called on new powers for Scotland to be delivered “in full and quickly” - before making clear the SNP wants full fiscal autonomy “over a period of years”
Guido has read the Green Party manifesto so you don’t have to. “a complete ban on cages for hens and rabbits” (Spring time for foxes?) “end the use of the whip in horse racing and conduct a full review of the sport” (what about the lossof horse manure, it is very natural?) “end the practice of grouse shooting” (Is this to provide more food for foxes?) “ensure UK taxpayers’ money is not used for bullfighting” (Where are our bullfights?) “ban the import of fur products” (Bad, since we will have fewer rabbits) “progressively introduce anonymised CVs” (WTF) “introduce new taxes on the use of water” (A sure winner) “ensure that no company owns more than 20% of a media market” (Good, will eff up the BBC) “pursue a policy of defensive defence, which threatens no one” (Please do not hit me if I smile) http://order-order.com/2015/04/14/free-the-bunnies-the-maddest-policies-in-the-green-manifesto-listed/#_@/Zv_-Cu9cn3rT6Q
And that is on top of our £50 billion commitment to build High Speed 2 – the new North-South railway linking up London with the West Midlands, Leeds and Manchester – and develop High Speed 3 to join up the North. We will back scientific and technical strengths by creating new institutions such as Health North; the Royce Institute for Advanced Materials in Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool and Sheffield; the National Centre for Ageing Science and Innovation in Newcastle; the Cognitive Computing centre at Daresbury; and by making investments in energy research in Blackpool, Cumbria and Thornton�
True or false?
Sunil's trip over the Easter weekend to Amsterdam via Brussels on the Eurostar and the TGV-style Thalys service has made him think again about his opposition to HS2.
I'm more interested in what you got up to during a weekend in Amsterdam...
I once poisoned a rat with dishwasher powder knowing it couldn't be sick. This was back in about 1986. I'd rather wrung it's neck or hit it on the head but it was trapped in a very tight space and had already bitten me.
"What most anti-fox hunting people really object to is the idea of people they don't like enjoying it."
I am not sure that is true. There have always been large majorities in favour of a ban and my impression is that's because most people feel it is cruel, not because who does it. And it is cruel - the terrified fox is hunted down and torn to shreds by a pack of dogs.
However, as someone once said: that's life. Foxes are a pest and they have to be dealt with. Quite frankly, how that happens is not a big issue for me. I used to take my father in law to follow the Warwickshire Hunt when he was alive. It was fantastic and clearly gave a lot of people a lot of pleasure. For me, that is the most important aspect to this. Watching the horses and hounds stream across a hilly green field to a wood or a copse is a wonderful sight, but a meaningless one if the fox is not involved. It's a link back to our past. It is a part of England. And that is more important than how a fox lives the last hour or so of its life.
Jesus that sounds like a load of shite
People can ride horses in the countryside and dogs can run without having to sacrifice a fox.
Why is a link back to a past more important than a living beings feelings/existence. I am sure people enjoyed watching women tried as witches face the ducking stool once. That was part of England too. So what?
Is it just foxes you think are cute? With their cute widdle bwushy wushy tails?
What about rats, are they too cute to hunt, too?
I bet you don't run into many of them Poles, comin' over 'ere, on hunts. There's a thought eh?
Are there rat hunts then?
No but millions die every year from internal bleeding and dehydration as a result of poisoning, I am sure its not a particularly pleasant way to go. I thought you were concerned about animal cruelty not that it was seen as a spectator sport for toffs.
So the Conservatives have decided to cash in their reputation for prudence in order to go on a spree of promises, while Labour have decided to make a virtue of prudence having spent years opposing any difficult funding decisions.
I expect it's too late for either of them to be believed.
Having speed-read both, I have to say if you removed the party branding and colour schemes, you'd swear the Labour one was Dave's and the Tory one Ed's.
The Tory one reminds me of my own performance review at work each year - repackaging the same objectives every year and how i'm going to definitely achieve them, rather than addressing the lack of progress made over the past 12 months.... ;-)
The difference now is that the two Ed's know that they have to govern whereas Dave and Gideon are somewhat free knowing they would not be in charge anyway - so why not ?
Your Lab triumphalism is rather funny. Do you realise that if the SNP take Scotland it is very unlikely that there will EVER be a Labour majority government again.
Conversely, pretty sure we blues are banking the following positions:
- may not win outright this time, but probably the only party who will ever win outright again.
- the party to clear up after all future profligate governments.
To add to
- the party of social mobility
- the party of the working man
- the party of a property owning democracy
As a one nation (one Union?) Tory, I'm particularly proud of all of these.
Did I see a TNS poll out with a Tory lead of ** just ** 3% this morning?
No, it was 2%!
Sunil darling!! You are still here!!!!
Bad news - I am back.
Hi Bev, long time no see! I've been publishing my ELBOW (that's "Electoral LeaderBoard Of the Week") every Sunday since August which keeps me rather busy on PB!
Last two weeks have given conflicting results. Week ending Easter Sunday, 0.4% Tory lead, but Week ending 12th April, Labour bounced back to a 1.2% lead!
Guido has read the Green Party manifesto so you don’t have to. “a complete ban on cages for hens and rabbits” (Spring time for foxes?) “end the use of the whip in horse racing and conduct a full review of the sport” (what about the lossof horse manure, it is very natural?) “end the practice of grouse shooting” (Is this to provide more food for foxes?) “ensure UK taxpayers’ money is not used for bullfighting” (Where are our bullfights?) “ban the import of fur products” (Bad, since we will have fewer rabbits) “progressively introduce anonymised CVs” (WTF) “introduce new taxes on the use of water” (A sure winner) “ensure that no company owns more than 20% of a media market” (Good, will eff up the BBC) “pursue a policy of defensive defence, which threatens no one” (Please do not hit me if I smile) http://order-order.com/2015/04/14/free-the-bunnies-the-maddest-policies-in-the-green-manifesto-listed/#_@/Zv_-Cu9cn3rT6Q
The fox hunting stuff seems unnecessary and dangerous ground.
I personally don't care about fox hunting on way or the other, but I would dearly like to see some signs of integrity from those that purport to lead us. Cameron did a deal with the Countryside Alliance, their ground army for a free vote on Hunting. He did the same in 2010 and then welched on it, he should do as he promised this time. It's a free vote, so if there is no support for it in the country, it will fail, that's life.
Once he has done that he can make a promise on immigration that a) is technically possible to keep even with a full majority and b) he actually plans to keep.
Cameron didn't 'welch' on a foxhunting deal, it wasn't a Tory government it was a coalition. Similar to Clegg and tuition fees.
1st May 2016 Dear Daughter, the new RedEdHell coalition has banned all cages so we had to let your bunny Floppy out in the garden at night and unfortunately Rennard killed it....
"What most anti-fox hunting people really object to is the idea of people they don't like enjoying it."
I am not sure that is true. There have always been large majorities in favour of a ban and my impression is that's because most people feel it is cruel, not because who does it. And it is cruel - the terrified fox is hunted down and torn to shreds by a pack of dogs.
However, as someone once said: that's life. Foxes are a pest and they have to be dealt with. Quite frankly, how that happens is not a big issue for me. I used to take my father in law to follow the Warwickshire Hunt when he was alive. It was fantastic and clearly gave a lot of people a lot of pleasure. For me, that is the most important aspect to this. Watching the horses and hounds stream across a hilly green field to a wood or a copse is a wonderful sight, but a meaningless one if the fox is not involved. It's a link back to our past. It is a part of England. And that is more important than how a fox lives the last hour or so of its life.
Jesus that sounds like a load of shite
People can ride horses in the countryside and dogs can run without having to sacrifice a fox.
Why is a link back to a past more important than a living beings feelings/existence. I am sure people enjoyed watching women tried as witches face the ducking stool once. That was part of England too. So what?
Is it just foxes you think are cute? With their cute widdle bwushy wushy tails?
What about rats, are they too cute to hunt, too?
I bet you don't run into many of them Poles, comin' over 'ere, on hunts. There's a thought eh?
Are there rat hunts then?
No but millions die every year from internal bleeding and dehydration as a result of poisoning, I am sure its not a particularly pleasant way to go. I thought you were concerned about animal cruelty not that it was seen as a spectator sport for toffs.
Ah managed to get you into a bit of class war.. it is satisfying to see people forget themselves when they have their backs up
Animals kill each other in a cruel way without any encouragement from us. "Toffs" fox hunting or "chavs" with their dog fighting, I dislike both
If Dogs fight each other, or hunt foxes, that's life. We are animals too, killing other animals when there is no alternative/to protect our own families well being is necessary, and none of this conflicts with anything I have said earlier.
People can ride horses in the countryside and dogs can run without having to sacrifice a fox.
Why is a link back to a past more important than a living beings feelings/existence. I am sure people enjoyed watching women tried as witches face the ducking stool once. That was part of England too. So what?
Shame that such a thoughtful post by SO has to be replied to by such a tendentious load of old cobblers from you. Hunting is something people are going to have a wide range of opinions, rather like voting UKIP, and one which people are not going to change their mind on due to be sloganized, or insulted, rather like voting for UKIP.
Who insulted anyone? Or used slogans?
A lot of things that are morally wrong give a lot of people a lot of pleasure, is that justification for encouraging them?
You say people have a wide range of opinions on it, then smear one you disagree with without arguing against any of the points made... v open minded of you
"Jesus that sounds like a load of shite" - No, nothing insulting there are all.
You didn't make any point to argue, save that in your opinion tradition was less important that foxes, which is an opinion, unsupported by any evidence or argument with which people may or may not agree.
Personally I think its cant, thousands of foxes die "naturally" in unpleasant circumstances every year, you don't propose a National Save The Fox program, with retirement homes for elderly foxes, hence your argument boils down to you wanting to such things to happen out of your sight, which means its about your personal comfort and nothing to do with foxes.
Which is of course leaving aside the unpleasant outcomes of most alternative ways of controlling the fox population, which farmers will do with substantially more vigour without the income from the hunts on their land.
Lots of assumptions, guesses and general rubbish from you there, you may as well talk to yourself if you are going to do that.
I do help urban foxes suffering from mange, and hunts do happen out of my sight anyway, so its not adding to or lessening my discomfort either way. I don't advocate a ban on hunting I just think people that defend or glorify it are uncaring, ignorant fools. But we all have our moments
Serious question - how many farm animals, pet cats, dogs etc. get, or got, killed by hunts?
