Andrea Leadsom, Tory MP for South Northamptonshire, is one of two females tipped to become our next Prime Minister.

Ms Leadsom is a committed Christian who claims she carries out her duties as an MP with God always in mind. 

She says she became a Christian when her son was born, and she feels God is guiding her hand in all she does.

Perhaps she missed Ecclesiastes 3:19 “For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts, for all his vanity.

Isaiah 1:11 “What to Me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats.

A freedom of information request to DEFRA shows there are no official statistics for the wild claims that foxes kill livestock in huge numbers.

Foxes are not vermin, as Ms Leadsom claims. The term vermin technically applies to insect vectors that spread disease to human beings.

We are not at any risk of catching diseases from foxes. Even their fleas are from our own domestic cats. In the unlikely event that a dog contracts mange from a wild fox, it is an easily treated infestation which can be cleared up in a very short time.

Opposition to fox hunting is at an all-time high, and recent undercover investigations by the HIT team showing Pytchley hunt employees throwing live fox cubs into a kennel full of hounds, has enraged people even further. 83 per cent of the public today say fox hunting should not be made legal again, that is up from 72 per cent when the question was asked in 2008.

Ms Leadsom’s favourite hunt footing. Shocking racist verbals from one of the pros. Hereford hunt rearing fox cubs to train hounds by throwing them alive into a kennel full of hounds.

A sneaky backdoor attempt to make minor changes to the hunting Act (which would have legalised red coat hunting through the backdoor) failed last July because of unprecedented opposition from anti hunt MPs across the board.

Andrea’s own Tory Party has a growing number of MPs who are opposed to this cruel form of entertainment. If she is elected to lead the Party and she does hold a vote on repeal, she may find she has huge opposition from town and country alike.

The UK may be a country in turmoil because of poor Tory leadership, Brexit and the Labour Party coup, but we are still a nation of animal lovers.

On June 10, 2016 we learnt that Hereford hunt kennels based in Wormelow, was closed pending enquiries into cruelty to foxes.

Horses and hounds were moved elsewhere whilst police investigated and made two arrests.

A 37-year-old man and a 27-year-old woman were subsequently arrested for animal cruelty, although at that time we did not know the nature of the allegations.

Then on June 13 a THIRD person was arrested in connection with the police investigation linked to the hunt in South Herefordshire.

June 23 we were treated to the full horror of what led to these arrests as a video was released showing fox cubs being thrown to the hounds.

Undercover footage by the Hunt Investigation Team (HIT) shows live fox cubs taken into the hunt kennels.

The League against Cruel Sports commented on the footage saying,
 “The footage shows:
-       The huntsman removing a fox cub from a cage in a trailer
 -       A live cub is taken towards the kennels
 -       The huntsman enters the kennel block with the cub
 -       The hounds are heard baying
 -       The huntsman can be heard vocally encouraging the hounds to kill
 -       The huntsman dumps the lifeless fox cub in a bin
 -       A second fox cub is taken into the kennel block.”
Eduardo Gonçalves added
“Once again we see evidence which destroys the deliberate deception of hunting as a means of fox control. Fox hunts hunt foxes because they like hunting foxes, not for any other reason. As we have seen time and time again, they will capture foxes, release them on hunt days just to make sure hunters get their gruesome chase, or as we believe this footage shows, throw them to the hounds as bait. There’s nothing sporting, nothing natural and nothing remotely honourable about this so-called tradition. It’s grimy, it’s cruel, it’s going to be offensive to most right-minded people, and we need the police and courts to punish all those involved.”

The HIT team managed to retrieve the lifeless bodies of two of the three cubs. Preliminary investigations showed one animal had been eviscerated and the other was covered in bite wounds.
The Hunt Investigation Team, which campaigns against fox hunting, secretly filmed two of the foxes alive inside the cage at night.

Later the cameras picked up a man removing them using a noose and taking two of them, one at a time, into the kennels nearby. Seconds later, the hounds inside can be heard barking.
 
A whooping noise, which sounds as though it is being made by a human, can also be heard. The Hunt Investigation Team claims this was to "call the hounds on" to attack the foxes.

On each occasion, the man emerges with a fox's apparently lifeless body and puts it in a bin. Later footage shows the bins being taken away. However, before then, the activists had retrieved two fox cubs' bodies from the bins.

