters will consider whether an early election could be forced by via some kind of general strike blended with a dose of fuel and port blockades."
Little dig at the Telegraph there. Sure the article can’t be irrational and is well reasoned.
Clicks on article
Sees it’s Isobel Oakshott.
Clicks off promptly.
Reform know their only chance is to get an early election - within the next 12-18 months - while it is still Labour vs Not Labour and they can look an attractive and viable alternative to the current Government.
After that, it becomes more problematic as one of a number of things might happen (and I stress these are neither in order of likelihood nor desirability).
Labour gets its act together and economy starts improving The Conservative messaging on the economy in particular starts to resonate Reform's own internal contradictions start tearing it apart
1 won’t happen. Labours goose is cooked and any replacement for SKS and Reeves will be economically worse.
2 has started already. The Tories would be insane to get rid of her in my view.
3 given his track record I’d say there’s a strong chance of that but if it doesn’t happen then it’s game on.
We're a long way off an election and it's wishful thinking to imagine Labour can't or won't recover. In any case, IF economic perceptions change and people start to "feel" better (even if the truth is otherwise) that will lead a rebound in Labour polling numbers.
As for Badenoch, I've said on here a number of times she has had a good autumn but it's probable the May local elections will be painful and that will be the point of challenge. Don't underestimate the ability of people to do silly things and if 60 Conservative MPs see their seats going to Reform, that might be enough for a successful challenge.
As for Reform, the prospect of victory does wonders for party unity (look at how little trouble the "left" gave Blair after he became leader and started looking popular) so as long as they look the next Government internal dissent will be silenced but as soon as it starts becoming clear they won't win - let's say a winnable by-election isn't won - the knives will be out.
The window of opportunity for Reform isn't going to be open for ever but they are in no position to force an election and encouraging what amounts to civil insurrection to get one is ludicrous. The only way there would be an election is if Labour MPs wanted one and on most polling numbers most won't.
biggest wobble so far for reform was after they won a by-election and everyone started to pay attention to what their new MP had to say.
Given that they could use aniseed rather than animal scent, it's clearly just a ruse to continue actual fox hunting, do a ban seems justified. The actual control measure for fox numbers would seem to be the motor car. We have plenty of foxes in my urban area and they don't cause an issue if you secure your bins properly. Given I've seen the cubs being taught to raid bins while surrounded by grazing rabbits, I doubt they can be bothered with chickens either.
Next the clowns will want to ban driving cars
There’s a few who do, de growth is very much on the agenda for some. Limit the supply of energy and water and other key essentials and simply live within that and forget growth as it hurts the planet.
The EU has spent millions funding groups looking at it.
Climate change committee has made some suggestions on energy use which it wants to see implemented.
If energy supply is limited, I'd expect a big backlash from the masses. If taxes were put up on flying, transport, meat etc it would obviously favour the wealthy. I dont see how you could go for reduction in energy use without annoying a big part of the population
I’d agree so I expect they will do it by stealth rather than be open and above board about it. We need cheap energy. We’re not going to get it.
The Climate Change Committe is one of those unelected NGO’s that @Sandpit was referring to. It has no accountability. Get money from the govt and lobbies the govt on matters that will affect each and every one of us.
It would be better to abolish many of these NGO’s as the govt just subcontracts policy making to them.
So leave it all to Ed Miliband then?
Effectively we are already doing that with the Climate Change Committee. It’s merely there to lobby for what he/his team wants. Leave it to him and his department let them own it.
Or should we have governance by unelected NGO ?
That would seem to be the conclusion of Blair’s Third Way and Cameron’s Big Society.
Very much so.
I cannot see it changing either as these groups are so well entrenched. Any attempt to remove, or even reduce, them will be met with a robust response and media campaign as they are so well enmeshed with the media.
Irrespective of the facts the public will be convinced life will be worse without them.
Had to laugh at this passage from the CCCs 2025 progress report:
"Last year, we made making electricity cheaper our first recommendation. When people and businesses switch to electric technologies, they are paying more than the actual cost of supplying the extra electricity they demand, because of policy decisions taken many years ago. Removing policy costs from electricity would ensure the underlying cost-savings of switching to efficient electric technologies are captured by households and businesses, encouraging take-up. The Government has made no clear progress on removing policy costs since the election. Making electricity cheaper remains our first recommendation"
So far the government have been close to the opposite. Like so many other issues, it is aware of the problem but not doing anywhere near enough to address it. We are an energy abundant country, whether it is in wind, oil, gas, nuclear, solar.
The effort to reduce energy costs has been pathetic
This is so obvious it drives me nuts. Electricity is already much cleaner than the alternatives (particularly somewhere like Scotland), and over the next 25 years it's the source of energy that the UK will depend on the most. If we want to encourage people to use it, it has to be falling in cost relative to the alternatives, not the opposite. To be fair on the Labour government, they have removed a bunch of the green levies from electricty, which is sensible.
But the fact this obvious advice has been ignored so long rather proves that the CCC does not have the kind of power that the conspiracists think they do. The same goes for the OBR - Truss and Kwarteng bypassed them with ease and actually passed a budget with no oversight at all.
The problem is not a conspiracy - but systemic culture. Much of government is wired to implement rationing/reduction in energy usage. tap water = energy usage, therefore.
This is because, until a decade or two ago, the idea that we really could get to net zero with abundant energy usage was seen as impossible.
Electric cars came out of no-where - from the point of view of governments. They were on a path to hydrogen vehicles - and rationing those.
I saw this, when talking with an ex-Cabinet Office chap. When I started to talk about cheap green energy slowing a massive expansion of consumption, he actually said “but the policy….”
So we need to change the culture from “squeeze energy usage” to “luxuriate in cheap, green energy”
A simple example is the extreme dislike of air conditioning - which is complicating building and raising costs. Not to mention is needed when temperatures regularly go above 27c or so.
The insane cheapness of solar panels probably shouldn't have been a surprise- it was just extrapolating the exisiting trend. The cheapness of batteries (which really do change the dynamics) rather more so. It means that the 'net 5%' solution is pretty obvious; solar wherever we can, wind where it's easy, lots of batteries and gas on standby. We just have to put in the capital spending to make it happen. On top of that, one of the arguments against CO2 extraction solutions (olivine weathering, for example) has tended to be the energy-intensiveness of the processes. Intuitively, it feels like there is a solution where they are used to mop up excess electricity at times of peak production.
On the aircon thing, didn't the government relax the rules this summer?