Guido has read the Green Party manifesto so you don’t have to. “a complete ban on cages for hens and rabbits” (Spring time for foxes?) “end the use of the whip in horse racing and conduct a full review of the sport” (what about the lossof horse manure, it is very natural?) “end the practice of grouse shooting” (Is this to provide more food for foxes?) “ensure UK taxpayers’ money is not used for bullfighting” (Where are our bullfights?) “ban the import of fur products” (Bad, since we will have fewer rabbits) “progressively introduce anonymised CVs” (WTF) “introduce new taxes on the use of water” (A sure winner) “ensure that no company owns more than 20% of a media market” (Good, will eff up the BBC) “pursue a policy of defensive defence, which threatens no one” (Please do not hit me if I smile) http://order-order.com/2015/04/14/free-the-bunnies-the-maddest-policies-in-the-green-manifesto-listed/#_@/Zv_-Cu9cn3rT6Q
The fox hunting stuff seems unnecessary and dangerous ground.
I personally don't care about fox hunting on way or the other, but I would dearly like to see some signs of integrity from those that purport to lead us. Cameron did a deal with the Countryside Alliance, their ground army for a free vote on Hunting. He did the same in 2010 and then welched on it, he should do as he promised this time. It's a free vote, so if there is no support for it in the country, it will fail, that's life.
Once he has done that he can make a promise on immigration that a) is technically possible to keep even with a full majority and b) he actually plans to keep.
Cameron didn't 'welch' on a foxhunting deal, it wasn't a Tory government it was a coalition. Similar to Clegg and tuition fees.
1st May 2016 Dear Daughter, the new RedEdHell coalition has banned all cages so we had to let your bunny Floppy out in the garden at night and unfortunately Rennard killed it....
And that is on top of our £50 billion commitment to build High Speed 2 – the new North-South railway linking up London with the West Midlands, Leeds and Manchester – and develop High Speed 3 to join up the North. We will back scientific and technical strengths by creating new institutions such as Health North; the Royce Institute for Advanced Materials in Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool and Sheffield; the National Centre for Ageing Science and Innovation in Newcastle; the Cognitive Computing centre at Daresbury; and by making investments in energy research in Blackpool, Cumbria and Thornton�
True or false?
Sunil's trip over the Easter weekend to Amsterdam via Brussels on the Eurostar and the TGV-style Thalys service has made him think again about his opposition to HS2.
I'm more interested in what you got up to during a weekend in Amsterdam...
Actually I'm more in favour than against!
Oh, I was with my parents on the trip, so I behaved myself
I once poisoned a rat with dishwasher powder knowing it couldn't be sick. This was back in about 1986. I'd rather wrung it's neck or hit it on the head but it was trapped in a very tight space and had already bitten me.
"What most anti-fox hunting people really object to is the idea of people they don't like enjoying it."
I am not sure that is true. There have always been large majorities in favour of a ban and my impression is that's because most people feel it is cruel, not because who does it. And it is cruel - the terrified fox is hunted down and torn to shreds by a pack of dogs.
However, as someone once said: that's life. Foxes are a pest and they have to be dealt with. Quite frankly, how that happens is not a big issue for me. I used to take my father in law to follow the Warwickshire Hunt when he was alive. It was fantastic and clearly gave a lot of people a lot of pleasure. For me, that is the most important aspect to this. Watching the horses and hounds stream across a hilly green field to a wood or a copse is a wonderful sight, but a meaningless one if the fox is not involved. It's a link back to our past. It is a part of England. And that is more important than how a fox lives the last hour or so of its life.
Jesus that sounds like a load of shite
People can ride horses in the countryside and dogs can run without having to sacrifice a fox.
Why is a link back to a past more important than a living beings feelings/existence. I am sure people enjoyed watching women tried as witches face the ducking stool once. That was part of England too. So what?
Is it just foxes you think are cute? With their cute widdle bwushy wushy tails?
What about rats, are they too cute to hunt, too?
I bet you don't run into many of them Poles, comin' over 'ere, on hunts. There's a thought eh?
Are there rat hunts then?
No but millions die every year from internal bleeding and dehydration as a result of poisoning, I am sure its not a particularly pleasant way to go. I thought you were concerned about animal cruelty not that it was seen as a spectator sport for toffs.
This thread makes me think of the convo between Christoph Waltz and the French bloke in Inglourious Basterds!
Hans Landa: Consider, for a moment, the world a rat lives in. It's a hostile world, indeed. If a rat were to scamper through your front door right now, would you greet it with hostility?
Perrier LaPadite: I suppose I would.
Landa: Has a rat ever done anything to you to create this animosity you feel towards them?
LaPadite: Rats spread diseases. They bite people.
Landa: Rats were the cause of the bubonic plague, but that's some time ago. I propose to you, any disease a rat could spread, a squirrel could equally carry. Would you agree?
LaPadite: Oui.
Landa: Yet I assume you don't share the same animosity with squirrels that you do with rats, do you?
LaPadite: No.
Landa: But they're both rodents, are they not? And except for the tail, they even rather look alike, don't they?
LaPadite: It's an interesting thought, Herr Colonel.
Landa: Ha! However interesting as the thought may be, it makes not one bit of difference to how you feel. If a rat were to walk in here right now, as I'm talking, would you greet it with a saucer of your delicious milk?
LaPadite: Probably not.
Landa: I didn't think so. You don't like them. You don't really know why you don't like them; all you know is you find them repulsive.
I once poisoned a rat with dishwasher powder knowing it couldn't be sick. This was back in about 1986. I'd rather wrung it's neck or hit it on the head but it was trapped in a very tight space and had already bitten me.
"What most anti-fox hunting people really object to is the idea of people they don't like enjoying it."
I am not sure that is true. There have always been large majorities in favour of a ban and my impression is that's because most people feel it is cruel, not because who does it. And it is cruel - the terrified fox is hunted down and torn to shreds by a pack of dogs.
However, as someone once said: that's life. Foxes are a pest and they have to be dealt with. Quite frankly, how that happens is not a big issue for me. I used to take my father in law to follow the Warwickshire Hunt when he was alive. It was fantastic and clearly gave a lot of people a lot of pleasure. For me, that is the most important aspect to this. Watching the horses and hounds stream across a hilly green field to a wood or a copse is a wonderful sight, but a meaningless one if the fox is not involved. It's a link back to our past. It is a part of England. And that is more important than how a fox lives the last hour or so of its life.
Jesus that sounds like a load of shite
People can ride horses in the countryside and dogs can run without having to sacrifice a fox.
Why is a link back to a past more important than a living beings feelings/existence. I am sure people enjoyed watching women tried as witches face the ducking stool once. That was part of England too. So what?
Is it just foxes you think are cute? With their cute widdle bwushy wushy tails?
What about rats, are they too cute to hunt, too?
I bet you don't run into many of them Poles, comin' over 'ere, on hunts. There's a thought eh?
Are there rat hunts then?
No but millions die every year from internal bleeding and dehydration as a result of poisoning, I am sure its not a particularly pleasant way to go. I thought you were concerned about animal cruelty not that it was seen as a spectator sport for toffs.
"What most anti-fox hunting people really object to is the idea of people they don't like enjoying it."
I am not sure that is true. There have always been large majorities in favour of a ban and my impression is that's because most people feel it is cruel, not because who does it. And it is cruel - the terrified fox is hunted down and torn to shreds by a pack of dogs.
However, as someone once said: that's life. Foxes are a pest and they have to be dealt with. Quite frankly, how that happens is not a big issue for me. I used to take my father in law to follow the Warwickshire Hunt when he was alive. It was fantastic and clearly gave a lot of people a lot of pleasure. For me, that is the most important aspect to this. Watching the horses and hounds stream across a hilly green field to a wood or a copse is a wonderful sight, but a meaningless one if the fox is not involved. It's a link back to our past. It is a part of England. And that is more important than how a fox lives the last hour or so of its life.
Jesus that sounds like a load of shite
People can ride horses in the countryside and dogs can run without having to sacrifice a fox.
Why is a link back to a past more important than a living beings feelings/existence. I am sure people enjoyed watching women tried as witches face the ducking stool once. That was part of England too. So what?
Is it just foxes you think are cute? With their cute widdle bwushy wushy tails?
What about rats, are they too cute to hunt, too?
I bet you don't run into many of them Poles, comin' over 'ere, on hunts. There's a thought eh?
Are there rat hunts then?
No but millions die every year from internal bleeding and dehydration as a result of poisoning, I am sure its not a particularly pleasant way to go. I thought you were concerned about animal cruelty not that it was seen as a spectator sport for toffs.
Ah managed to get you into a bit of class war.. it is satisfying to see people forget themselves when they have their backs up
Animals kill each other in a cruel way without any encouragement from us. "Toffs" fox hunting or "chavs" with their dog fighting, I dislike both
If Dogs fight each other, or hunt foxes, that's life. We are animals too, killing other animals when there is no alternative/to protect our own families well being is necessary, and none of this conflicts with anything I have said earlier.
You did no such thing. I could care less about either. It was you who asked about rat hunting, so it's the hunting you object to rather than the cruelty, you object to other people enjoying it.
So the Conservatives have decided to cash in their reputation for prudence in order to go on a spree of promises, while Labour have decided to make a virtue of prudence having spent years opposing any difficult funding decisions.
I expect it's too late for either of them to be believed.
Having speed-read both, I have to say if you removed the party branding and colour schemes, you'd swear the Labour one was Dave's and the Tory one Ed's.
The Tory one reminds me of my own performance review at work each year - repackaging the same objectives every year and how i'm going to definitely achieve them, rather than addressing the lack of progress made over the past 12 months.... ;-)
The difference now is that the two Ed's know that they have to govern whereas Dave and Gideon are somewhat free knowing they would not be in charge anyway - so why not ?
Your Lab triumphalism is rather funny. Do you realise that if the SNP take Scotland it is very unlikely that there will EVER be a Labour majority government again.
In 1997 and 2001, Labour's majority would still have been a majority excluding Scotland.
So the Conservatives have decided to cash in their reputation for prudence in order to go on a spree of promises, while Labour have decided to make a virtue of prudence having spent years opposing any difficult funding decisions.
I expect it's too late for either of them to be believed.
Having speed-read both, I have to say if you removed the party branding and colour schemes, you'd swear the Labour one was Dave's and the Tory one Ed's.
The Tory one reminds me of my own performance review at work each year - repackaging the same objectives every year and how i'm going to definitely achieve them, rather than addressing the lack of progress made over the past 12 months.... ;-)
The difference now is that the two Ed's know that they have to govern whereas Dave and Gideon are somewhat free knowing they would not be in charge anyway - so why not ?
Your Lab triumphalism is rather funny. Do you realise that if the SNP take Scotland it is very unlikely that there will EVER be a Labour majority government again.
In 1997 and 2001, Labour's majority would still have been a majority excluding Scotland.
I am increasingly of the view that the Conservatives are going to hammer the LibDems - especially in the South West, London and some of the market towns of the South East.
But that the LibDems are holding up well in many places where Labour is the challenger - such as Cambridge, Bradford East, and Hornsey & Wood Green. (In all these seats I expect tactical voting from Conservative voters to keep Ed out.) If the Labour Party is only making 6 or 7 gains from the LibDems, then Ed's chances of becoming PM are quite modest.