One of the HIT investigation team, who asked to remain anonymous for her safety, said: "When our investigators took those fox cubs out, one of them was disembowelled; one of them had multiple bite wounds. Our feeling is that they were fed live to the hounds. The animals' bodies have been passed to the police.”

Cubbing, or autumn hunting to give it its sanitising term, is nothing new. Young foxes are brutalised to train the next season’s hounds on fox scent and to teach them to be vicious with their prey.
In 2012, a hunt master and a member of his staff were found guilty of illegally hunting fox cubs with hounds.

Johnny Greenall and Glen Morris both pleaded not guilty to the charges brought against them after anti-hunt protesters covertly filmed the hunt in October 2011 Huntsmen from the Meynell and South Staffordshire Hunt were filmed surrounding a wood near Hilton. Experienced hounds entered the wood to hunt young foxes with new hounds in training in tow. The video footage showed two foxes trying to escape from the wood, on Suffield Farm in Sutton-On-The-Hill. One fox is scared back into the wood by the surrounding huntsmen clapping their hands.

This grisly form of entertainment is not a rare occurrence. It is happening all over the UK. The pro hunting lobby group, the Countryside Alliance is working hard to persuade us that killing foxes the ‘traditional way’ is a natural form of animal management. They also claim that any enjoyment from the activity is secondary to the useful service they are providing. To even admit that killing animals is pleasurable in any way shows indisputably that people who enjoy this form of entertainment are truly sick.

December 2015, a terrier man associated with the Lamerton hunt, took a tiny live fox cub home in his pocket after its mother had been killed. The same man n convicted in the past for starving fox hounds.

In May 2015 a League Against Cruel Sports investigation led to the discovery and rescue of 16 fox cubs on land linked to the Middleton Foxhounds Hunt. The League investigators believe these fox cubs were kidnapped for cruelty as a ready supply of animals to be chased by the hunt.

Red coat hunting is as inefficient as it is cruel. Apart from the fact that only 12% of foxes who die in any season are killed by red coat hunting, removing animals from their home ranges only leaves vacant territories for other wandering males to claim as their own. It is not necessary to ‘control’ foxes, they aren’t over populating, and neither are they a great threat to livestock. Even free range poultry farmers lose only a small number of hens to foxes, and with better protection for their stock, losses can be cut even further. 

The vile treatment of young foxes, which aren’t even a year old yet, must stop. Hunting foxes with packs of hounds has been illegal for almost 12 years.  If all hunts are hunting within the law, there is no need to train young hounds on fox scent. Hunters who use wild animals in this way are no different from those who enjoy badger baiting and dog fighting.

Time now to ban ALL trail hunting as it seems hunts across the board seem incapable of obeying the law.

Other related stories http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/fox-hunters-slammed-letting-little-6785232 16 fox cubs rescued from a barn
News from POWA (Protect our Wild Animals)
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/robbie-marsland/a-busted-flush-as-scotlan_b_9571238.html Scotland’s hunting Act

The Sports Minister, Tracy Crouch is particularly vocal against killing for entertainment, and with a growing army of opponents the poor old Countryside Alliance who, in spite of the bluster, are floundering in a shortage of funds and a lack of enthusiasm for their blood thirsty pastimes, can only fight back with smears and insults.  

Tim Bonner took to Twitter again in a flurry of annoyance and accused Ms Crouch of having a sugar daddy in the form of Dr Brian May; Dr May is an important campaigner against fox hunting and the British badger cull.

With so many MPs, and 83% of the public, against cruelty to UK wildlife it is looking increasing likely that even with our pro-blood sports front bench, David Cameron will be unlikely to muster the numbers required for a free vote to repeal the hunting Act.

It’s far from over, however, and it would be a mistake to be too complacent.

We have just over four more years of Tories like Mr Cameron in power, and if we want to ensure the legislation to protect our wild heritage stays in place we must remain ever vigilant.

[The fight is far from over as "Ministers consider new body to prove hunting helps animal welfare to win over anti-hunting MPs"]

Pre-ban hunts killed about 5% of all of the foxes that die in a season, and almost half of those animals are killed during cubbing when hunts encourage new fox hounds to be savage with their quarry. There are actually many less foxes in Britain than there are hedgehogs. At a static quarter of a million animals, they are not overbreeding and they are no real threat to poultry or lambs. DEFRA (Department of Environment & Rural affairs) says foxes are no more than grade 2 pests, not even pesty enough to be grade 1.