The more interesting question is when will those on the right notice that their support for fossil fuels really is utterly quixotic?
None of it should have come as a surprise
- electric cars came out of car moding in LA. You could get any car turned into an electric car for about $250k. Most of that was labour. Various companies, including Tesla, started out by building a production line to drop that cost to a fraction.
- the collapse in battery price was a line on a graph.
Etc.
The issue was systemic resistance to change they didn’t authorise.
As a senior US government official put it, concerning another of Musk’s enterprises “no one (in the government) asked for these capabilities or planned them”
"Against this backdrop, thoughtful dissenters will consider whether an early election could be forced by via some kind of general strike blended with a dose of fuel and port blockades."
Little dig at the Telegraph there. Sure the article can’t be irrational and is well reasoned.
Clicks on article
Sees it’s Isobel Oakshott.
Clicks off promptly.
Reform know their only chance is to get an early election - within the next 12-18 months - while it is still Labour vs Not Labour and they can look an attractive and viable alternative to the current Government.
After that, it becomes more problematic as one of a number of things might happen (and I stress these are neither in order of likelihood nor desirability).
Labour gets its act together and economy starts improving The Conservative messaging on the economy in particular starts to resonate Reform's own internal contradictions start tearing it apart
1 won’t happen. Labours goose is cooked and any replacement for SKS and Reeves will be economically worse.
2 has started already. The Tories would be insane to get rid of her in my view.
3 given his track record I’d say there’s a strong chance of that but if it doesn’t happen then it’s game on.
We're a long way off an election and it's wishful thinking to imagine Labour can't or won't recover. In any case, IF economic perceptions change and people start to "feel" better (even if the truth is otherwise) that will lead a rebound in Labour polling numbers.
As for Badenoch, I've said on here a number of times she has had a good autumn but it's probable the May local elections will be painful and that will be the point of challenge. Don't underestimate the ability of people to do silly things and if 60 Conservative MPs see their seats going to Reform, that might be enough for a successful challenge.
As for Reform, the prospect of victory does wonders for party unity (look at how little trouble the "left" gave Blair after he became leader and started looking popular) so as long as they look the next Government internal dissent will be silenced but as soon as it starts becoming clear they won't win - let's say a winnable by-election isn't won - the knives will be out.
The window of opportunity for Reform isn't going to be open for ever but they are in no position to force an election and encouraging what amounts to civil insurrection to get one is ludicrous. The only way there would be an election is if Labour MPs wanted one and on most polling numbers most won't.
I voted for Labour. I’d love them to recover. If they recover and the economy picks up we all gain. I just cannot see it and I cannot see any replacements being an improvement.
We are a high tax, high welfare, high regulation, low growth economy and although they talk the talk on deregulation they have yet to walk the walk.
Given that they could use aniseed rather than animal scent, it's clearly just a ruse to continue actual fox hunting, do a ban seems justified. The actual control measure for fox numbers would seem to be the motor car. We have plenty of foxes in my urban area and they don't cause an issue if you secure your bins properly. Given I've seen the cubs being taught to raid bins while surrounded by grazing rabbits, I doubt they can be bothered with chickens either.
Next the clowns will want to ban driving cars
There’s a few who do, de growth is very much on the agenda for some. Limit the supply of energy and water and other key essentials and simply live within that and forget growth as it hurts the planet.
The EU has spent millions funding groups looking at it.
Climate change committee has made some suggestions on energy use which it wants to see implemented.
If energy supply is limited, I'd expect a big backlash from the masses. If taxes were put up on flying, transport, meat etc it would obviously favour the wealthy. I dont see how you could go for reduction in energy use without annoying a big part of the population
I’d agree so I expect they will do it by stealth rather than be open and above board about it. We need cheap energy. We’re not going to get it.
The Climate Change Committe is one of those unelected NGO’s that @Sandpit was referring to. It has no accountability. Get money from the govt and lobbies the govt on matters that will affect each and every one of us.
It would be better to abolish many of these NGO’s as the govt just subcontracts policy making to them.
So leave it all to Ed Miliband then?
Effectively we are already doing that with the Climate Change Committee. It’s merely there to lobby for what he/his team wants. Leave it to him and his department let them own it.
Or should we have governance by unelected NGO ?
That would seem to be the conclusion of Blair’s Third Way and Cameron’s Big Society.
Very much so.
I cannot see it changing either as these groups are so well entrenched. Any attempt to remove, or even reduce, them will be met with a robust response and media campaign as they are so well enmeshed with the media.
Irrespective of the facts the public will be convinced life will be worse without them.
Had to laugh at this passage from the CCCs 2025 progress report:
"Last year, we made making electricity cheaper our first recommendation. When people and businesses switch to electric technologies, they are paying more than the actual cost of supplying the extra electricity they demand, because of policy decisions taken many years ago. Removing policy costs from electricity would ensure the underlying cost-savings of switching to efficient electric technologies are captured by households and businesses, encouraging take-up. The Government has made no clear progress on removing policy costs since the election. Making electricity cheaper remains our first recommendation"
So far the government have been close to the opposite. Like so many other issues, it is aware of the problem but not doing anywhere near enough to address it. We are an energy abundant country, whether it is in wind, oil, gas, nuclear, solar.
The effort to reduce energy costs has been pathetic
This is so obvious it drives me nuts. Electricity is already much cleaner than the alternatives (particularly somewhere like Scotland), and over the next 25 years it's the source of energy that the UK will depend on the most. If we want to encourage people to use it, it has to be falling in cost relative to the alternatives, not the opposite. To be fair on the Labour government, they have removed a bunch of the green levies from electricty, which is sensible.
But the fact this obvious advice has been ignored so long rather proves that the CCC does not have the kind of power that the conspiracists think they do. The same goes for the OBR - Truss and Kwarteng bypassed them with ease and actually passed a budget with no oversight at all.
The problem is not a conspiracy - but systemic culture. Much of government is wired to implement rationing/reduction in energy usage. tap water = energy usage, therefore.
This is because, until a decade or two ago, the idea that we really could get to net zero with abundant energy usage was seen as impossible.
Electric cars came out of no-where - from the point of view of governments. They were on a path to hydrogen vehicles - and rationing those.
I saw this, when talking with an ex-Cabinet Office chap. When I started to talk about cheap green energy slowing a massive expansion of consumption, he actually said “but the policy….”