So the Conservatives have decided to cash in their reputation for prudence in order to go on a spree of promises, while Labour have decided to make a virtue of prudence having spent years opposing any difficult funding decisions. I expect it's too late for either of them to be believed.
Are the public going to ignore the obvious funding hole in the Conservatives' manifesto? Labour have to decide whether they're going to point it out relentlessly, risking the battle being on terrain where the Conservatives have been seen as far stronger for years, or to rely on other parties doing so. A better approach for Labour would be to focus on the Conservatives' lack of credibility for delivering nice things, given the last five years' grind, and using the funding gap as a way of showing that they won't in practice happen.
Very good point. The only party that is in a position morally to do this is the Lib Dems.
"What most anti-fox hunting people really object to is the idea of people they don't like enjoying it."
I am not sure that is true. There have always been large majorities in favour of a ban and my impression is that's because most people feel it is cruel, not because who does it. And it is cruel - the terrified fox is hunted down and torn to shreds by a pack of dogs.
However, as someone once said: that's life. Foxes are a pest and they have to be dealt with. Quite frankly, how that happens is not a big issue for me. I used to take my father in law to follow the Warwickshire Hunt when he was alive. It was fantastic and clearly gave a lot of people a lot of pleasure. For me, that is the most important aspect to this. Watching the horses and hounds stream across a hilly green field to a wood or a copse is a wonderful sight, but a meaningless one if the fox is not involved. It's a link back to our past. It is a part of England. And that is more important than how a fox lives the last hour or so of its life.
Jesus that sounds like a load of shite
People can ride horses in the countryside and dogs can run without having to sacrifice a fox.
Why is a link back to a past more important than a living beings feelings/existence. I am sure people enjoyed watching women tried as witches face the ducking stool once. That was part of England too. So what?
Is it just foxes you think are cute? With their cute widdle bwushy wushy tails?
What about rats, are they too cute to hunt, too?
I bet you don't run into many of them Poles, comin' over 'ere, on hunts. There's a thought eh?
Are there rat hunts then?
No but millions die every year from internal bleeding and dehydration as a result of poisoning, I am sure its not a particularly pleasant way to go. I thought you were concerned about animal cruelty not that it was seen as a spectator sport for toffs.
isam's like them Puritans. They banned bear baiting not because it caused suffering to the bear, but because it gave enjoyment to the spectators.
Same mentality, different spectators to hate.
A fun anti-UKIP policy would be to turn BBC2 into a Polish language channel just to piss off UKIPpers.
Imagine the foam as they tuned in to watch Jeremy Clarkson in Najwyższy Bieg. English subtitles of course, especially for the gwiazda w samochodzie za rozsądną cenę section.
I am increasingly of the view that the Conservatives are going to hammer the LibDems - especially in the South West, London and some of the market towns of the South East.
But that the LibDems are holding up well in many places where Labour is the challenger - such as Cambridge, Bradford East, and Hornsey & Wood Green. (In all these seats I expect tactical voting from Conservative voters to keep Ed out.) If the Labour Party is only making 6 or 7 gains from the LibDems, then Ed's chances of becoming PM are quite modest.
"What most anti-fox hunting people really object to is the idea of people they don't like enjoying it."
I am not sure that is true. There have always been large majorities in favour of a ban and my impression is that's because most people feel it is cruel, not because who does it. And it is cruel - the terrified fox is hunted down and torn to shreds by a pack of dogs.
However, as someone once said: that's life. Foxes are a pest and they have to be dealt with. Quite frankly, how that happens is not a big issue for me. I used to take my father in law to follow the Warwickshire Hunt when he was alive. It was fantastic and clearly gave a lot of people a lot of pleasure. For me, that is the most important aspect to this. Watching the horses and hounds stream across a hilly green field to a wood or a copse is a wonderful sight, but a meaningless one if the fox is not involved. It's a link back to our past. It is a part of England. And that is more important than how a fox lives the last hour or so of its life.
Jesus that sounds like a load of shite
People can ride horses in the countryside and dogs can run without having to sacrifice a fox.
Why is a link back to a past more important than a living beings feelings/existence. I am sure people enjoyed watching women tried as witches face the ducking stool once. That was part of England too. So what?
Is it just foxes you think are cute? With their cute widdle bwushy wushy tails?
What about rats, are they too cute to hunt, too?
I bet you don't run into many of them Poles, comin' over 'ere, on hunts. There's a thought eh?
Are there rat hunts then?
No but millions die every year from internal bleeding and dehydration as a result of poisoning, I am sure its not a particularly pleasant way to go. I thought you were concerned about animal cruelty not that it was seen as a spectator sport for toffs.
isam's like them Puritans. They banned bear baiting not because it caused suffering to the bear, but because it gave enjoyment to the spectators.
Nope, quite the opposite, if you see my reply to isam below that is what how I am characterising his position, personally I would not ban it on libertarian grounds.
"What most anti-fox hunting people really object to is the idea of people they don't like enjoying it."
I am not sure that is true. There have always been large majorities in favour of a ban and my impression is that's because most people feel it is cruel, not because who does it. And it is cruel - the terrified fox is hunted down and torn to shreds by a pack of dogs.
Jesus that sounds like a load of shite
People can ride horses in the countryside and dogs can run without having to sacrifice a fox.
Why is a link back to a past more important than a living beings feelings/existence. I am sure people enjoyed watching women tried as witches face the ducking stool once. That was part of England too. So what?
Is it just foxes you think are cute? With their cute widdle bwushy wushy tails?
What about rats, are they too cute to hunt, too?
I bet you don't run into many of them Poles, comin' over 'ere, on hunts. There's a thought eh?
Are there rat hunts then?
No but millions die every year from internal bleeding and dehydration as a result of poisoning, I am sure its not a particularly pleasant way to go. I thought you were concerned about animal cruelty not that it was seen as a spectator sport for toffs.
Ah managed to get you into a bit of class war.. it is satisfying to see people forget themselves when they have their backs up
Animals kill each other in a cruel way without any encouragement from us. "Toffs" fox hunting or "chavs" with their dog fighting, I dislike both
If Dogs fight each other, or hunt foxes, that's life. We are animals too, killing other animals when there is no alternative/to protect our own families well being is necessary, and none of this conflicts with anything I have said earlier.
You did no such thing. I could care less about either. It was you who asked about rat hunting, so it's the hunting you object to rather than the cruelty, you object to other people enjoying it.
Someone asked me about rat hunting.. I wasn't aware of humans going out on rat hunts that's all, so I asked if such a thing existed
You mentioned toffs.. inferring I dislike people who are branded toffs. I don't like or dislike anyone dependent on the stereotype you label them with
I don't like the cruelty with which animals die at the hands of other animals, but of course that is the way life works. I wouldn't want to watch it, and I wouldn't organise a social event to encourage and glorify it. Each to their own
I am increasingly of the view that the Conservatives are going to hammer the LibDems - especially in the South West, London and some of the market towns of the South East.
But that the LibDems are holding up well in many places where Labour is the challenger - such as Cambridge, Bradford East, and Hornsey & Wood Green. (In all these seats I expect tactical voting from Conservative voters to keep Ed out.) If the Labour Party is only making 6 or 7 gains from the LibDems, then Ed's chances of becoming PM are quite modest.
How confident are you on Bradford East ?
If Labour and Lib Dems were Evens the pair, who would you plump for ?
Or is this decent value outsider confident.
I'd like to know as I'm on the red side of the book here at an awful price (Got carried away with the Ashcroft polling here)
"What most anti-fox hunting people really object to is the idea of people they don't like enjoying it."
I am not sure that is true. There have always been large majorities in favour of a ban and my impression is that's because most people feel it is cruel, not because who does it. And it is cruel - the terrified fox is hunted down and torn to shreds by a pack of dogs.
However, as someone once said: that's life. Foxes are a pest and they have to be dealt with. Quite frankly, how that happens is not a big issue for me. I used to take my father in law to follow the Warwickshire Hunt when he was alive. It was fantastic and clearly gave a lot of people a lot of pleasure. For me, that is the most important aspect to this. Watching the horses and hounds stream across a hilly green field to a wood or a copse is a wonderful sight, but a meaningless one if the fox is not involved. It's a link back to our past. It is a part of England. And that is more important than how a fox lives the last hour or so of its life.
Jesus that sounds like a load of shite
People can ride horses in the countryside and dogs can run without having to sacrifice a fox.
Why is a link back to a past more important than a living beings feelings/existence. I am sure people enjoyed watching women tried as witches face the ducking stool once. That was part of England too. So what?
Is it just foxes you think are cute? With their cute widdle bwushy wushy tails?
What about rats, are they too cute to hunt, too?
I bet you don't run into many of them Poles, comin' over 'ere, on hunts. There's a thought eh?
Are there rat hunts then?
No but millions die every year from internal bleeding and dehydration as a result of poisoning, I am sure its not a particularly pleasant way to go. I thought you were concerned about animal cruelty not that it was seen as a spectator sport for toffs.
isam's like them Puritans. They banned bear baiting not because it caused suffering to the bear, but because it gave enjoyment to the spectators.
Same mentality, different spectators to hate.
A fun anti-UKIP policy would be to turn BBC2 into a Polish language channel just to piss off UKIPpers.
Imagine the foam as they tuned in to watch Jeremy Clarkson in Najwyższy Bieg. English subtitles of course, especially for the gwiazda w samochodzie za rozsądną cenę section.
Mate lay off the sauce it turns you into an absolute helmet
I have said many times I wouldn't ban it. Could you get it any more wrong?
This thread makes me think of the convo between Christoph Waltz and the French bloke in Inglourious Basterds!
Hans Landa: Consider, for a moment, the world a rat lives in. It's a hostile world, indeed. If a rat were to scamper through your front door right now, would you greet it with hostility?
Perrier LaPadite: I suppose I would.
...
... etc
I'm afraid it does not for me. Using our relationship with rats as a justification for murdering Jews seems a bit of self justification. The conversation itself was a form of torture.
"What most anti-fox hunting people really object to is the idea of people they don't like enjoying it."
I am not sure that is true. There have always been large majorities in favour of a ban and my impression is that's because most people feel it is cruel, not because who does it. And it is cruel - the terrified fox is hunted down and torn to shreds by a pack of dogs.
However, as someone once said: that's life. Foxes are a pest and they have to be dealt with. Quite frankly, how that happens is not a big issue for me. I used to take my father in law to follow the Warwickshire Hunt when he was alive. It was fantastic and clearly gave a lot of people a lot of pleasure. For me, that is the most important aspect to this. Watching the horses and hounds stream across a hilly green field to a wood or a copse is a wonderful sight, but a meaningless one if the fox is not involved. It's a link back to our past. It is a part of England. And that is more important than how a fox lives the last hour or so of its life.
Jesus that sounds like a load of shite
People can ride horses in the countryside and dogs can run without having to sacrifice a fox.
Why is a link back to a past more important than a living beings feelings/existence. I am sure people enjoyed watching women tried as witches face the ducking stool once. That was part of England too. So what?