It’s not only foxes who suffer in the war for Britain’s wildlife. Anyone who stands against the cruelty is labelled an extremist or even worse a terrorist. They are mocked and humiliated on social media and even sometimes threatened. The hunt saboteurs, who will be out in force on Boxing Day, are often beaten and bullied by the hunt stewards (terrier men and women) and sometimes the riders themselves like to join in too. To avoid reprisals many saboteurs cover their faces,  a practice emulated by the hunt minders who cover up so they cannot be recognised when committing acts of violence or damaging cars or stealing cameras etc. from the saboteurs, many of whom are young females.

The terrier men, or hunt heavies, who accompany the hunts and who act as their personal police force, won’t be around at the Boxing Day spectacle. To allow them to parade on their quads would spoil the image the hunters are trying to portray. Their job is to intimidate saboteurs and block pathways in order to prevent them gaining evidence of illegal hunting. The terrier men also block up badger setts so that the poor fox has nowhere to hide. If the unfortunate animals ARE able to go to ground, the terrier men dig them out and either shoot them, bludgeon them or they are thrown to the dogs.

Eighty per cent of the population, including people in rural areas, are against the horror and the cruelty of hunting, yet in spite of this the hunting ban is in great danger of repeal because most of MPs on the Tory front bench are hunting enthusiasts themselves. David Cameron has promised repeal before the end of this parliament, yet how can we let this barbaric practice become legal once again? The legislation we have today was 10 years in the making and when the Bill was eventually brought before the MPs for discussion, it took over 700 hours of Parliamentary time and so powerful and determined were the hunters that in the end the Labour Government had to use the Parliament Act to force the legislation through into Law. 

So what can we do?

The first thing and the most important is to join the League Against Cruel Sports and join or support the hunt saboteurs. It is also vital that everyone against this vile form of entertainment writes to their MP and explains why we must keep the ban on hunting.

Tradition is no excuse for this savage cruelty; we must fight hard because the hunters never give up.  
Lamerton Hunt - Illegal Hunting? https://youtu.be/m98BSocqkfI via @YouTube

Op-Ed: Who would have thought that after such a build-up, David Cameron would back down over his Statutory Instrument (SI) which, although it was a small change in the legislation, would have led to gargantuan changes in the English law on hunting with dogs? A backdoor repeal in fact.

The Countryside Alliance, formerly the British Field Sports (blood sports) Association, is understandably disappointed because they saw the SI as a way of bringing back old style hunting with a full pack of dogs. It would not have been a full repeal, but it would have been so significant a change in the English law that those who like killing UK wildlife for the fun of it could have resumed that activity with little fear of prosecution.

As the law stands at the moment, the mounted hunts in England have nothing whatsoever to do with fox ‘control’. They are allowed to trail hunt or drag hunt, and nothing else. The law is constructed that way to prevent animals being chased and pulled apart by dogs, although a loophole of two dogs to flush to guns was included at the Act’s inception to placate the farmers and gamekeepers who said they needed to be able to kill foxes to protect their livestock.

​(This is in spite of the studies which have shown that foxes are not a huge threat to farm animals, including lambs and free range poultry)

There is a different arrangement in the Scottish Act, where a full pack of dogs with mounted huntsmen can flush a troublesome fox from cover to waiting guns. The fox is not to be chased under Scottish law and the animal can only be flushed if the farmer or land owner gives specific permission for an animal to be killed who is perceived to be a danger to his livestock.

Mr Cameron was intending to bring English law into line with Scottish law and the idea was enthusiastically embraced by the Countryside Alliance, in spite of previous supplications that there should be full repeal because shooting foxes was hideously cruel in their view, they saw immediately how aligning themselves with Scottish hunters would be a great advantage, and they threw their cruelty argument about shooting those animals straight out of the window.

Like the fox in the bag, Cameron thought he had his quarry well and truly secured. Unfortunately for the hunting set he was arrogant enough to discount the strength of public opinion against hunting, and he set aside the 15th of July for the 90 minutes allowed for discussion in the firm belief that chasing foxes once more was on the cards. His SI would have been a stroke of pure genius, and it didn’t give those of us against hunt cruelty much time to mobilise. It was also snuck in on the day of the budget too. Nevertheless, people all over Britain, town and country alike, began to contact MPs on social media and by telephone and email. A concerted effort was made to beg the SNP to use their compassionate vote, and it paid off.