So we need to change the culture from “squeeze energy usage” to “luxuriate in cheap, green energy”
A simple example is the extreme dislike of air conditioning - which is complicating building and raising costs. Not to mention is needed when temperatures regularly go above 27c or so.
The insane cheapness of solar panels probably shouldn't have been a surprise- it was just extrapolating the exisiting trend. The cheapness of batteries (which really do change the dynamics) rather more so. It means that the 'net 5%' solution is pretty obvious; solar wherever we can, wind where it's easy, lots of batteries and gas on standby. We just have to put in the capital spending to make it happen. On top of that, one of the arguments against CO2 extraction solutions (olivine weathering, for example) has tended to be the energy-intensiveness of the processes. Intuitively, it feels like there is a solution where they are used to mop up excess electricity at times of peak production.
On the aircon thing, didn't the government relax the rules this summer?
The more interesting question is when will those on the right notice that their support for fossil fuels really is utterly quixotic?
None of it should have come as a surprise
- electric cars came out of car moding in LA. You could get any car turned into an electric car for about $250k. Most of that was labour. Various companies, including Tesla, started out by building a production line to drop that cost to a fraction.
- the collapse in battery price was a line on a graph.
Etc.
The issue was systemic resistance to change they didn’t authorise.
As a senior US government official put it, concerning another of Musk’s enterprises “no one (in the government) asked for these capabilities or planned them”
The other thing that happened was the improvement in battery range. The first Leaf claimed 100 miles on a full charge. 80 at best for the pool cars we used to use. In tests the new model does around 300 miles.
"Against this backdrop, thoughtful dissenters will consider whether an early election could be forced by via some kind of general strike blended with a dose of fuel and port blockades."
Little dig at the Telegraph there. Sure the article can’t be irrational and is well reasoned.
Clicks on article
Sees it’s Isobel Oakshott.
Clicks off promptly.
Reform know their only chance is to get an early election - within the next 12-18 months - while it is still Labour vs Not Labour and they can look an attractive and viable alternative to the current Government.
After that, it becomes more problematic as one of a number of things might happen (and I stress these are neither in order of likelihood nor desirability).
Labour gets its act together and economy starts improving The Conservative messaging on the economy in particular starts to resonate Reform's own internal contradictions start tearing it apart
1 won’t happen. Labours goose is cooked and any replacement for SKS and Reeves will be economically worse.
2 has started already. The Tories would be insane to get rid of her in my view.
3 given his track record I’d say there’s a strong chance of that but if it doesn’t happen then it’s game on.
We're a long way off an election and it's wishful thinking to imagine Labour can't or won't recover. In any case, IF economic perceptions change and people start to "feel" better (even if the truth is otherwise) that will lead a rebound in Labour polling numbers.
As for Badenoch, I've said on here a number of times she has had a good autumn but it's probable the May local elections will be painful and that will be the point of challenge. Don't underestimate the ability of people to do silly things and if 60 Conservative MPs see their seats going to Reform, that might be enough for a successful challenge.
As for Reform, the prospect of victory does wonders for party unity (look at how little trouble the "left" gave Blair after he became leader and started looking popular) so as long as they look the next Government internal dissent will be silenced but as soon as it starts becoming clear they won't win - let's say a winnable by-election isn't won - the knives will be out.
The window of opportunity for Reform isn't going to be open for ever but they are in no position to force an election and encouraging what amounts to civil insurrection to get one is ludicrous. The only way there would be an election is if Labour MPs wanted one and on most polling numbers most won't.
biggest wobble so far for reform was after they won a by-election and everyone started to pay attention to what their new MP had to say.
They need to get a handle on candidate vetting and selection.
Speaking of blood sports. As a teenager I witnessed a scorpion fight a few doors down from my local Wetherspoons in an abandoned building, which was rather random.
Never heard of a fox hunt with dogs in these parts, despite being pretty rural. Pheasant shoots are ten a penny.
Any scorpion that fights a few doors (presumably winning some) is obviously a hard bastard of a scorpion.
Bet he gets lots of space at the bar at the ‘spoons.
I’m more intrigued by the Wetherspoons being in an abandoned building
To be fair to Spoons, plenty of their pubs have given a new lease of life to abandoned buildings, especially former banks.
Although not a Spoons this place used to be a bank.
When I catch the bus to,the toon go past it and I’ve never been tempted to get off and go in, the sight of half a dozen surly looking blokes chain smoking outside puts me off a little.
You can go for a beer in the Old Bank of England on Fleet St. It is impressive in there. It used to hold gold and apparently the crown jewels at some time. Now a pub.
I suspect it’s a bit more up market than the one in Gateshead.
I may be in the smoke with a mate in the new year doing some Sweeney locations so may look it up 👍
So a plurality of Tory supporters oppose a trail hunting ban and less than half of Reform voters want to ban it either. The Boxing Day hunt also is a crucial part of village and rural life in areas like where I live. Hundreds turn out on the village green and the pub serves mulled wine as the hunt gathers and for its supporters in rural areas it is a big deal. Even if they have to hunt a trail or drag hunt now not a fox (whose numbers still need to be kept down).
Labour may try and ban trail hunting as most of its supporters want as it banned fox hunting but with Farage and Badenoch opposed to a trail hunting ban, if Labour lose power at the next general election it will be restored
There are perhaps only 170 hunt packs in England so this romanticised notion of every village welcoming its hunt with drinks and applause really needs to be challenged.
My only experience of this was in St Ives (Cornwall) several years ago when the Western Hunt paid the town a visit and it was all very congenial with a few supporters shouting and a small crowd applauding. For most, it was a curiousity and I suppose if there's a purpose to it, it shows urban people an aspect of rural life with which they would otherwise be unfamiliar.
I just think rural communities have a lot more serious issues than the future of the local Hunt.
Those foxhunts are spread across the country from Pembrokeshire to here in rural Essex, from Dumfriesshire to Wensleydale, the Cotswolds and Devon and will of course often stop at more than 1 village on a big hunt day than Boxing Day.
If Trail hunting supposedly doesn't kill foxes, what objection would hunts have to converting to Drag hunting? There doesn't seem to be one.
Also you keep bringing up the hunts keep the fox numbers down. If Trail hunts don't kill foxes how do they do that?
Also when fox hunts were allowed to kill they did not keep numbers down because that is not how Fox territories work. if you want I can go through the numbers for you but a simple example is to compare the City Fox to the Rural Fox. The City Fox has a much much much smaller territory than a Rural Fox (the territory is not controlled by extermination but food supply). Yet the City Office is effectively hunted and relentlessly so by the car. It is the major form of death for City Foxes and the average life span for a City Fox is 12 - 18 months but 3 years for a Rural Fox with some living up to 8 years.