Is it just foxes you think are cute? With their cute widdle bwushy wushy tails?
What about rats, are they too cute to hunt, too?
I bet you don't run into many of them Poles, comin' over 'ere, on hunts. There's a thought eh?
Are there rat hunts then?
No but millions die every year from internal bleeding and dehydration as a result of poisoning, I am sure its not a particularly pleasant way to go. I thought you were concerned about animal cruelty not that it was seen as a spectator sport for toffs.
isam's like them Puritans. They banned bear baiting not because it caused suffering to the bear, but because it gave enjoyment to the spectators.
Nope, quite the opposite, if you see my reply to isam below that is what how I am characterising his position, personally I would not ban it on libertarian grounds.
I haven't said ban it. I just called out what I thought was a bad argument justifying it
Labour has run into a little difficulty over the consistency of its message on spending cuts. The problem was summed up by shadow business secretary Chuka Umunna declaring earlier that "the leader of the Scottish Labour Party will not be in charge of the UK Budget”. His comments followed shadow chancellor Ed Balls saying he couldn’t guarantee Scotland an exemption from cuts. That appeared to clash with Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy’s comments during last week’s TV debates. Mr Murphy, out campaigning in Cumbernauld today, insists he’s “singing from the same hymn sheet”.
Hence my reference to Tony stealing the Tories clothes upthread. EdM's indignation was so obvious.
He was pissed and outraged and It's Not Fair.
The Tory manifesto basically offers a "cradle-to-grave" approach, just like the founding document of the welfare state, the 1942 Beveridge Report. David Cameron's earlier speech also emphasised that theme. "We are the party of working people, offering you security at every stage of your life," he said.
Ed Miliband, or any Labour leader since the Second World War, could have uttered that sentence. Because in 16 words, Mr Cameron has basically nicked the Labour Party's mission statement. He has stolen its soul.
And that's why it is so clever. The Prime Minister is pretending to be more Red than Ed.
But his approach is actually true blue, because although the manifesto aspires to the kind of state Beveridge intended – not the leviathan we have ended up with, where hundreds of thousands of households are paid to be workless – it does this through Tory means.
People can ride horses in the countryside and dogs can run without having to sacrifice a fox.
Why is a link back to a past more important than a living beings feelings/existence. I am sure people enjoyed watching women tried as witches face the ducking stool once. That was part of England too. So what?
Shame that such a thoughtful post by SO has to be replied to by such a tendentious load of old cobblers from you. Hunting is something people are going to have a wide range of opinions, rather like voting UKIP, and one which people are not going to change their mind on due to be sloganized, or insulted, rather like voting for UKIP.
Who insulted anyone? Or used slogans?
A lot of things that are morally wrong give a lot of people a lot of pleasure, is that justification for encouraging them?
You say people have a wide range of opinions on it, then smear one you disagree with without arguing against any of the points made... v open minded of you
"Jesus that sounds like a load of shite" - No, nothing insulting there are all.
You didn't make any point to argue, save that in your opinion tradition was less important that foxes, which is an opinion, unsupported by any evidence or argument with which people may or may not agree.
snip
Which is of course leaving aside the unpleasant outcomes of most alternative ways of controlling the fox population, which farmers will do with substantially more vigour without the income from the hunts on their land.
Lots of assumptions, guesses and general rubbish from you there, you may as well talk to yourself if you are going to do that.
I do help urban foxes suffering from mange, and hunts do happen out of my sight anyway, so its not adding to or lessening my discomfort either way. I don't advocate a ban on hunting I just think people that defend or glorify it are uncaring, ignorant fools. But we all have our moments
Serious question - how many farm animals, pet cats, dogs etc. get, or got, killed by hunts?
And what about crop damage?
Always wondered about those issues ...
Very, very rare. Hounds are bred and trained to hunt their proper quarry and nothing else, and the ones that like moonlighting don't last very long. Crop damage does happen, and loss of livestock indirectly caused by leaving gates open, but the farmer gets compensated (or the hunt doesn't get to hunt on his land any more) and the individuals responsible get serious grief from the Field Master.
What's the position on Hampstead and Kilburn now that Ronnie Carroll has died ? I assume that it will be postponed as in Thirsk and Malton in 2010. However there is some doubt as Carroll was standing as an independent>
Think the manifestos might well be the turning point of the whole election. Labour completely miscalculated: people don't want "credibility", they want HOPE that things are going to get better, and on that score the Tories are outgunning Labour (even if they don't keep any of their promises).
"What most anti-fox hunting people really object to is the idea of people they don't like enjoying it."
I am not sure that is true. There have always been large majorities in favour of a ban and my impression is that's because most people feel it is cruel, not because who does it. And it is cruel - the terrified fox is hunted down and torn to shreds by a pack of dogs.
However, as someone once said: that's life. Foxes are a pest and they have to be dealt with. Quite frankly, how that happens is not a big issue for me. I used to take my father in law to follow the Warwickshire Hunt when he was alive. It was fantastic and clearly gave a lot of people a lot of pleasure. For me, that is the most important aspect to this. Watching the horses and hounds stream across a hilly green field to a wood or a copse is a wonderful sight, but a meaningless one if the fox is not involved. It's a link back to our past. It is a part of England. And that is more important than how a fox lives the last hour or so of its life.
A very reasonable post SO.
Whilst I don't agree it's as explicitly cruel as you say it is, and do think class stereotypes play a big part in its opposition, you have a very nuanced, balanced and well-considered view on this which is, sadly, rare in this debate. And even brave.
The visceral enjoyment of seeing an animal ripped apart is as grotesque to me as paedophilia. Doubtless there are a few people who could justify that too.
Not many people enjoy watching a fox being ripped apart and very few of those on a hunt get to see it or want to see it, though they may see the aftermath. They see the foxes death as a necessity, but they do not see much difference in how it is killed. They may be wrong - but that, I would posit, is what separates hunting from things such as bear baiting, dog fighting and burning women as witches.
I just do not equate the on-going physical and sexual abuse of a human child, and the resulting life-long trauma that causes, with the one-off chase and killing of a fox.
Serious question - how many farm animals, pet cats, dogs etc. get, or got, killed by hunts?
And what about crop damage?
Always wondered about those issues ...
Very little if any crop damage is caused by hunts, which take place in winter when crops aren't growing. Farmers give permission for the hunt to enter their land they wouldn't if it involved damage to their crops. That said some damage does sometimes occur to hedges, fences, gates etc., where it does the hunt, if it is well run, will quickly put it right and/or provide compensation.
As to farm animals and pets killed by hunts, I have read of it but have never known a case locally. It probably happens but very infrequently and only when something has gone horribly wrong. Farmers lose more livestock to pet dogs not being kept under proper control than they ever do to hounds from the hunt.
Labour has run into a little difficulty over the consistency of its message on spending cuts. The problem was summed up by shadow business secretary Chuka Umunna declaring earlier that "the leader of the Scottish Labour Party will not be in charge of the UK Budget”. His comments followed shadow chancellor Ed Balls saying he couldn’t guarantee Scotland an exemption from cuts. That appeared to clash with Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy’s comments during last week’s TV debates. Mr Murphy, out campaigning in Cumbernauld today, insists he’s “singing from the same hymn sheet”.
My Bet of the Week suggestion this time again concentrates on value and on the possible rather than the probable. Some recent polls have shown something of an improvement in the LibDems' share of the vote of between 1% - 2%, which is in line with some experts' expectations of what was likely during the GE campaign. Currently the spread-betting and fixed odds betting markets are showing the Yellow Team as winning within a range of the mid to upper twenties in terms of seats. If the party is indeed likely to perk up even a little over the next three weeks, it seems reasonable that their seats tally might do likewise, increasing to the low to mid thirties. Here, I just taken the few quid that was available of Betfair's offering at 6.0 (or 5/1 for their before their commission) for their 31 - 35 Seat Band, so you may need to ask for this price or accept slightly lower odds. Either way, this looks attractive to me on the basis that fair value might well be nearer to 4.5 (or 7/2 in old money). As ever DYOR.
What's the position on Hampstead and Kilburn now that Ronnie Carroll has died ? I assume that it will be postponed as in Thirsk and Malton in 2010. However there is some doubt as Carroll was standing as an independent>
This thread makes me think of the convo between Christoph Waltz and the French bloke in Inglourious Basterds!
Hans Landa: Consider, for a moment, the world a rat lives in. It's a hostile world, indeed. If a rat were to scamper through your front door right now, would you greet it with hostility?
Perrier LaPadite: I suppose I would.
...
... etc
I'm afraid it does not for me. Using our relationship with rats as a justification for murdering Jews seems a bit of self justification. The conversation itself was a form of torture.
"My name is Shosanna Dreyfus and THIS is the face... of Jewish vengeance!"
Think the manifestos might well be the turning point of the whole election. Labour completely miscalculated: people don't want "credibility", they want HOPE that things are going to get better, and on that score the Tories are outgunning Labour (even if they don't keep any of their promises).
Serious question - how many farm animals, pet cats, dogs etc. get, or got, killed by hunts?
And what about crop damage?
Always wondered about those issues ...
Very little if any crop damage is caused by hunts, which take place in winter when crops aren't growing. Farmers give permission for the hunt to enter their land they wouldn't if it involved damage to their crops. That said some damage does sometimes occur to hedges, fences, gates etc., where it does the hunt, if it is well run, will quickly put it right and/or provide compensation.
As to farm animals and pets killed by hunts, I have read of it but have never known a case locally. It probably happens but very infrequently and only when something has gone horribly wrong. Farmers lose more livestock to pet dogs not being kept under proper control than they ever do to hounds from the hunt.
"What most anti-fox hunting people really object to is the idea of people they don't like enjoying it."
I am not sure that is true. There have always been large majorities in favour of a ban and my impression is that's because most people feel it is cruel, not because who does it. And it is cruel - the terrified fox is hunted down and torn to shreds by a pack of dogs.
However, as someone once said: that's life. Foxes are a pest and they have to be dealt with. Quite frankly, how that happens is not a big issue for me. I used to take my father in law to follow the Warwickshire Hunt when he was alive. It was fantastic and clearly gave a lot of people a lot of pleasure. For me, that is the most important aspect to this. Watching the horses and hounds stream across a hilly green field to a wood or a copse is a wonderful sight, but a meaningless one if the fox is not involved. It's a link back to our past. It is a part of England. And that is more important than how a fox lives the last hour or so of its life.
A very reasonable post SO.
Whilst I don't agree it's as explicitly cruel as you say it is, and do think class stereotypes play a big part in its opposition, you have a very nuanced, balanced and well-considered view on this which is, sadly, rare in this debate. And even brave.
The visceral enjoyment of seeing an animal ripped apart is as grotesque to me as paedophilia. Doubtless there are a few people who could justify that too.