Angus Roberson, who has always been against the cruelty of hunting, and Nicola Sturgeon announced that the SNP would break with tradition and vote NO along with Labour and the forty or so compassionate Conservative MPs who see hunting as a moral issue not a political bun fight.

Ms Sturgeon told the BBC that she had received an unprecedented amount of communication from people in Scotland, and also English and Welsh anti-hunting supporters too, urging her to speak up for wildlife on both sides of the border

Once the SNP had declared their intentions, David Cameron knew that his free vote would not go the way he wanted, so he cancelled the debate. The Scottish branch of the Countryside Alliance immediately turned the issue into one of Scotland versus England and the long knives were out for the SNP. Mr James Barrington (Welfare Officer for the Countryside Alliance) said, Quote: It is important to understand that there had been discussions between the government and the SNP prior to the introduction of the amendments, and that they would not have been brought forward had the SNP signalled that it was going to enter the debate. End of Quote.

I think the public understands very well that David Cameron intends only to allow a vote when he knows he can win. He doesn’t seem to mind that this is undemocratic and unconstitutional and hardly constitutes a free vote in the true meaning of the word.

The Countryside Alliance has changed tack again and its propaganda machine is now trying to convince the rest of us that failure to embrace the Scottish law will signal the death knell for many UK species, and foxes will suffer in ways unimaginable. In fact it is quite possible the sky may fall down. Perhaps they have forgotten that hunting traditional style has been banned or the last ten years and nothing untoward has happened as a consequence of that.

What of the SNP in all of this? They have given Mr Cameron the bloody nose he deserves and they have promised a review of their own hunting laws after the League against Cruel Sports showed video evidence of Scottish hunts killing foxes against the rules.

We all know it’s always been business as usual here in England and most hunts flout the ban, but at least with the hunting Act intact, if evidence can be provided there is some hope of a successful prosecution following on. The hunters know this, as do the saboteurs and monitors who risk their lives to gather evidence of illegal hunting and, with the cubbing season about to start in the next couple of weeks that evidence gathering would have been practically impossible if Cameron had altered the Act to allow a full pack of dogs to operate. There is also the law of aggravated trespass which was specifically brought in by this government to curtail the activities of the saboteurs. It is a criminal offense, which carries a huge fine and a possible spell in prison, if a saboteur enters private land even to obtain evidence of illegal hunting.

What now? Cameron’s climb down has given those against hunt cruelty breathing space, but it’s not over. A free vote was promised in the Tory manifesto, and this is one promise Cameron intends to keep. He and his bloodthirsty parliamentary big guns are determined to give his friends what they want. He is willing and eager it seems, to ignore three quarters of the population and he is even prepared to damage the reputation of the Conservative party as a whole.

The war against animal cruelty goes on, and those of us who give a damn must keep fighting until we have enough MPs onside to remove once and for all this horrible threat that hangs over out precious wild animals.

Who would have thought that after such a build-up, David Cameron would back down over his Statutory Instrument (SI) which, although it was a small change in the legislation, would have led to gargantuan changes in the English law on hunting with dogs? A backdoor repeal in fact.

The Countryside Alliance, formerly the British Field Sports (blood sports) Association, is understandably disappointed because they saw the SI a way of bringing back old style hunting with a full pack of dogs. It would not have been a full repeal, but it would have been so significant a change in the English law that those who like killing UK wildlife for the fun of it could have resumed that activity with little fear of prosecution.

As the law stands at the moment, the mounted hunts in England have nothing whatsoever to do with fox ‘control’. They are allowed to trail hunt or drag hunt, and nothing else. The law is constructed that way to prevent animals being chased and pulled apart by dogs, although a loophole of two dogs to flush to guns was included at the Act’s inception to placate the farmers and gamekeepers who said they needed to be able to kill foxes to protect their livestock. (This is in spite of the studies which have shown that foxes are not a huge threat to farm animals, including lambs and free range poultry)

There is a different arrangement in the Scottish Act, where a full pack of dogs with mounted huntsmen can flush a troublesome fox from cover to waiting guns. The fox is not to be chased under Scottish law and the animal can only be flushed if the farmer or land owner gives specific permission for an animal to be killed who is perceived to be a danger to his livestock.