So although the City Fox is culled and far more efficiently than a hunt its numbers are far greater. That is because food supply and not hunting is the determinant of the number of foxes.
Hunts used to kill 20 - 25,000 foxes a year. About 1.500,000 - 2,000,000 foxes are born each year. A killed foxes territory is simply taken over by another pair of foxes who will now breed.
If Trail hunting supposedly doesn't kill foxes why does it need to be banned?
Trail hunting also follows an animal based not artificial scent so is closer to the traditional sport of fox hunting Labour banned
Doh. Because they do kill foxes when they shouldn't. I think that has been shown quite clearly.
Which was of course the original purpose of the hunt until Labour in its class war banned it
I suspect it's becoming arguable that we should re-introduce deer hunting round here; both native species and muntjac are beginning to become pests. Guns, though, I think. Not packs of dogs.
Plenty of deer shot and venison eaten in the Highlands of Scotland
Plenty of deer shot everywhere. Just ask foresters and zoologists in England. It's not just the Red Deer but pest species such as muntjac .
Three of the species of deer here are invasive too.
I quite like the Chinese Water Deer.
A local pub/restuarant has venison on the menu every so often. Very tasty.
Given that they could use aniseed rather than animal scent, it's clearly just a ruse to continue actual fox hunting, do a ban seems justified. The actual control measure for fox numbers would seem to be the motor car. We have plenty of foxes in my urban area and they don't cause an issue if you secure your bins properly. Given I've seen the cubs being taught to raid bins while surrounded by grazing rabbits, I doubt they can be bothered with chickens either.
Next the clowns will want to ban driving cars
There’s a few who do, de growth is very much on the agenda for some. Limit the supply of energy and water and other key essentials and simply live within that and forget growth as it hurts the planet.
The EU has spent millions funding groups looking at it.
Climate change committee has made some suggestions on energy use which it wants to see implemented.
If energy supply is limited, I'd expect a big backlash from the masses. If taxes were put up on flying, transport, meat etc it would obviously favour the wealthy. I dont see how you could go for reduction in energy use without annoying a big part of the population
I’d agree so I expect they will do it by stealth rather than be open and above board about it. We need cheap energy. We’re not going to get it.
The Climate Change Committe is one of those unelected NGO’s that @Sandpit was referring to. It has no accountability. Get money from the govt and lobbies the govt on matters that will affect each and every one of us.
It would be better to abolish many of these NGO’s as the govt just subcontracts policy making to them.
So leave it all to Ed Miliband then?
Effectively we are already doing that with the Climate Change Committee. It’s merely there to lobby for what he/his team wants. Leave it to him and his department let them own it.
Or should we have governance by unelected NGO ?
That would seem to be the conclusion of Blair’s Third Way and Cameron’s Big Society.
Very much so.
I cannot see it changing either as these groups are so well entrenched. Any attempt to remove, or even reduce, them will be met with a robust response and media campaign as they are so well enmeshed with the media.
Irrespective of the facts the public will be convinced life will be worse without them.
Had to laugh at this passage from the CCCs 2025 progress report:
"Last year, we made making electricity cheaper our first recommendation. When people and businesses switch to electric technologies, they are paying more than the actual cost of supplying the extra electricity they demand, because of policy decisions taken many years ago. Removing policy costs from electricity would ensure the underlying cost-savings of switching to efficient electric technologies are captured by households and businesses, encouraging take-up. The Government has made no clear progress on removing policy costs since the election. Making electricity cheaper remains our first recommendation"
So far the government have been close to the opposite. Like so many other issues, it is aware of the problem but not doing anywhere near enough to address it. We are an energy abundant country, whether it is in wind, oil, gas, nuclear, solar.
The effort to reduce energy costs has been pathetic
This is so obvious it drives me nuts. Electricity is already much cleaner than the alternatives (particularly somewhere like Scotland), and over the next 25 years it's the source of energy that the UK will depend on the most. If we want to encourage people to use it, it has to be falling in cost relative to the alternatives, not the opposite. To be fair on the Labour government, they have removed a bunch of the green levies from electricty, which is sensible.
But the fact this obvious advice has been ignored so long rather proves that the CCC does not have the kind of power that the conspiracists think they do. The same goes for the OBR - Truss and Kwarteng bypassed them with ease and actually passed a budget with no oversight at all.
The problem is not a conspiracy - but systemic culture. Much of government is wired to implement rationing/reduction in energy usage. tap water = energy usage, therefore.
This is because, until a decade or two ago, the idea that we really could get to net zero with abundant energy usage was seen as impossible.
Electric cars came out of no-where - from the point of view of governments. They were on a path to hydrogen vehicles - and rationing those.
I saw this, when talking with an ex-Cabinet Office chap. When I started to talk about cheap green energy slowing a massive expansion of consumption, he actually said “but the policy….”
So we need to change the culture from “squeeze energy usage” to “luxuriate in cheap, green energy”
A simple example is the extreme dislike of air conditioning - which is complicating building and raising costs. Not to mention is needed when temperatures regularly go above 27c or so.
The insane cheapness of solar panels probably shouldn't have been a surprise- it was just extrapolating the exisiting trend. The cheapness of batteries (which really do change the dynamics) rather more so. It means that the 'net 5%' solution is pretty obvious; solar wherever we can, wind where it's easy, lots of batteries and gas on standby. We just have to put in the capital spending to make it happen. On top of that, one of the arguments against CO2 extraction solutions (olivine weathering, for example) has tended to be the energy-intensiveness of the processes. Intuitively, it feels like there is a solution where they are used to mop up excess electricity at times of peak production.
On the aircon thing, didn't the government relax the rules this summer?
The more interesting question is when will those on the right notice that their support for fossil fuels really is utterly quixotic?
None of it should have come as a surprise
- electric cars came out of car moding in LA. You could get any car turned into an electric car for about $250k. Most of that was labour. Various companies, including Tesla, started out by building a production line to drop that cost to a fraction.
- the collapse in battery price was a line on a graph.
Etc.
The issue was systemic resistance to change they didn’t authorise.
As a senior US government official put it, concerning another of Musk’s enterprises “no one (in the government) asked for these capabilities or planned them”
The other thing that happened was the improvement in battery range. The first Leaf claimed 100 miles on a full charge. 80 at best for the pool cars we used to use. In tests the new model does around 300 miles.