Not many people enjoy watching a fox being ripped apart and very few of those on a hunt get to see it or want to see it, though they may see the aftermath. They see the foxes death as a necessity, but they do not see much difference in how it is killed. They may be wrong - but that, I would posit, is what separates hunting from things such as bear baiting, dog fighting and burning women as witches.
I just do not equate the on-going physical and sexual abuse of a human child, and the resulting life-long trauma that causes, with the one-off chase and killing of a fox.
Fair enough point about the comparison with bear baiting, witch burning.
You are also right that the killing of a fox is not equivalent to sexual abuse of a child, it is equivalent to murdering a child you think of as a pest
Watching the horses and hounds stream across a hilly green field to a wood or a copse is a wonderful sight, but a meaningless one if the fox is not involved. It's a link back to our past. It is a part of England. And that is more important than how a fox lives the last hour or so of its life.
Sport offers various wonderful sights, but they are all the better for being completely meaningless. That's why the interviews and commentary can be so awful: deep down you know it's utterly pointless and they are all taking it far too seriously.
One thing the prime minister didn’t make too much of but did say, was that he was reaffirming a commitment to getting the overall budget into surplus by 2018. That implies something really dramatic - and we’re talking tens and tens of billions of pounds worth of spending cuts or tax increases even before you start to think about some of the promises that we’ve heard on the National Health Service, on increasing the personal tax allowance. So what you got was a lot of the good stuff of course - more money for childcare, more money for the health service and so on - but absolutely no detail on the bad stuff, which is there’s going to have to continue to be really big cuts on welfare spending, really big cuts in local government spending, really big cuts in all the other bits of spending which haven’t been specifically protected.
Surely, all the polls just confirm that this is Scotland’s election.
If the Scots hadn’t fallen out of love with Labour, then Ed Miliband would be almost home and dry. On BenM’s figures below, if most of the ex-Scottish Labour vote returned, then Labour would be easily the biggest party, and almost have a majority.
Their best hope now is to see whether any of that SLAB vote can be gotten back. If I was Miliband, I would be camped North of the Border on my knees, pleading, cajoling, hoping, begging ... and in such desperate circumstances maybe even telling the truth.
Gordon Brown could surely have won this election if he was Labour leader.
It was the appointment of such a London-centric figure as Miliband that has lost the election for Labour. Yes, I know he nominally represents a rotten borough in Yorkshire, but he is 100 per cent North London.
I do admire your not being an on-message one-party drone, SO. A top post, even if I couldn't agree with it all. The issue of importance of welfare vs tradition so very subjective, I don't think a definitive answer is possible. It's one that will run and run. Even the question of whether a fox is really a "pest" - it's an extreme view, but there's a school of gardening that says there's no such thing as a weed.
I'd venture that people's sensitivity over the fate of cute fluffy calendar-adorning foxes is utterly irrational. How kindly do they think that wolves euthanise deer, or lion take care to stun their antelope before devouring them? All magnificent when you watch it on a wildlife documentary of course (in a way that a hound hunting apparently isn't). Does their adorable pet kitten take out those voles and mice and tweety-birds with a well-aimed bolt to the head? When foxes themselves hunt for rabbits and hedgehogs and fledglings, do they get a special licence of approval from the RSPCA first?
And of course the very worst thing that could happen to a fox is to be caught by another animal. Without that they would never experience the joys of being mangled by an automobile, or half-starving half-freezing to death in winter, or the wracking of their flesh as infirmity and disease takes it course.
Lots of misplaced sympathy to go about, it seems.
Do humans assist cats, wolves and lions to do what comes naturally to them, and organise their social calendar around such events?
A good point. But I think that if it's only wrong because it's a socialised, that isn't a very strong argument that it is wrong. Do people take vicarious pleasure in watching a magnificent hunting animal tear its prey to shreds? On widescreen TV with a narrator you wish was your uncle and some stunning scenery in the background, apparently it's more politically and culturally acceptable. Do humans help one animal to hunt another? Seems to be the point of the barn cat, and numerous other examples of one beast use for the "pest control" of another. So I'm reluctant to castigate fox-hunting as some unique evil which brings out the worst in human nature, though as a fluffy sensitive urban vegetarian type, it's really not my bag.
Before its removal, attending public hangings and executions was extremely popular. Humans want sex, death and blood. It's not a nice thing to say but true - witness those who filmed parents trying to rescue their children from the sea and didn't try and help them.
"What most anti-fox hunting people really object to is the idea of people they don't like enjoying it."
I am not sure that is true. There have always been large majorities in favour of a ban and my impression is that's because most people feel it is cruel, not because who does it. And it is cruel - the terrified fox is hunted down and torn to shreds by a pack of dogs.
However, as someone once said: that's life. Foxes are a pest and they have to be dealt with. Quite frankly, how that happens is not a big issue for me. I used to take my father in law to follow the Warwickshire Hunt when he was alive. It was fantastic and clearly gave a lot of people a lot of pleasure. For me, that is the most important aspect to this. Watching the horses and hounds stream across a hilly green field to a wood or a copse is a wonderful sight, but a meaningless one if the fox is not involved. It's a link back to our past. It is a part of England. And that is more important than how a fox lives the last hour or so of its life.
A very reasonable post SO.
Whilst I don't agree it's as explicitly cruel as you say it is, and do think class stereotypes play a big part in its opposition, you have a very nuanced, balanced and well-considered view on this which is, sadly, rare in this debate. And even brave.
The visceral enjoyment of seeing an animal ripped apart is as grotesque to me as paedophilia. Doubtless there are a few people who could justify that too.
Not many people enjoy watching a fox being ripped apart and very few of those on a hunt get to see it or want to see it, though they may see the aftermath. They see the foxes death as a necessity, but they do not see much difference in how it is killed. They may be wrong - but that, I would posit, is what separates hunting from things such as bear baiting, dog fighting and burning women as witches.
I just do not equate the on-going physical and sexual abuse of a human child, and the resulting life-long trauma that causes, with the one-off chase and killing of a fox.
Fair enough point about the comparison with bear baiting, witch burning.
You are also right that the killing of a fox is not equivalent to sexual abuse of a child, it is equivalent to murdering a child you think of as a pest
Only if you equate the life of an animal with the life of a human. I am afraid I just don't. How could I or anyone else who eats meat think that? How could anyone who knows anyone who eats meat think that?
I remain highly sceptical about Mr Silver. The UK market is perplexing our own expert pollsters - he comes from a two party system and IIRC was very wrong in his last UK predictions.
Let's see how he calls it this time. Until then, he's in the Angus Reid column credibility wise.
Speaking of Angus Reid, they seemed to have a great methodology and were very keen to learn about the UK market - whatever went so wrong for them?
"What most anti-fox hunting people really object to is the idea of people they don't like enjoying it."
I am not sure that is true. There have always been large majorities in favour of a ban and my impression is that's because most people feel it is cruel, not because who does it. And it is cruel - the terrified fox is hunted down and torn to shreds by a pack of dogs.
However, as someone once said: that's life. Foxes are a pest and they have to be dealt with. Quite frankly, how that happens is not a big issue for me. I used to take my father in law to follow the Warwickshire Hunt when he was alive. It was fantastic and clearly gave a lot of people a lot of pleasure. For me, that is the most important aspect to this. Watching the horses and hounds stream across a hilly green field to a wood or a copse is a wonderful sight, but a meaningless one if the fox is not involved. It's a link back to our past. It is a part of England. And that is more important than how a fox lives the last hour or so of its life.
A very reasonable post SO.
Whilst I don't agree it's as explicitly cruel as you say it is, and do think class stereotypes play a big part in its opposition, you have a very nuanced, balanced and well-considered view on this which is, sadly, rare in this debate. And even brave.
The visceral enjoyment of seeing an animal ripped apart is as grotesque to me as paedophilia. Doubtless there are a few people who could justify that too.
Not many people enjoy watching a fox being ripped apart and very few of those on a hunt get to see it or want to see it, though they may see the aftermath. They see the foxes death as a necessity, but they do not see much difference in how it is killed. They may be wrong - but that, I would posit, is what separates hunting from things such as bear baiting, dog fighting and burning women as witches.
I just do not equate the on-going physical and sexual abuse of a human child, and the resulting life-long trauma that causes, with the one-off chase and killing of a fox.
Fair enough point about the comparison with bear baiting, witch burning.
You are also right that the killing of a fox is not equivalent to sexual abuse of a child, it is equivalent to murdering a child you think of as a pest
I remain highly sceptical about Mr Silver. The UK market is perplexing our own expert pollsters - he comes from a two party system and IIRC was very wrong in his last UK predictions.
Let's see how he calls it this time. Until then, he's in the Angus Reid column credibility wise.
Speaking of Angus Reid, they seemed to have a great methodology and were very keen to learn about the UK market - whatever went so wrong for them?
So the Conservatives have decided to cash in their reputation for prudence in order to go on a spree of promises, while Labour have decided to make a virtue of prudence having spent years opposing any difficult funding decisions.
I expect it's too late for either of them to be believed.
Having speed-read both, I have to say if you removed the party branding and colour schemes, you'd swear the Labour one was Dave's and the Tory one Ed's.
The Tory one reminds me of my own performance review at work each year - repackaging the same objectives every year and how i'm going to definitely achieve them, rather than addressing the lack of progress made over the past 12 months.... ;-)
The difference now is that the two Ed's know that they have to govern whereas Dave and Gideon are somewhat free knowing they would not be in charge anyway - so why not ?
Your Lab triumphalism is rather funny. Do you realise that if the SNP take Scotland it is very unlikely that there will EVER be a Labour majority government again.
In 1997 and 2001, Labour's majority would still have been a majority excluding Scotland.
That was New Labour. That ship sailed a long time ago. [Thankfully]
"What most anti-fox hunting people really object to is the idea of people they don't like enjoying it."
I am not sure that is true. There have always been large majorities in favour of a ban and my impression is that's because most people feel it is cruel, not because who does it. And it is cruel - the terrified fox is hunted down and torn to shreds by a pack of dogs.
However, as someone once said: that's life. Foxes are a pest and they have to be dealt with. Quite frankly, how that happens is not a big issue for me. I used to take my father in law to follow the Warwickshire Hunt when he was alive. It was fantastic and clearly gave a lot of people a lot of pleasure. For me, that is the most important aspect to this. Watching the horses and hounds stream across a hilly green field to a wood or a copse is a wonderful sight, but a meaningless one if the fox is not involved. It's a link back to our past. It is a part of England. And that is more important than how a fox lives the last hour or so of its life.
Jesus that sounds like a load of shite
People can ride horses in the countryside and dogs can run without having to sacrifice a fox.
Why is a link back to a past more important than a living beings feelings/existence. I am sure people enjoyed watching women tried as witches face the ducking stool once. That was part of England too. So what?
Is it just foxes you think are cute? With their cute widdle bwushy wushy tails?
What about rats, are they too cute to hunt, too?