Mr Cameron was intending to bring English law into line with Scottish law and the idea was enthusiastically embraced by the Countryside Alliance, in spite of previous supplications that there should be full repeal because shooting foxes was hideously cruel in their view, they saw immediately how aligning themselves with Scottish hunters would be a great advantage, and they threw their cruelty argument about shooting those animals straight out of the window.

Like the fox in the bag, Cameron thought he had his quarry well and truly secured. Unfortunately for the hunting set he was arrogant enough to discount the strength of public opinion against hunting, and he set aside the 15th of July for the 90 minutes allowed for discussion in the firm belief that chasing foxes once more was on the cards. His SI would have been a stroke of pure genius, and it didn’t give those of us against hunt cruelty much time to mobilise. It was also snuck in on the day of the budget too. Nevertheless, people all over Britain, town and country alike, began to contact MPs on social media and by telephone and email. A concerted effort was made to beg the SNP to use their compassionate vote, and it paid off.

Angus Roberson, who has always been against the cruelty of hunting, and Nicola Sturgeon announced that the SNP would break with tradition and vote NO along with Labour and the forty or so compassionate Conservative MPs who see hunting as a moral issue not a political bun fight.

Ms Sturgeon told the BBC that she had received an unprecedented amount of communication from people in Scotland, and also English and Welsh anti-hunting supporters too, urging her to speak up for wildlife on both sides of the border

Once the SNP had declared their intentions, David Cameron knew that his free vote would not go the way he wanted, so he cancelled the debate. The Scottish branch of the Countryside Alliance immediately turned the issue into one of Scotland versus England and the long knives were out for the SNP. Mr James Barrington (Welfare Officer for the Countryside Alliance) said, Quote: It is important to understand that there had been discussions between the government and the SNP prior to the introduction of the amendments, and that they would not have been brought forward had the SNP signalled that it was going to enter the debate. End of Quote.

I think the public understands very well that David Cameron intends only to allow a vote when he knows he can win. He doesn’t seem to mind that this is undemocratic and unconstitutional and hardly constitutes a free vote in the true meaning of the word.

The Countryside Alliance has changed tack again and its propaganda machine is now trying to convince the rest of us that failure to embrace the Scottish law will signal the death knell for many UK species, and foxes will suffer in ways unimaginable. In fact it is quite possible the sky may fall down. Perhaps they have forgotten that hunting traditional style has been banned or the last ten years and nothing untoward has happened as a consequence of that.

What of the SNP in all of this? They have given Mr Cameron the bloody nose he deserves and they have promised a review of their own hunting laws after the League against Cruel Sports showed video evidence of Scottish hunts killing foxes against the rules.

We all know it’s always been business as usual here in England and most hunts flout the ban, but at least with the hunting Act intact, if evidence can be provided there is some hope of a successful prosecution following on. The hunters know this, as do the saboteurs and monitors who risk their lives to gather evidence of illegal hunting and, with the cubbing season about to start in the next couple of weeks that evidence gathering would have been practically impossible if Cameron had altered the Act to allow a full pack of dogs to operate. There is also the law of aggravated trespass which was specifically brought in by this government to curtail the activities of the saboteurs. It is a criminal offense, which carries a huge fine and a possible spell in prison, if a saboteur enters private land even to obtain evidence of illegal hunting.

What now? Cameron’s climb down has given those against hunt cruelty breathing space, but it’s not over. A free vote was promised in the Tory manifesto, and this is one promise Cameron intends to keep. He and his bloodthirsty parliamentary big guns are determined to give his friends what they want. He is willing and eager it seems, to ignore three quarters of the population and he is even prepared to damage the reputation of the Conservative party as a whole.

The war against animal cruelty goes on, and those of us who give a damn must keep fighting until we have enough MPs onside to remove once and for all this horrible threat that hangs over our precious wild animals.

The Telegraph story was pretty similar adding that the man who fell off his bicycle lost his glasses and the club members had to barricade themselves in the building as the fox stalked them outside. The woman who was bitten tried to distract the fox with food so the others could escape apparently.

A pest controller was called but when he tried to approach the animal it "went for him" and chased him back to his car. The animal was eventually caught and destroyed but there is no comment on how or when that happened. The only pictures supplied were a generic picture of a fox totally unrelated to the story, and another picture allegedly of the offending fox taken through the window of the sports centre. Apparently the terrified crew inside the building watched the animal casing the joint on the CCTV but no footage has been supplied as yet.