Range is/was a function of battery cost.
The declining cost of batteries and continuous improvement in their performance (usually expressed in Watt/hours per Kg) made the 300 mile mass market car inevitable.
Speaking of blood sports. As a teenager I witnessed a scorpion fight a few doors down from my local Wetherspoons in an abandoned building, which was rather random.
Never heard of a fox hunt with dogs in these parts, despite being pretty rural. Pheasant shoots are ten a penny.
Any scorpion that fights a few doors (presumably winning some) is obviously a hard bastard of a scorpion.
Bet he gets lots of space at the bar at the ‘spoons.
I’m more intrigued by the Wetherspoons being in an abandoned building
To be fair to Spoons, plenty of their pubs have given a new lease of life to abandoned buildings, especially former banks.
Although not a Spoons this place used to be a bank.
When I catch the bus to,the toon go past it and I’ve never been tempted to get off and go in, the sight of half a dozen surly looking blokes chain smoking outside puts me off a little.
You can go for a beer in the Old Bank of England on Fleet St. It is impressive in there. It used to hold gold and apparently the crown jewels at some time. Now a pub.
I suspect it’s a bit more up market than the one in Gateshead.
I may be in the smoke with a mate in the new year doing some Sweeney locations so may look it up 👍
When you say Sweeney locations do you mean from the TV series? There can't be many left can there? A lot must be redeveloped. I remember a few that weren't far from where I lived at the time if they ventured out into the sticks. Chertsey on the river rings a bell for one.
One thing that surprised me is that there is still hunting with hounds in Ireland. I think there are something like 40-odd hunts, including at least one down here in West Cork, red jackets and all.
Some of the farmers really hate them, but they have enough support to have defeated a recent Dail attempt to ban foxhunting by 124 votes to 24.
Quite conclusively you might note. You will find some farmers (or accountants) who really hate everything so the key issue was the vote in the Dail.
We need to reunify the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland so the good Irish MPs can outvote the nitwits we have in Westminster.
Most Irish MPs represent rural or semi rural constituencies, most UK MPs represent big city, suburban or large town constituencies is probably the main difference.
Though yes well done the Dail for voting to keep fox hunting unlike Westminster and Holyrood
Bloody funny 'most', given the population is 65% urban.
There are 59 Dublin TDs and, if we're generous, 10 Cork City TDs (though Cork North Central in particular has a substantial rural hinterland), and 4 Limerick City TDs (again there's a decent chunk of the consistency that covers rural East Limerick).
Galway is the fourth-largest city in Ireland with a population of a bit less than 90k. It's part of the Galway West constituency which elects 5 TDs to represent a population of about 150k, so the city has 60% of the population, but by no means dominates the election. Generally it's enough to elect one leftie with mostly city votes (though the two most recent left-wing TDs for the constituency, also consecutive Presidents of Ireland, were Irish-speakers who did well in the Connemara Gaeltacht areas too).
The next largest city is Waterford (60k) part of the Waterford constituency which covers the entire county of Waterford (population 127k). Now there are other urban areas within Waterford County such as Dungarvan (10k) and Tramore (11k), but we're definitely into the part of the distribution where constituencies are at least well split between urban and rural.
If you combine all the Dublin, Cork and Limerick TDs, and halfish the Galway and Waterford TDs, you can generously get to 77 urban TDs, but I think a better count would be the Dublin 59, 9 from Cork City, 3 from Limerick and 1 from Galway, to make a total of 72.
Either way you are well short of half of the 174 TDs in the Dail.
I'd agree with HYUFD on this one.
Thanks - official figures seem to say 65% of the population [edit] are urban. A matter of definition rather than the townies getting half the democratic cake [edit] that the rustics do per head, I presume.
"Against this backdrop, thoughtful dissenters will consider whether an early election could be forced by via some kind of general strike blended with a dose of fuel and port blockades."
Little dig at the Telegraph there. Sure the article can’t be irrational and is well reasoned.
Clicks on article
Sees it’s Isobel Oakshott.
Clicks off promptly.
Reform know their only chance is to get an early election - within the next 12-18 months - while it is still Labour vs Not Labour and they can look an attractive and viable alternative to the current Government.
After that, it becomes more problematic as one of a number of things might happen (and I stress these are neither in order of likelihood nor desirability).
Labour gets its act together and economy starts improving The Conservative messaging on the economy in particular starts to resonate Reform's own internal contradictions start tearing it apart
1 won’t happen. Labours goose is cooked and any replacement for SKS and Reeves will be economically worse.
2 has started already. The Tories would be insane to get rid of her in my view.
3 given his track record I’d say there’s a strong chance of that but if it doesn’t happen then it’s game on.
We're a long way off an election and it's wishful thinking to imagine Labour can't or won't recover. In any case, IF economic perceptions change and people start to "feel" better (even if the truth is otherwise) that will lead a rebound in Labour polling numbers.
As for Badenoch, I've said on here a number of times she has had a good autumn but it's probable the May local elections will be painful and that will be the point of challenge. Don't underestimate the ability of people to do silly things and if 60 Conservative MPs see their seats going to Reform, that might be enough for a successful challenge.
As for Reform, the prospect of victory does wonders for party unity (look at how little trouble the "left" gave Blair after he became leader and started looking popular) so as long as they look the next Government internal dissent will be silenced but as soon as it starts becoming clear they won't win - let's say a winnable by-election isn't won - the knives will be out.
The window of opportunity for Reform isn't going to be open for ever but they are in no position to force an election and encouraging what amounts to civil insurrection to get one is ludicrous. The only way there would be an election is if Labour MPs wanted one and on most polling numbers most won't.
biggest wobble so far for reform was after they won a by-election and everyone started to pay attention to what their new MP had to say.
They need to get a handle on candidate vetting and selection.
No party seems to do the levels of checks, for candidates (or anything else) that are standard for junior bank employees.
These would be a trawl for convictions, court judgements, Companies House and social media. Done through a number of security companies at a fixed price per head.
"Against this backdrop, thoughtful dissenters will consider whether an early election could be forced by via some kind of general strike blended with a dose of fuel and port blockades."
Little dig at the Telegraph there. Sure the article can’t be irrational and is well reasoned.
Clicks on article
Sees it’s Isobel Oakshott.
Clicks off promptly.
