On 23/11/04 23:40, in article , "Mike Lyle"
wrote:

Sacha wrote:
On 23/11/04 10:32 pm, in article ,
"Mike
Lyle" wrote:

Sacha wrote:
On 23/11/04 7:16 pm, in article
, "Kay"
wrote:

In article ,
Sacha
writes
On 22/11/04 11:05 pm, in article
, "Kay"
wrote:


You can read the full article on the Telegraph website.

So - it was class war. Those who do not own the land but
perceive
it as giving power, 'fought' those who do.

The argument of the article was the other way around - that the
reaction was so strong because those that do own the land
perceived
it as an attack on their power. The article was about the
reaction
to the Bill, not about its genesis. So on the question of
whether
the Bill was stimulated by class issues or by animal rights
concerns, it isn't satisfactory evidence for either side.


The majority of people who hunt are not the rich land owners
against
whom the Labour party now admits it was conducting a class war.

I don't think it's reasonable to generalize to the pro-wealth,
pro-property Government from the remarks of one of its back-bench
MPs, even if he was not alone. I doubt if a Michael Howard
Government
would bring back hanging.

At
the end of all this, that was what this was about - a class war.
Not
a concern for animal welfare - a class war.

Well, to speak only for myself, it was nothing of the sort. I've
considered the issue over some forty years purely on an animal
welfare basis (and I still haven't reached a very strong
conclusion).
I imagine the majority of the public look at it the same way,
whichever conclusion they reach.

It was a disgusting
exercise in manipulative hypocrisy.

I don't understand who you feel was manipulated here. They said up
front they were going to do it, and then didn't manage to (some
say
because Tony Blair sabotaged the procedure); they said again they
were going to do it, and finally did. Agree or disagree, that was
pretty straightforward behaviour for politicians.

I'd like to see Tony Blair come
down here to the South Devon Hunt and tell them they're a crowd
of
land-owning feudalists who think they own and control Britain.

Tony Blair, quite apart from the fact that he only seems to
associate
with multi-millionaires, has never, as far as I know, said
anything
of the sort. It certainly wasn't Blair in the article we're
discussing. His record suggests he's pretty lukewarm about the
issue,
and it's one of the very few things on which he's prepared to give
half an ear to his MPs -- normally we'd praise a PM for that.

The Telegraph piece wasn't about Labour Party policy, it was about
an
MP's view of the attitudes of those who opposed him. As I said
upthread, it's an interesting point of view if you take it along
with
reactions to "right-to-roam" and such.

I can see why some people are angry about the decision, sure; but
there's no point in being inaccurate about it.

Mike.


I don't see what is inaccurate.

Well, I made my points on that. No sense in repeating if I wasn't
convincing the first time!

All along the Labour party has
presented this as a concern for animal welfare. Now they admit it
isn't.

But they don't. The article wasn't about Labour Party policy at all.
You just can't get there from here, as the saying is.

To me, that's very simple.
I don't hunt, don't want to, never have, couldn't. But I think
there
is rank dishonesty at the heart of this.

Which is what what-is-name was saying, from the other side of the
argument.

Mike.


As far as I can see, while no doubt many people are genuinely anti-hunting,
the Labour party is admitting that it encouraged and manipulated the issue
using old fashioned class prejudice which is still rife among many of its
members.
--

Sacha
(remove the weeds for email)