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WEEKEND TELEGRAPH - 19.7.03
I've had letters, I've had E-mails, I've had telephone calls and, at the
Scottish Game Fair, a man stuck me up against a log splitter (oooo!)
and asked the same question. Did I fell him; bray him round the heid?
no - I have two firm rules concerning physical violence - I never hit
anybody smaller than myself, nor do I hit anybody larger - I am definitely
a Middle Way man. This brings me neatly to the meat of all these questions,
which was - why hadn't I written anything about the Hunting Bill? My
answer to that was that I thought that anything worth saying had already
been said and the rest was rubbish. I maintain this position, but one
must do one's best to please the readers. I have not written anything
about the Bill so far because it has all been so very predictable.
The contortions of the Government to get a Bill through have reminded
me of nothing so much as the writhing and heaving of defecating dogs
- you know it's going to happen, but you do not particularly want to
watch it. To be fair to Toxic Tone (although for the life of me I cannot
think why I am bothering) I do not think that he gives two monkeys'
about hunting (please do not ask me -'Two monkeys' whats?' - you really
do not want to know - it is a technical military term) and did not
think that anybody else did either. He thought that banning hunting
might fill in a wet Friday in Parliament and that the two retired Colonels
standing outside with a dripping banner would soon get fed up and go
home. The Hyde Park Rally and The Two Marches came as a profound shock
to him. He suddenly realised that there was the physical people power
out there to reduce Downing Street to a Lego Kit. When the late Lord
Jenkins advised him to stay clear of Hunting, Tone is reputed to have
replied that he wished that he had never heard of it. In this, I am
sure he was sincere. He is not so much a pathological liar as a pathological
assenter - he likes to agree with everybody and be loved by everybody.
He is a weak man, who is happiest in procrastination. He went to great
lengths to avoid having to come to a decision over hunting. The Burn's
report gave him breathing space and Alun Michael's proposed mess of
pottage gave him a possible wriggle out - he hoped. He made a great
mistake in sending Mr Michael and Lord Whitty out amongst the simple
country folk. SCF can read a 'bad eye' in any kind of stock. If Michael
and Whitty were horses, no one would buy them. I still think, and am
advised, that Tone would have liked to boot hunting into a bramble
bush, but he needed solid political support for his spurious WMDs,
those Hospitals and the Education threat that lurks, hull down, over
the horizon. He needed his Class Warriors on side and the only way
to achieve that was to feed them Hunting. During the great Michael
'Consultation', a senior and wise Tory rural MP told me that the only
way we would save hunting would be to make Tone more frightened of
the countryside than he was of his own Backbenchers. At the moment,
political expediency and a creeping barrage of lies have given the
Class Warriors the strategic high ground. We have an interesting autumn
in front of us whilst we wait and see how the House of Lords will play.
My spies tell me it is thoroughly disgruntled by the behaviour of NuLab.
There is little doubt that Tone will come under great pressure to use
the Parliament Act, although there is great doubt as to whether this
would be constitutionally kosher. The Countryside is currently sullen
but quiescent. It would take very little to set it ablaze. An attempt
to impose a bad law would provide first class kindling.
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