Reform know their only chance is to get an early election - within the next 12-18 months - while it is still Labour vs Not Labour and they can look an attractive and viable alternative to the current Government.
After that, it becomes more problematic as one of a number of things might happen (and I stress these are neither in order of likelihood nor desirability).
Labour gets its act together and economy starts improving The Conservative messaging on the economy in particular starts to resonate Reform's own internal contradictions start tearing it apart
1 won’t happen. Labours goose is cooked and any replacement for SKS and Reeves will be economically worse.
2 has started already. The Tories would be insane to get rid of her in my view.
3 given his track record I’d say there’s a strong chance of that but if it doesn’t happen then it’s game on.
We're a long way off an election and it's wishful thinking to imagine Labour can't or won't recover. In any case, IF economic perceptions change and people start to "feel" better (even if the truth is otherwise) that will lead a rebound in Labour polling numbers.
As for Badenoch, I've said on here a number of times she has had a good autumn but it's probable the May local elections will be painful and that will be the point of challenge. Don't underestimate the ability of people to do silly things and if 60 Conservative MPs see their seats going to Reform, that might be enough for a successful challenge.
As for Reform, the prospect of victory does wonders for party unity (look at how little trouble the "left" gave Blair after he became leader and started looking popular) so as long as they look the next Government internal dissent will be silenced but as soon as it starts becoming clear they won't win - let's say a winnable by-election isn't won - the knives will be out.
The window of opportunity for Reform isn't going to be open for ever but they are in no position to force an election and encouraging what amounts to civil insurrection to get one is ludicrous. The only way there would be an election is if Labour MPs wanted one and on most polling numbers most won't.
biggest wobble so far for reform was after they won a by-election and everyone started to pay attention to what their new MP had to say.
They need to get a handle on candidate vetting and selection.
No party seems to do the levels of checks, for candidates (or anything else) that are standard for junior bank employees.
These would be a trawl for convictions, court judgements, Companies House and social media. Done through a number of security companies at a fixed price per head.
How do they know where to look in social media if Mr/Ms applicant doesn't give noms de plume?
"Against this backdrop, thoughtful dissenters will consider whether an early election could be forced by via some kind of general strike blended with a dose of fuel and port blockades."
Little dig at the Telegraph there. Sure the article can’t be irrational and is well reasoned.
Clicks on article
Sees it’s Isobel Oakshott.
Clicks off promptly.
Reform know their only chance is to get an early election - within the next 12-18 months - while it is still Labour vs Not Labour and they can look an attractive and viable alternative to the current Government.
After that, it becomes more problematic as one of a number of things might happen (and I stress these are neither in order of likelihood nor desirability).
Labour gets its act together and economy starts improving The Conservative messaging on the economy in particular starts to resonate Reform's own internal contradictions start tearing it apart
1 won’t happen. Labours goose is cooked and any replacement for SKS and Reeves will be economically worse.
2 has started already. The Tories would be insane to get rid of her in my view.
3 given his track record I’d say there’s a strong chance of that but if it doesn’t happen then it’s game on.
We're a long way off an election and it's wishful thinking to imagine Labour can't or won't recover. In any case, IF economic perceptions change and people start to "feel" better (even if the truth is otherwise) that will lead a rebound in Labour polling numbers.
As for Badenoch, I've said on here a number of times she has had a good autumn but it's probable the May local elections will be painful and that will be the point of challenge. Don't underestimate the ability of people to do silly things and if 60 Conservative MPs see their seats going to Reform, that might be enough for a successful challenge.
As for Reform, the prospect of victory does wonders for party unity (look at how little trouble the "left" gave Blair after he became leader and started looking popular) so as long as they look the next Government internal dissent will be silenced but as soon as it starts becoming clear they won't win - let's say a winnable by-election isn't won - the knives will be out.
The window of opportunity for Reform isn't going to be open for ever but they are in no position to force an election and encouraging what amounts to civil insurrection to get one is ludicrous. The only way there would be an election is if Labour MPs wanted one and on most polling numbers most won't.
I voted for Labour. I’d love them to recover. If they recover and the economy picks up we all gain. I just cannot see it and I cannot see any replacements being an improvement.
We are a high tax, high welfare, high regulation, low growth economy and although they talk the talk on deregulation they have yet to walk the walk.
It’s not “deregulation” in terms of a childish “burn the red tape” kind of thing, that is required.
What is needed is simplification of the paperwork - targeting outcomes, rather than increasing the number of check boxes. This should be combined with a massive increase in enforcement. So the regulations are actually of some use.
The problem, from the point of The System, is that this costs money. Adding 1000 pages to the regulations is free, right?
Speaking of blood sports. As a teenager I witnessed a scorpion fight a few doors down from my local Wetherspoons in an abandoned building, which was rather random.
Never heard of a fox hunt with dogs in these parts, despite being pretty rural. Pheasant shoots are ten a penny.
Any scorpion that fights a few doors (presumably winning some) is obviously a hard bastard of a scorpion.
Bet he gets lots of space at the bar at the ‘spoons.
I’m more intrigued by the Wetherspoons being in an abandoned building
To be fair to Spoons, plenty of their pubs have given a new lease of life to abandoned buildings, especially former banks.
Although not a Spoons this place used to be a bank.
When I catch the bus to,the toon go past it and I’ve never been tempted to get off and go in, the sight of half a dozen surly looking blokes chain smoking outside puts me off a little.
You can go for a beer in the Old Bank of England on Fleet St. It is impressive in there. It used to hold gold and apparently the crown jewels at some time. Now a pub.
I suspect it’s a bit more up market than the one in Gateshead.
I may be in the smoke with a mate in the new year doing some Sweeney locations so may look it up 👍
When you say Sweeney locations do you mean from the TV series? There can't be many left can there? A lot must be redeveloped. I remember a few that weren't far from where I lived at the time if they ventured out into the sticks. Chertsey on the river rings a bell for one.
Yes. From the TV series. There’s still a few around. Me and my mate are big fans of the show going back to when we first became friends in the mid eighties.
"Against this backdrop, thoughtful dissenters will consider whether an early election could be forced by via some kind of general strike blended with a dose of fuel and port blockades."
Little dig at the Telegraph there. Sure the article can’t be irrational and is well reasoned.
Clicks on article
Sees it’s Isobel Oakshott.
Clicks off promptly.
Reform know their only chance is to get an early election - within the next 12-18 months - while it is still Labour vs Not Labour and they can look an attractive and viable alternative to the current Government.