I bet you don't run into many of them Poles, comin' over 'ere, on hunts. There's a thought eh?
Are there rat hunts then?
No but millions die every year from internal bleeding and dehydration as a result of poisoning, I am sure its not a particularly pleasant way to go. I thought you were concerned about animal cruelty not that it was seen as a spectator sport for toffs.
Don't forget the Connaught Square Squirrel Hunt set up in honour of Tony Blair...
I remain highly sceptical about Mr Silver. The UK market is perplexing our own expert pollsters - he comes from a two party system and IIRC was very wrong in his last UK predictions.
Let's see how he calls it this time. Until then, he's in the Angus Reid column credibility wise.
Speaking of Angus Reid, they seemed to have a great methodology and were very keen to learn about the UK market - whatever went so wrong for them?
"What most anti-fox hunting people really object to is the idea of people they don't like enjoying it."
I am not sure that is true. There have always been large majorities in favour of a ban and my impression is that's because most people feel it is cruel, not because who does it. And it is cruel - the terrified fox is hunted down and torn to shreds by a pack of dogs.
However, as someone once said: that's life. Foxes are a pest and they have to be dealt with. Quite frankly, how that happens is not a big issue for me. I used to take my father in law to follow the Warwickshire Hunt when he was alive. It was fantastic and clearly gave a lot of people a lot of pleasure. For me, that is the most important aspect to this. Watching the horses and hounds stream across a hilly green field to a wood or a copse is a wonderful sight, but a meaningless one if the fox is not involved. It's a link back to our past. It is a part of England. And that is more important than how a fox lives the last hour or so of its life.
A very reasonable post SO.
Whilst I don't agree it's as explicitly cruel as you say it is, and do think class stereotypes play a big part in its opposition, you have a very nuanced, balanced and well-considered view on this which is, sadly, rare in this debate. And even brave.
The visceral enjoyment of seeing an animal ripped apart is as grotesque to me as paedophilia. Doubtless there are a few people who could justify that too.
Not many people enjoy watching a fox being ripped apart and very few of those on a hunt get to see it or want to see it, though they may see the aftermath. They see the foxes death as a necessity, but they do not see much difference in how it is killed. They may be wrong - but that, I would posit, is what separates hunting from things such as bear baiting, dog fighting and burning women as witches.
I just do not equate the on-going physical and sexual abuse of a human child, and the resulting life-long trauma that causes, with the one-off chase and killing of a fox.
Fair enough point about the comparison with bear baiting, witch burning.
You are also right that the killing of a fox is not equivalent to sexual abuse of a child, it is equivalent to murdering a child you think of as a pest
No it is not. And you are seriously bonkers. A fox is officially vermin. A child is officially a human being. A child may be a pest, but he/she does not fall under the Pests Act 1954.
I remain highly sceptical about Mr Silver. The UK market is perplexing our own expert pollsters - he comes from a two party system and IIRC was very wrong in his last UK predictions.
Let's see how he calls it this time. Until then, he's in the Angus Reid column credibility wise.
Speaking of Angus Reid, they seemed to have a great methodology and were very keen to learn about the UK market - whatever went so wrong for them?
It will be interesting to see how Nate Silver's predictions work out. He has UKIP on one.
He's not predicting anything at all this time though, he's just using Hanretty's model.
No, he's quite open about it:
U.K. General Election Predictions
"FiveThirtyEight is publishing forecasts for the 2015 parliamentary election developed by Chris Hanretty, Ben Lauderdale and Nick Vivyan, a group of U.K. academics. Their model combines opinion polls, historical election results and census data. More U.K. election coverage »"
The fox hunting stuff seems unnecessary and dangerous ground.
I personally don't care about fox hunting on way or the other, but I would dearly like to see some signs of integrity from those that purport to lead us. Cameron did a deal with the Countryside Alliance, their ground army for a free vote on Hunting. He did the same in 2010 and then welched on it, he should do as he promised this time. It's a free vote, so if there is no support for it in the country, it will fail, that's life.
Once he has done that he can make a promise on immigration that a) is technically possible to keep even with a full majority and b) he actually plans to keep.
Cameron didn't 'welch' on a foxhunting deal, it wasn't a Tory government it was a coalition. Similar to Clegg and tuition fees.
And the strategy to defer a vote was agreed with the CA in advance. They knew that it couldn't be won, so agreed to wait for a better time. As with the EU vote, lose it once and it's over for a generation (if not for ever)
One thing the prime minister didn’t make too much of but did say, was that he was reaffirming a commitment to getting the overall budget into surplus by 2018. That implies something really dramatic - and we’re talking tens and tens of billions of pounds worth of spending cuts or tax increases even before you start to think about some of the promises that we’ve heard on the National Health Service, on increasing the personal tax allowance. So what you got was a lot of the good stuff of course - more money for childcare, more money for the health service and so on - but absolutely no detail on the bad stuff, which is there’s going to have to continue to be really big cuts on welfare spending, really big cuts in local government spending, really big cuts in all the other bits of spending which haven’t been specifically protected.
Yes, the soundbite of saving 1% of the government budget sounds very reasonable, but is disingenuous when you consider the vast amounts of the budget that are completely off-limits: NHS and Pensions for starters.
Though elections aren't won or lost on details I would rather hope that a Conservative politician is picked up on this aspect of the 1% slogan in an interview at some point.
Yes, the soundbite of saving 1% of the government budget sounds very reasonable, but is disingenuous when you consider the vast amounts of the budget that are completely off-limits: NHS and Pensions for starters.
Though elections aren't won or lost on details I would rather hope that a Conservative politician is picked up on this aspect of the 1% slogan in an interview at some point.
A really good interviewer like Andrew Neil would get them on that sort of detail. Too bad Dave is avoiding him like the plague.
I really don't know. The sitting MP has a good local rep, the Tories are hitting the streets - but so are the LDs. It's going to be very tight. I certainly don't think the LDs are 20% near anything. A coin toss IMO.
I remain highly sceptical about Mr Silver. The UK market is perplexing our own expert pollsters - he comes from a two party system and IIRC was very wrong in his last UK predictions.
Let's see how he calls it this time. Until then, he's in the Angus Reid column credibility wise.
Speaking of Angus Reid, they seemed to have a great methodology and were very keen to learn about the UK market - whatever went so wrong for them?
It will be interesting to see how Nate Silver's predictions work out. He has UKIP on one.
He's not predicting anything at all this time though, he's just using Hanretty's model.
No, he's quite open about it:
U.K. General Election Predictions
"FiveThirtyEight is publishing forecasts for the 2015 parliamentary election developed by Chris Hanretty, Ben Lauderdale and Nick Vivyan, a group of U.K. academics. Their model combines opinion polls, historical election results and census data. More U.K. election coverage »"
'historical election results' - hmmm 'Past performance is no guide to future performance' is the second thing you learn as an investor. (The first is - buy low sell high).
"What most anti-fox hunting people really object to is the idea of people they don't like enjoying it."
I am not sure that is true. There have always been large majorities in favour of a ban and my impression is that's because most people feel it is cruel, not because who does it. And it is cruel - the terrified fox is hunted down and torn to shreds by a pack of dogs.
However, as someone once said: that's life. Foxes are a pest and they have to be dealt with. Quite frankly, how that happens is not a big issue for me. I used to take my father in law to follow the Warwickshire Hunt when he was alive. It was fantastic and clearly gave a lot of people a lot of pleasure. For me, that is the most important aspect to this. Watching the horses and hounds stream across a hilly green field to a wood or a copse is a wonderful sight, but a meaningless one if the fox is not involved. It's a link back to our past. It is a part of England. And that is more important than how a fox lives the last hour or so of its life.
Ats opposition, you have a very nuanced, balanced and well-considered view on this which is, sadly, rare in this debate. And even brave.
The visceral enjoyment of seeing an animal ripped apart is as grotesque to me as paedophilia. Doubtless there are a few people who could justify that too.
I just do not equate the on-going physical and sexual abuse of a human child, and the resulting life-long trauma that causes, with the one-off chase and killing of a fox.
Fair enough point about the comparison with bear baiting, witch burning.
You are also right that the killing of a fox is not equivalent to sexual abuse of a child, it is equivalent to murdering a child you think of as a pest
Only if you equate the life of an animal with the life of a human. I am afraid I just don't. How could I or anyone else who eats meat think that? How could anyone who knows anyone who eats meat think that?
For the purposes of the point you made, which was the problem of equating killing a fox with sexual abuse of a child was that the child lives with the consequences while the fox is dead, the equivalent would be the child dying.
I wouldn't say they were the same, I did make it sound as if that's what I thought I am sorry, my mistake, but my point was logically, if the problem was the lifelong suffering then the equivalent is the child dying (or the fox being sexually abused)
I am a human and so I favour humans, foxes would favour foxes
Serious question - how many farm animals, pet cats, dogs etc. get, or got, killed by hunts?
And what about crop damage?
Always wondered about those issues ...
Very little if any crop damage is caused by hunts, which take place in winter when crops aren't growing. Farmers give permission for the hunt to enter their land they wouldn't if it involved damage to their crops. That said some damage does sometimes occur to hedges, fences, gates etc., where it does the hunt, if it is well run, will quickly put it right and/or provide compensation.
As to farm animals and pets killed by hunts, I have read of it but have never known a case locally. It probably happens but very infrequently and only when something has gone horribly wrong. Farmers lose more livestock to pet dogs not being kept under proper control than they ever do to hounds from the hunt.
Mr Clampett good to see you back posting.
We are not getting too excited by the oil strike. Its nice of course but one has to be discreet about these things. The chap down the road who bought himself a stetson and a pair of alligator skin boots has found the invitations to social events drying up. Worrying about how many gallons in a barrel and what the cat would do in the event of a well-head fire and other such concerns of an oil-man does soak up the hours though.
"What most anti-fox hunting people really object to is the idea of people they don't like enjoying it."
I am not sure that is true. There have always been large majorities in favour of a ban and my impression is that's because most people feel it is cruel, not because who does it. And it is cruel - the terrified fox is hunted down and torn to shreds by a pack of dogs.
However, as someone once said: that's life. Foxes are a pest and they have to be dealt with. Quite frankly, how that happens is not a big issue for me. I used to take my father in law to follow the Warwickshire Hunt when he was alive. It was fantastic and clearly gave a lot of people a lot of pleasure. For me, that is the most important aspect to this. Watching the horses and hounds stream across a hilly green field to a wood or a copse is a wonderful sight, but a meaningless one if the fox is not involved. It's a link back to our past. It is a part of England. And that is more important than how a fox lives the last hour or so of its life.
A very reasonable post SO.
Whilst I don't agree it's as explicitly cruel as you say it is, and do think class stereotypes play a big part in its opposition, you have a very nuanced, balanced and well-considered view on this which is, sadly, rare in this debate. And even brave.
The visceral enjoyment of seeing an animal ripped apart is as grotesque to me as paedophilia. Doubtless there are a few people who could justify that too.
