Hen Harrier Day politicians

A week today we will have the result of the 2017 general election.  It’s your choice.  Today I’ll be writing about individual constituencies and candidates.

Over the three Hen Harrier Days to date we have seen a few politicians attend. I’d like to see them all re-elected, or in one case elected, on 8 June.

Here are the four of them:*

2014 Barry Gardiner – one of the ‘Sodden 570’ in the Peak District

 

 

Barry Gardiner lives in London – his constituency, for which he has been an MP since 1997 and is a candidate again this election, is Brent North (a very safe Labour seat) – so coming to the Peak District in the pouring rain to attend an event which might only have had a handful of attendees was going above and beyond the call of duty or political expediency (and we saw nothing of the local Conservative MP).  Since that day, Barry has raised the issue of driven grouse shooting and environmental degradation in parliamentary debates several times. He attended some of the Westminster Hall debate on banning driven grouse shooting (but did not speak as he is a front bench spokesman and those debates (save the closing speeches) are for back-benchers).  We’ve seen a lot of Barry in recent weeks – on Tuesday I saw him on TV giving Michael Gove a good seeing to on The Daily Politics, heard him on the radio on The World at One and then saw him talk quite a lot of sense at the Greener UK hustings in the evening.  If we had a Labour government then Barry would be a friend of the Hen Harrier and would be open to the idea of ridding the uplands of driven grouse shooting.  I’d be surprised if there are many readers of this blog in Brent North – but if there are any, please go vote for Barry Gardiner on 8 June.  Brent North delivered 39 signatures (out of 123,077) in support of banning driven grouse shooting and 1 (yes, 1 (1 too many) out of 25,322 in support of grouse shooting.

2015 Angela Smith – Peak District

Angela Smith has long been a supporter of the cause of birds of prey in the face of illegal persecution. Her constituency of Penistone and Stocksbridge includes some of the Peak District NP and is in the forefront of raptor persecution incidents and environmental damage. She attended the Westminster  Hall debate and without her presence there would have been about 25% less sense spoken.  Angela supports the RSPB’s inadequate compromise on solving the problems of grouse shooting – licensing – but as time goes on we can hope that her views will harden. At the Sheffield conference last autumn she said various things including ‘Politicians will not be able to stand aside and let species like the Hen Harrier go extinct in England’ and ‘Banning driven grouse shooting is a legislative option‘.  She has a wealth of experience (MP since 2005) which it would be terrible to lose from parliament, so she’d certainly get my vote.  Angela attended the 2015 Peak District Hen Harrier Day event in the Goyt Valley, unlike the local Conservative MP!  Penistone and Stocksbridge delivered 266 signatures (out of 123,077) in favour of banning driven grouse shooting and 69 (out of 25,322) in favour of grouse shooting.

 

2016 Kerry McCarthy – Rainham Marshes

Kerry McCarthy attended the Rainham Marshes Hen Harrier Day last year – a long way from her constituency of Bristol East.  One of many recent Labour Shadow Environment Secretaries, but also one of the most passionate and informed.  Kerry also spoke really well in the Westminster Hall debate on banning driven grouse shooting. There aren’t many vegan MPs in parliament.  Bristol East delivered 299 signatures (out of 123,077) in favour of banning driven grouse shooting and 5 (out of 25,332) in favour of grouse shooting.

2016 Natalie Bennett – Peak District

There is no doubting Natalie Bennett‘s commitment to banning driven grouse shooting. She attended and spoke at the Peak District event last year, her social media accounts supported our campaign and she spoke at the last year’s Bird Fair too.  Natalie is standing for the Greens in Sheffield Central where they were second in the last general election. My difficulty is that the incumbent is a Labour MP who looks pretty good to me but has no particular environmental credentials. We have such a lack of environmental spokespeople in parliament, and Natalie would be a strong (and stable) voice, that I would almost certainly vote for her, and against my party’s candidate, if I lived in Sheffield Central. Sheffield Central delivered 457 signatures (out of 123,077) in favour of banning driven grouse shooting and 13 (out of 25,332) in favour of grouse shooting.

 

 

 

*it’s possible that other candidates have been present but at Hen Harrier Day events at which I was not present or I simply did not recognise them – if so, please let me know.

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