After that, it becomes more problematic as one of a number of things might happen (and I stress these are neither in order of likelihood nor desirability).
Labour gets its act together and economy starts improving The Conservative messaging on the economy in particular starts to resonate Reform's own internal contradictions start tearing it apart
1 won’t happen. Labours goose is cooked and any replacement for SKS and Reeves will be economically worse.
2 has started already. The Tories would be insane to get rid of her in my view.
3 given his track record I’d say there’s a strong chance of that but if it doesn’t happen then it’s game on.
We're a long way off an election and it's wishful thinking to imagine Labour can't or won't recover. In any case, IF economic perceptions change and people start to "feel" better (even if the truth is otherwise) that will lead a rebound in Labour polling numbers.
As for Badenoch, I've said on here a number of times she has had a good autumn but it's probable the May local elections will be painful and that will be the point of challenge. Don't underestimate the ability of people to do silly things and if 60 Conservative MPs see their seats going to Reform, that might be enough for a successful challenge.
As for Reform, the prospect of victory does wonders for party unity (look at how little trouble the "left" gave Blair after he became leader and started looking popular) so as long as they look the next Government internal dissent will be silenced but as soon as it starts becoming clear they won't win - let's say a winnable by-election isn't won - the knives will be out.
The window of opportunity for Reform isn't going to be open for ever but they are in no position to force an election and encouraging what amounts to civil insurrection to get one is ludicrous. The only way there would be an election is if Labour MPs wanted one and on most polling numbers most won't.
I voted for Labour. I’d love them to recover. If they recover and the economy picks up we all gain. I just cannot see it and I cannot see any replacements being an improvement.
We are a high tax, high welfare, high regulation, low growth economy and although they talk the talk on deregulation they have yet to walk the walk.
To be heretical, it was interesting hearing Martin Lewis (some people's idea of the perfect Prime Minister) opining there had been very little honesty on the economy from successive Governments over a 20-30 year period.
Well, yes, and he said this was due to electoral necessity. Well, yes again, and bears use wooded areas for toiletary functions. It's a little more than that, however. The Truss proposals (which had some economic rationale behind them) failed for a number of reasons but primarily because they didn't pass the "fairness" test with the public. Making already rich people richer just doesn't work for most of the electorate - indeed, many favour a harsher redistribution despite the oft-quoted statistic of 1% of the tax paying population paying 29% of all the tax paid.
I've often said a rich man will always find (or pay) someone to argue their case, a poor man hasn't the same luxury but the notion of "fairness" has been challenged by the pandemic among other things so you could well argue the high tax, high welfare economy you cite isn't as unpopular as some think but in an ageing society with higher levels of economic inactivity there's a challenge or two at work (or not work if you prefer) trying to square the circle if we think in 20th century terms of work, income, growth and taxation.
Comments
https://www.horseandhound.co.uk/hunting/connaught-square-squirrel-hunt-back-in-action-310647
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9d93xzey70o
There’s quite a few close to me. Get them in the local woods and along the coast to coast cycle path. As the years have gone on you see them more and more too.
Happy Nearly New Year everyone; I've delurked because food.
Although the dash for gas was beneficial in terms of reducing coal use, it seems to also have been a factor in stopping new nuclear build, along with privatisation.
21 years between the completion of Sizewell B in 1995 and the start of HPC in 2016. We'd be a lot better off without that gap.
Sizewell B construction apparently followed a four-year, 16 million-word public inquiry, so that's been an issue for at least four decades.
https://x.com/ZiaYusufUK/status/2005974367428309254
Kearns is a far left campaigner - indistinguishable from Polanski on policy - and sits at the heart of Kemi Badenoch’s team as Shadow Minister for National Security:
Kemi wants her to be the UK’s Minister for National Security.
Do you?
I probably never want to see the inside of an abattoir.
I say unnecessarily cruel not because it is necessarily particularly cruel. To be honest I have no idea whether it is or not, but because there is no real reason for killing the fox at all (poor wording by me again).
It isn't food.
It doesn't control numbers.
And pageantry and sport can continue without the killing, which supposedly is what is happening now, so the hunts shouldn't really have any issue with the change to drag hunting. One has to wonder what their motives are for objecting if the change has no consequences.
I’m glad you delurked to post as that’s reminded me.
https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/working-paper/2019/uk-house-prices-and-three-decades-of-decline-in-the-risk-free-real-interest-rate.pdf
Changes in the risk-free real rate are a crucial driver of changes in house prices — the model predicts that a 1% sustained increase in index-linked gilt yields could ultimately (ie in the long run) result in a fall in real house prices of just under 20%.
https://x.com/RobertJenrick/status/2005924943851139440?s=20
I'm more or less neutral on the issue, and against banning things on principle, but lets not pretend that there is any balance at all here. Being pro-Hunting is like being anti-NHS - there are solid, reasoned arguments to support the position but vanishingly few people will ever even get to hear them.
She’s never struck me as a Tory but, I guess, the party is a broad church.
I suspect the main parties will close rank over this and kick it into touch with an inquiry as they are all as equally culpable for signing off their support for this loathsome man who had a well funded lobbying group behind him.
Not someone who posts pictures of Hamas paragliders.
This guy
https://freespeechunion.org/teacher-who-showed-his-class-videos-of-president-trump-referred-to-the-governments-counter-terrorism-programme/?v=7885444af42e
You would think humans would have a natural affinity with them.
"Blair ignored warnings WI speech would be a disaster
Labour leader was urged to steer clear of ‘capital P politics’ ahead of his infamous address at Wembley"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/12/30/blair-ignored-warnings-wi-speech-would-be-disaster
10 years ago she fitted well within Cameron's type of politics, now she seems person non-grata amongst the populist right. She has one of the safest seats in the country, and would be one of the handful of Dark Blue Tories to survive a Turqouise tsunami. I don't think she would support a Faragist government.
But the fact this obvious advice has been ignored so long rather proves that the CCC does not have the kind of power that the conspiracists think they do. The same goes for the OBR - Truss and Kwarteng bypassed them with ease and actually passed a budget with no oversight at all.
She is perfectly suited to Rutland as a moderate hard working constituency MP whatever the Farage hordes throw at her
But it’s like an elastic band - one you push it too much the market switches to worrying about inflationary pressures which causes a rise in the risk free rate
(That photo of the Florida governor makes me wonder whether their skins could be used for soccer balls.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBAkmYb8m9k
One for @Foxy and his framed betting slip from 10 years ago.