Not many people enjoy watching a fox being ripped apart and very few of those on a hunt get to see it or want to see it, though they may see the aftermath. They see the foxes death as a necessity, but they do not see much difference in how it is killed. They may be wrong - but that, I would posit, is what separates hunting from things such as bear baiting, dog fighting and burning women as witches.
I just do not equate the on-going physical and sexual abuse of a human child, and the resulting life-long trauma that causes, with the one-off chase and killing of a fox.
Fair enough point about the comparison with bear baiting, witch burning.
You are also right that the killing of a fox is not equivalent to sexual abuse of a child, it is equivalent to murdering a child you think of as a pest
No it is not. And you are seriously bonkers. A fox is officially vermin. A child is officially a human being. A child may be a pest, but he/she does not fall under the Pests Act 1954.
Labour have been banging on about 'growth' and the Conservatives about 'efficiency savings' as if the other side would actively halt growth or not look for savings.
This thread makes me think of the convo between Christoph Waltz and the French bloke in Inglourious Basterds!
Hans Landa: Consider, for a moment, the world a rat lives in. It's a hostile world, indeed. If a rat were to scamper through your front door right now, would you greet it with hostility?
Perrier LaPadite: I suppose I would.
...
... etc
I'm afraid it does not for me. Using our relationship with rats as a justification for murdering Jews seems a bit of self justification. The conversation itself was a form of torture.
"My name is Shosanna Dreyfus and THIS is the face... of Jewish vengeance!"
I am happy to agree that Pulp Fiction is a tour de force (a masterpiece almost) - worthy of rewatching, but otherwise, technically brilliant though they are, I feel cold towards Tarrantino's other efforts. Is as if he stumbled onto the dark comedy and humanity in Pulp Fiction by accident. Inglorious wotsots sits uneasily with me, and I am someone who admires The Wild Bunch.
BTW as an actor he was great (as was everybody) in Dusk till Dawn. And that too was a great and original movie... fair doos to Tarrantino for writing it.
My husband brought me back a pair of alligator boots and a stetson following a trip to Houston.
I'd have preferred almost anything else - the boots chafed terribly. The hat despite my love of them was just ridiculous. I gave it to the guy who did our garden, he wore it. He was a Baptist and we nicknamed him Stunt due to the bizarre DIY accidents he had. He once arrived in a boiler suit with a massive scar on his forehead. He'd clocked himself on the head with an angle grinder the day before and knawed the skin off down to the skull.
It was an excellent quality hat made of beaver skin.
Serious question - how many farm animals, pet cats, dogs etc. get, or got, killed by hunts?
And what about crop damage?
Always wondered about those issues ...
Very little if any crop damage is caused by hunts, which take place in winter when crops aren't growing. Farmers give permission for the hunt to enter their land they wouldn't if it involved damage to their crops. That said some damage does sometimes occur to hedges, fences, gates etc., where it does the hunt, if it is well run, will quickly put it right and/or provide compensation.
As to farm animals and pets killed by hunts, I have read of it but have never known a case locally. It probably happens but very infrequently and only when something has gone horribly wrong. Farmers lose more livestock to pet dogs not being kept under proper control than they ever do to hounds from the hunt.
Mr Clampett good to see you back posting.
We are not getting too excited by the oil strike. Its nice of course but one has to be discreet about these things. The chap down the road who bought himself a stetson and a pair of alligator skin boots has found the invitations to social events drying up. Worrying about how many gallons in a barrel and what the cat would do in the event of a well-head fire and other such concerns of an oil-man does soak up the hours though.
Think the manifestos might well be the turning point of the whole election. Labour completely miscalculated: people don't want "credibility", they want HOPE that things are going to get better, and on that score the Tories are outgunning Labour (even if they don't keep any of their promises).
I thought nothing about it tbh. It's just so incredibly bland that you wonder why they're bothering to stand in this election atall if they have that little to say.
Even more depressing is their reaction to the Tory manifesto today. People don't want to hear nitpicking about how realistic or "costed" things are; people are currently so desperate for some hope that they WANT to believe things are going to get better.
Think the manifestos might well be the turning point of the whole election. Labour completely miscalculated: people don't want "credibility", they want HOPE that things are going to get better, and on that score the Tories are outgunning Labour (even if they don't keep any of their promises).
I thought nothing about it tbh. It's just so incredibly bland that you wonder why they're bothering to stand in this election atall if they have that little to say.
Even more depressing is their reaction to the Tory manifesto today. People don't want to hear nitpicking about how realistic or "costed" things are; people are currently so desperate for some hope that they WANT to believe things are going to get better.
Things can only get better Can only get better Now I've found you
We are not getting too excited by the oil strike. Its nice of course but one has to be discreet about these things. The chap down the road who bought himself a stetson and a pair of alligator skin boots has found the invitations to social events drying up. Worrying about how many gallons in a barrel and what the cat would do in the event of a well-head fire and other such concerns of an oil-man does soak up the hours though.
What would the cat do in the event of a well-head fire? I'm guessing find a safe distance from fire where it's still cosy from the heat, then curl up and sleep. Other possibilities include: bat disconsolately at an old cat toy, and ask for more food. I'm just going by my own cats' behaviour... yours may be more resourceful.
Think the manifestos might well be the turning point of the whole election. Labour completely miscalculated: people don't want "credibility", they want HOPE that things are going to get better, and on that score the Tories are outgunning Labour (even if they don't keep any of their promises).
I thought nothing about it tbh. It's just so incredibly bland that you wonder why they're bothering to stand in this election atall if they have that little to say.
Even more depressing is their reaction to the Tory manifesto today. People don't want to hear nitpicking about how realistic or "costed" things are; people are currently so desperate for some hope that they WANT to believe things are going to get better.
Things can only get better Can only get better Now I've found you
(sorry!)
I won't deny that's what I thought of when I wrote that sentence too
Think the manifestos might well be the turning point of the whole election. Labour completely miscalculated: people don't want "credibility", they want HOPE that things are going to get better, and on that score the Tories are outgunning Labour (even if they don't keep any of their promises).
I thought nothing about it tbh. It's just so incredibly bland that you wonder why they're bothering to stand in this election atall if they have that little to say.
Even more depressing is their reaction to the Tory manifesto today. People don't want to hear nitpicking about how realistic or "costed" things are; people are currently so desperate for some hope that they WANT to believe things are going to get better.
Indeed, Purseybear will be delighted. Or maybe she won't. Hard to tell. Difficult call. Guess we'll just have to wait and see.
"What most anti-fox hunting people really object to is the idea of people they don't like enjoying it."
I am not sure that is true. There have always been large majorities in favour of a ban and my impression is that's because most people feel it is cruel, not because who does it. And it is cruel - the terrified fox is hunted down and torn to shreds by a pack of dogs.
However, as someone once said: that's life. Foxes are a pest and they have to be dealt with. Quite frankly, how that happens is not a big issue for me. I used to take my father in law to follow the Warwickshire Hunt when he was alive. It was fantastic and clearly gave a lot of people a lot of pleasure. For me, that is the most important aspect to this. Watching the horses and hounds stream across a hilly green field to a wood or a copse is a wonderful sight, but a meaningless one if the fox is not involved. It's a link back to our past. It is a part of England. And that is more important than how a fox lives the last hour or so of its life.
A very reasonable post SO.
Whilst I don't agree it's as explicitly cruel as you say it is, and do think class stereotypes play a big part in its opposition, you have a very nuanced, balanced and well-considered view on this which is, sadly, rare in this debate. And even brave.
The visceral enjoyment of seeing an animal ripped apart is as grotesque to me as paedophilia. Doubtless there are a few people who could justify that too.
Not many people enjoy watching a fox being ripped apart and very few of those on a hunt get to see it or want to see it, though they may see the aftermath. They see the foxes death as a necessity, but they do not see much difference in how it is killed. They may be wrong - but that, I would posit, is what separates hunting from things such as bear baiting, dog fighting and burning women as witches.
I just do not equate the on-going physical and sexual abuse of a human child, and the resulting life-long trauma that causes, with the one-off chase and killing of a fox.
Fair enough point about the comparison with bear baiting, witch burning.
You are also right that the killing of a fox is not equivalent to sexual abuse of a child, it is equivalent to murdering a child you think of as a pest
No it is not. And you are seriously bonkers. A fox is officially vermin. A child is officially a human being. A child may be a pest, but he/she does not fall under the Pests Act 1954.
After May 8th, the "Wallace & Gromit meet Mickey Mouse Salmond" cartoons are going to at least help numb the pain of the damage being done to the country. Brookes himself said in The Times the other week that he is looking forward to it with relish.
I will miss the Westminster Academy cartoons though, unless he keeps them going once Boris assumes the mantle...
Think the manifestos might well be the turning point of the whole election. Labour completely miscalculated: people don't want "credibility", they want HOPE that things are going to get better, and on that score the Tories are outgunning Labour (even if they don't keep any of their promises).
I thought nothing about it tbh. It's just so incredibly bland that you wonder why they're bothering to stand in this election atall if they have that little to say.
Even more depressing is their reaction to the Tory manifesto today. People don't want to hear nitpicking about how realistic or "costed" things are; people are currently so desperate for some hope that they WANT to believe things are going to get better.
Indeed, Purseybear will be delighted. Or maybe she won't. Hard to tell. Difficult call. Guess we'll just have to wait and see.
90% probability Con Gain Westmorland and Lonsdale I heard.
Labour, having gone ludicrously over-the-top a few weeks ago in describing the Conservative plans as swingeing, ideologically-driven cuts, which will take us back to Victorian times, are now having to try to switch to the opposite argument and claim that Cameron is promising unfunded giveaways.
This looks like a deliberate trap set by Osborne, and a rather nifty one. The message which most voters will get is that Conservative austerity can't be all that bad after all. Given that the Conservatives have a considerable advantage in economic credibility, that's quite a good position.
At the same time, Labour seem to have got themselves into a strategic hole with their late conversion to the message: 'any austerity Osborne can do, we can do better'. That won't play well with their core vote, and certainly not in Scotland. What's more the timing is particularly difficult for Miliband: on Thursday he'll face the challengers' debate with three feisty ladies taking chunks from his left and Nigel Farage skewering him on credibility.
I expect the Conservatives to pull ahead (or further ahead) in the next week or two.
What happened to Margaret Thatcher's first Right to Buy council house?
One of the first council houses sold under Margaret Thatcher’s Right To Buy scheme was purchased for more than 20 times its original value 33 years later
Comments
Same from some non-Tories today.
To me neither party has been more than 1% ahead since October.
Still neck and neck.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2015/live
“a complete ban on cages for hens and rabbits” (Spring time for foxes?)
“end the use of the whip in horse racing and conduct a full review of the sport” (what about the lossof horse manure, it is very natural?)
“end the practice of grouse shooting” (Is this to provide more food for foxes?)