The May / Portillo interview was equally bizarre, with Dr May explaining carefully why hunting should stay banned and Mr Portillo replying that hunting and bull fighting were both great traditions and as such should be allowed to continue as before. He even went on to claim that his practising Catholicism impelled him to hold that view. Animal souls, Mr Portillo said, were not as important as human souls.

Of course we know that those in favour of blood sports twist what has gone before to suit their arguments too, but I have never heard the Catholic Church cited as a reason for enjoying eviscerating those small red cousins of our dogs. The excuses the hunting fraternity come up with for continuing fox hunting are quite similar to the excuses put forward by the slave owners when the Abolitionist movement first came into being, and indeed tradition, when deployed in this manner could be a cover for almost any disgusting and oppressive fetish held by those in power.

Defenders of slavery argued that slavery had existed throughout history and was the natural state of mankind. The Greeks had slaves, the Romans had slaves so why can’t we have slaves etc.. Hunters frequently assail us with similar reasoning, stating that because Richard Martin (a founding member of the RSPCA) was a fox hunter, it makes it okay for us to be fox hunters too.

Traditionally apparently two wrongs always make a right.

I wonder how Mr Portillo feels about defenders of slavery righteously quoting that in the Old Testament, Abraham had slaves. They even cited the 10 commandments saying, ‘Thou shalt not covert thy neighbour’s manservant, nor his maidservant.” So of course that must mean having servants, i.e. slaves was okay. The New Testament was also hauled up to bear witness that Paul returned a runaway slave and Jesus never uttered a word about slavery.

Just like animals today, slave owners said black people, (not just slaves) had no legal rights. They were property, and being property meant rights were not bestowed upon them. They could be used and abused as their masters saw fit. The slavers fought the Abolitionists in the courts and the Judges ruled in their favour. The slave owners were adamant that they had God on their side.

 I’m getting a strange feeling of Déjà vu here. 

Welfare is another claim made by the Countryside Alliance to persuade the rest of us that they are killing animals not just for fun, but mainly for their own good.  Hunters are apparently saving the hunted from growing old and dying from natural causes.

 Defenders of slavery argued that slavery was a good thing for the enslaved. John C. Calhoun said, “Never before has the black race of Central Africa, from the dawn of history to the present day, attained a condition so civilized and so improved, not only physically, but morally and intellectually.” That is almost something James Barrington could have included in his pro hunting blogs as he often infers that hunters are doing foxes a massive favour by killing them.

The slave owners also said that they would protect and assist the slaves when they were sick and aged, unlike those who, once fired from their work, were left to fend helplessly for themselves. Now here I think the slave owners had one up on hunters morally, because hunters never claim to protect the old sick animals. In fact chasing and killing old sick animals is doing the species as a whole a great service according to the Countryside Alliance. (I’m minded here that Dr Shipman had the same idea about the elderly under his care in the NHS) It’s not mentioned of course that there won’t be many old foxes because although they can live as long as our dogs in captivity, a wild fox is lucky to see his second birthday.

 Next we come to the labels. James Thornwell, a minister, wrote in 1860, “One party to this conflict are not merely Abolitionists they are Atheists, Socialists, Communists, Red Republicans, Jacobins. The slave owners are the friends of order, religion and regulated freedom.”

Similar insults ring in my head about those of us against hunting cruelties today.

We are supposedly not just against blood sports, we are also jobless, scroungers who don’t wash and who spend our time thinking up terrorist plots to thwart the innocent hunters who after all are only abusing animals for their own good. We are called ignorant townies, which is meant to convey great insult. Only those who live in the countryside should have any say in what is allowed to live and what must die. 

Throughout history, when a society forms around any institution, as the South did around slavery, it will formulate a set of arguments to support it. That those arguments don’t hold water didn’t seem to matter to the slave owners at all, and similarly the hunters don’t care that their reasons for the continuation of their barbaric and outdated tradition don’t hold water among the more empathic of their contemporaries.

Hunters talk about horrific cruelty to animals not associated with hunting, and in those cases proudly carry the RSPCA banner, then in the same breath they want that organisation cast down for prosecuting hunting abuse. A bizarre situation where it’s impossible to know if the hunters have managed to brain wash themselves, or if they are hoping that by repeated repetition of a lie, the rest of us will come to believe it to be the truth. 

If hunting is a tradition that must be upheld, then it’s only fair that that great old RSPCA tradition of prosecuting those who kill for fun must be upheld too.