I know selection of specific channels can be difficult depending on menu options. It may help if you press "57" directly but I don't know if that will mess up your specific settings. ☹️
https://electionmaps.uk/nowcast
Basically the likeliest Tory holds are relatively rural, relatively posh and wealthy and only narrowly voted Leave in 2016 much like Rutland and Stamford (with a few Tory gains from Labour maybe in strong Jewish seats in Barnet or very wealthy bits of west London which also won't go Reform)
This is because, until a decade or two ago, the idea that we really could get to net zero with abundant energy usage was seen as impossible.
Electric cars came out of no-where - from the point of view of governments. They were on a path to hydrogen vehicles - and rationing those.
I saw this, when talking with an ex-Cabinet Office chap. When I started to talk about cheap green energy slowing a massive expansion of consumption, he actually said “but the policy….”
So we need to change the culture from “squeeze energy usage” to “luxuriate in cheap, green energy”
A simple example is the extreme dislike of air conditioning - which is complicating building and raising costs. Not to mention is needed when temperatures regularly go above 27c or so.
I’ve tried to refresh too.
Maybe we don’t get it in Tyne Tees.
I’ve got the Blu Ray as well as the DVD anyway.
Never needed it myself. Wasn't available then, anyway!!
Nah, just cull the deer and eat them. 🥩
After that, it becomes more problematic as one of a number of things might happen (and I stress these are neither in order of likelihood nor desirability).
Labour gets its act together and economy starts improving
The Conservative messaging on the economy in particular starts to resonate
Reform's own internal contradictions start tearing it apart
“ This is @AndrewMarr9 in 2022 "Alaa is clearly a very very important probably the most important activist and pro democracy campaigner in his region and he's also a very very fine writer."
https://x.com/marcgoldberg111/status/2005985919267172695?s=61
I don't think I've mentioned this for at least a fortnight, so nice to give it another airing before the year is out.
2 has started already. The Tories would be insane to get rid of her in my view.
3 given his track record I’d say there’s a strong chance of that but if it doesn’t happen then it’s game on.
https://thebanklowfell.co.uk/
When I catch the bus to,the toon go past it and I’ve never been tempted to get off and go in, the sight of half a dozen surly looking blokes chain smoking outside puts me off a little.
https://x.com/A_SHEKH0VTS0V/status/2005951437411385656
Trump doesn't seem to be only one gullible enough to fall for a clearly fake story.
Modi also publicly expressed his "deep concern" for the murderous dictator.
On the aircon thing, didn't the government relax the rules this summer?
The more interesting question is when will those on the right notice that their support for fossil fuels really is utterly quixotic?
As for Badenoch, I've said on here a number of times she has had a good autumn but it's probable the May local elections will be painful and that will be the point of challenge. Don't underestimate the ability of people to do silly things and if 60 Conservative MPs see their seats going to Reform, that might be enough for a successful challenge.
As for Reform, the prospect of victory does wonders for party unity (look at how little trouble the "left" gave Blair after he became leader and started looking popular) so as long as they look the next Government internal dissent will be silenced but as soon as it starts becoming clear they won't win - let's say a winnable by-election isn't won - the knives will be out.
The window of opportunity for Reform isn't going to be open for ever but they are in no position to force an election and encouraging what amounts to civil insurrection to get one is ludicrous. The only way there would be an election is if Labour MPs wanted one and on most polling numbers most won't.
Need wolves, or venison on the menu more.
We used to have a lot around us, but I haven't seen one for awhile. I have caught quite a few on the video cameras in my garden. The last one we had in the garden was a couple of years ago now. He came in frequently, but as I mentioned earlier he got a head wound that was full of maggots. I knew something was wrong when he didn't run away from me. I put a rope around his neck and sat with him until someone came from a deer charity we had called. They shot him and took him away. They said he would be left in a wood for other animals.
Our dog finds deer carcasses in the wood on our walks regularly.
We also hit a deer in the car (my wife was driving!). It went underneath and came out the back and got up and ran away. I looked for it but couldn't find it. Difficult to believe it wasn't badly injured. The headlight was smashed and there was a lot of hair on the front of the car.
New CCGT still makes sense makes because we still don't have a solution to those cold and still weeks we get in the winter (like today). We need to couple with that with significantly increased gas storage to tide us over those periods. We'd still need it even if 90% of the time we aren't using any gas at all.
- electric cars came out of car moding in LA. You could get any car turned into an electric car for about $250k. Most of that was labour. Various companies, including Tesla, started out by building a production line to drop that cost to a fraction.
- the collapse in battery price was a line on a graph.
Etc.
The issue was systemic resistance to change they didn’t authorise.
As a senior US government official put it, concerning another of Musk’s enterprises “no one (in the government) asked for these capabilities or planned them”
We are a high tax, high welfare, high regulation, low growth economy and although they talk the talk on deregulation they have yet to walk the walk.
I may be in the smoke with a mate in the new year doing some Sweeney locations so may look it up 👍
The declining cost of batteries and continuous improvement in their performance (usually expressed in Watt/hours per Kg) made the 300 mile mass market car inevitable.
This is what the graphs showed in 2000.
These would be a trawl for convictions, court judgements, Companies House and social media. Done through a number of security companies at a fixed price per head.
What is needed is simplification of the paperwork - targeting outcomes, rather than increasing the number of check boxes. This should be combined with a massive increase in enforcement. So the regulations are actually of some use.
The problem, from the point of The System, is that this costs money. Adding 1000 pages to the regulations is free, right?
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxDpfTHEywGVOATGUz7EM4OPXTr5uGRGH
Well, yes, and he said this was due to electoral necessity. Well, yes again, and bears use wooded areas for toiletary functions. It's a little more than that, however. The Truss proposals (which had some economic rationale behind them) failed for a number of reasons but primarily because they didn't pass the "fairness" test with the public. Making already rich people richer just doesn't work for most of the electorate - indeed, many favour a harsher redistribution despite the oft-quoted statistic of 1% of the tax paying population paying 29% of all the tax paid.
I've often said a rich man will always find (or pay) someone to argue their case, a poor man hasn't the same luxury but the notion of "fairness" has been challenged by the pandemic among other things so you could well argue the high tax, high welfare economy you cite isn't as unpopular as some think but in an ageing society with higher levels of economic inactivity there's a challenge or two at work (or not work if you prefer) trying to square the circle if we think in 20th century terms of work, income, growth and taxation.