“ensure UK taxpayers’ money is not used for bullfighting” (Where are our bullfights?)
“ban the import of fur products” (Bad, since we will have fewer rabbits)
“progressively introduce anonymised CVs” (WTF)
“introduce new taxes on the use of water” (A sure winner)
“ensure that no company owns more than 20% of a media market” (Good, will eff up the BBC)
“pursue a policy of defensive defence, which threatens no one” (Please do not hit me if I smile)
http://order-order.com/2015/04/14/free-the-bunnies-the-maddest-policies-in-the-green-manifesto-listed/#_@/Zv_-Cu9cn3rT6Q
Sunil's trip over the Easter weekend to Amsterdam via Brussels on the Eurostar and the TGV-style Thalys service has made him think again about his opposition to HS2.
I'm more interested in what you got up to during a weekend in Amsterdam...
(Unless he took my advice and closed his bet for a nominal loss of 2 x [Not£20] yesterday.)
The nice thing about a betting exchange is that you can lay Dave
Conversely, pretty sure we blues are banking the following positions:
- may not win outright this time, but probably the only party who will ever win outright again.
- the party to clear up after all future profligate governments.
To add to
- the party of social mobility
- the party of the working man
- the party of a property owning democracy
As a one nation (one Union?) Tory, I'm particularly proud of all of these.
Last two weeks have given conflicting results. Week ending Easter Sunday, 0.4% Tory lead, but Week ending 12th April, Labour bounced back to a 1.2% lead!
Overall trend here:
twitter.com/Sunil_P2/status/587381169324498944
Dear Daughter, the new RedEdHell coalition has banned all cages so we had to let your bunny Floppy out in the garden at night and unfortunately Rennard killed it....
Animals kill each other in a cruel way without any encouragement from us. "Toffs" fox hunting or "chavs" with their dog fighting, I dislike both
If Dogs fight each other, or hunt foxes, that's life. We are animals too, killing other animals when there is no alternative/to protect our own families well being is necessary, and none of this conflicts with anything I have said earlier.
And what about crop damage?
Always wondered about those issues ...
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/78977/coalition_programme_for_government.pdf (p.18)
Actually I'm more in favour than against!
Oh, I was with my parents on the trip, so I behaved myself
Hans Landa: Consider, for a moment, the world a rat lives in. It's a hostile world, indeed. If a rat were to scamper through your front door right now, would you greet it with hostility?
Perrier LaPadite: I suppose I would.
Landa: Has a rat ever done anything to you to create this animosity you feel towards them?
LaPadite: Rats spread diseases. They bite people.
Landa: Rats were the cause of the bubonic plague, but that's some time ago. I propose to you, any disease a rat could spread, a squirrel could equally carry. Would you agree?
LaPadite: Oui.
Landa: Yet I assume you don't share the same animosity with squirrels that you do with rats, do you?
LaPadite: No.
Landa: But they're both rodents, are they not? And except for the tail, they even rather look alike, don't they?
LaPadite: It's an interesting thought, Herr Colonel.
Landa: Ha! However interesting as the thought may be, it makes not one bit of difference to how you feel. If a rat were to walk in here right now, as I'm talking, would you greet it with a saucer of your delicious milk?
LaPadite: Probably not.
Landa: I didn't think so. You don't like them. You don't really know why you don't like them; all you know is you find them repulsive.
8/15 Conservatives
6/4 Labour
But that the LibDems are holding up well in many places where Labour is the challenger - such as Cambridge, Bradford East, and Hornsey & Wood Green. (In all these seats I expect tactical voting from Conservative voters to keep Ed out.) If the Labour Party is only making 6 or 7 gains from the LibDems, then Ed's chances of becoming PM are quite modest.
Same mentality, different spectators to hate.
A fun anti-UKIP policy would be to turn BBC2 into a Polish language channel just to piss off UKIPpers.
Imagine the foam as they tuned in to watch Jeremy Clarkson in Najwyższy Bieg. English subtitles of course, especially for the gwiazda w samochodzie za rozsądną cenę section.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/interactives/uk-general-election-predictions/
You mentioned toffs.. inferring I dislike people who are branded toffs. I don't like or dislike anyone dependent on the stereotype you label them with
I don't like the cruelty with which animals die at the hands of other animals, but of course that is the way life works. I wouldn't want to watch it, and I wouldn't organise a social event to encourage and glorify it. Each to their own
It's going to be very tight. I certainly don't think the LDs are 20% near anything. A coin toss IMO.
If Labour and Lib Dems were Evens the pair, who would you plump for ?
Or is this decent value outsider confident.
I'd like to know as I'm on the red side of the book here at an awful price (Got carried away with the Ashcroft polling here)
Voles?
Shrews?
Mice?
I have said many times I wouldn't ban it. Could you get it any more wrong?
Using our relationship with rats as a justification for murdering Jews seems a bit of self justification. The conversation itself was a form of torture.
A lot of us thought at the time of that headline it was premature. You couldn't make it up really.
http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/live-experience/cps/512/amz/vivo/live/images/2015/4/14/eb6f94ad-798f-4766-92a8-19c5c4219f28.jpg http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2015/live
He was pissed and outraged and It's Not Fair.
I just do not equate the on-going physical and sexual abuse of a human child, and the resulting life-long trauma that causes, with the one-off chase and killing of a fox.
As to farm animals and pets killed by hunts, I have read of it but have never known a case locally. It probably happens but very infrequently and only when something has gone horribly wrong. Farmers lose more livestock to pet dogs not being kept under proper control than they ever do to hounds from the hunt.
Cumbernauld... CUMBERNAULD.
Seems... optimistic.
My Bet of the Week suggestion this time again concentrates on value and on the possible rather than the probable.
Some recent polls have shown something of an improvement in the LibDems' share of the vote of between 1% - 2%, which is in line with some experts' expectations of what was likely during the GE campaign.
Currently the spread-betting and fixed odds betting markets are showing the Yellow Team as winning within a range of the mid to upper twenties in terms of seats. If the party is indeed likely to perk up even a little over the next three weeks, it seems reasonable that their seats tally might do likewise, increasing to the low to mid thirties.
Here, I just taken the few quid that was available of Betfair's offering at 6.0 (or 5/1 for their before their commission) for their 31 - 35 Seat Band, so you may need to ask for this price or accept slightly lower odds. Either way, this looks attractive to me on the basis that fair value might well be nearer to 4.5 (or 7/2 in old money).
As ever DYOR.
As he's an Indy - that changes the rules. We had a discussion about forming a Suicide Party on an earlier thread yesterday.
You are also right that the killing of a fox is not equivalent to sexual abuse of a child, it is equivalent to murdering a child you think of as a pest
One thing the prime minister didn’t make too much of but did say, was that he was reaffirming a commitment to getting the overall budget into surplus by 2018. That implies something really dramatic - and we’re talking tens and tens of billions of pounds worth of spending cuts or tax increases even before you start to think about some of the promises that we’ve heard on the National Health Service, on increasing the personal tax allowance.
So what you got was a lot of the good stuff of course - more money for childcare, more money for the health service and so on - but absolutely no detail on the bad stuff, which is there’s going to have to continue to be really big cuts on welfare spending, really big cuts in local government spending, really big cuts in all the other bits of spending which haven’t been specifically protected.
If the Scots hadn’t fallen out of love with Labour, then Ed Miliband would be almost home and dry. On BenM’s figures below, if most of the ex-Scottish Labour vote returned, then Labour would be easily the biggest party, and almost have a majority.
Their best hope now is to see whether any of that SLAB vote can be gotten back. If I was Miliband, I would be camped North of the Border on my knees, pleading, cajoling, hoping, begging ... and in such desperate circumstances maybe even telling the truth.
Gordon Brown could surely have won this election if he was Labour leader.
It was the appointment of such a London-centric figure as Miliband that has lost the election for Labour. Yes, I know he nominally represents a rotten borough in Yorkshire, but he is 100 per cent North London.
Let's see how he calls it this time. Until then, he's in the Angus Reid column credibility wise.
Speaking of Angus Reid, they seemed to have a great methodology and were very keen to learn about the UK market - whatever went so wrong for them?
That was New Labour. That ship sailed a long time ago. [Thankfully]
http://www.cssh.org.uk/
A fox is officially vermin. A child is officially a human being.
A child may be a pest, but he/she does not fall under the Pests Act 1954.
U.K. General Election Predictions
"FiveThirtyEight is publishing forecasts for the 2015 parliamentary election developed by Chris Hanretty, Ben Lauderdale and Nick Vivyan, a group of U.K. academics. Their model combines opinion polls, historical election results and census data. More U.K. election coverage »"
Though elections aren't won or lost on details I would rather hope that a Conservative politician is picked up on this aspect of the 1% slogan in an interview at some point.
https://www.google.co.uk
I wouldn't say they were the same, I did make it sound as if that's what I thought I am sorry, my mistake, but my point was logically, if the problem was the lifelong suffering then the equivalent is the child dying (or the fox being sexually abused)
I am a human and so I favour humans, foxes would favour foxes
Inglorious wotsots sits uneasily with me, and I am someone who admires The Wild Bunch.
BTW as an actor he was great (as was everybody) in Dusk till Dawn. And that too was a great and original movie... fair doos to Tarrantino for writing it.
I'd have preferred almost anything else - the boots chafed terribly. The hat despite my love of them was just ridiculous. I gave it to the guy who did our garden, he wore it. He was a Baptist and we nicknamed him Stunt due to the bizarre DIY accidents he had. He once arrived in a boiler suit with a massive scar on his forehead. He'd clocked himself on the head with an angle grinder the day before and knawed the skin off down to the skull.
It was an excellent quality hat made of beaver skin.
Even more depressing is their reaction to the Tory manifesto today. People don't want to hear nitpicking about how realistic or "costed" things are; people are currently so desperate for some hope that they WANT to believe things are going to get better.
Can only get better
Now I've found you
(sorry!)
Henry
I will miss the Westminster Academy cartoons though, unless he keeps them going once Boris assumes the mantle...
Best get on fast.
This looks like a deliberate trap set by Osborne, and a rather nifty one. The message which most voters will get is that Conservative austerity can't be all that bad after all. Given that the Conservatives have a considerable advantage in economic credibility, that's quite a good position.
At the same time, Labour seem to have got themselves into a strategic hole with their late conversion to the message: 'any austerity Osborne can do, we can do better'. That won't play well with their core vote, and certainly not in Scotland. What's more the timing is particularly difficult for Miliband: on Thursday he'll face the challengers' debate with three feisty ladies taking chunks from his left and Nigel Farage skewering him on credibility.
I expect the Conservatives to pull ahead (or further ahead) in the next week or two.
One of the first council houses sold under Margaret Thatcher’s Right To Buy scheme was purchased for more than 20 times its original value 33 years later
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/margaret-thatcher/9983113/Margaret-Thatcher-History-of-one-of-the-first-Right-To-Buy-council-houses.html