Good start!

Mark 34 Comments

 

Gavin Gamble’s e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting has got off to a very good start. It’s already over 6500 signatures and there are only (at the time of writing yesterday) five constituencies (out of c650) which have no signatures;  three in Northern Ireland and two in London – we’ve seen this pattern before.

Also, we’ve seen before that strong support comes from grouse shooting areas of the north of England and Scotland, as well as East Anglia and the West Country.  The Calder Valley, including Walshaw Moor, is one of the strongest supporting constituencies and all three, now all three Labour, constituencies in the Dark Peak (High Peak, Penistone and Stocksbridge and Sheffield Hallam) are giving strong support too.

The constituencies giving strongest support in Scotland are those that returned to the Tory party at the June Westminster election in southern and east Scotland as well as the SNP seats of the west highlands and Inverness.

It will be ‘interesting’ to see whether Defra churn out the same nonsense as a response when this e-petition passes 10,000 signatures as they have done on three other occasions – see here, here and here. I can’t wait! So please get all your friends to sign up.

It will be great if this e-petition gets to 100,000 signatures too – not just because I feel we would be sure to see a much better debate, but also because it will get into the heads of more MPs, including new ones elected in June this year. And that increases the pressure on the Westminster government to act. And down here, we have a new Environment Secretary – we can rely on Michael Gove to play this issue more adroitly than his predecessors.

And a large number of signatures for a ban on grouse shooting will be seen as  support for doing something in Scotland too where the government is moving slowly in the direction of licensing.

So, there’s still plenty to play for and in the end we will win – a good turnout for this e-petition brings that day closer.  Please sign here and get your friends to sign too.

 

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34 Replies to “Good start!”

  1. Perhaps this voting pattern also reflects another aspect of that, ‘special relationship ‘ between the DUP and Westminster ?

    1. The two NI constituencies with 0 votes are both held by Sinn Fein. Of those with votes, 10 are held by the DUP, 5 by Sinn Fein and one by an Independent Unionist. What point are you making?

      1. David – there are actually three (West Belfast is the other – but your point is valid as that too is Sinn Fein of course)

  3. One to watch is Jared O’Mara, the new Labour MP for Sheffield Hallam (and first ever; it’s been Liberal/Liberal Democrat or Conservative held all the way back to it’s foundation in 1885). Early days yet to judge him on his environmental record but he is the only Sheffield MP to break with the party line and show some support for the tree protest movement (http://www.itv.com/news/calendar/2017-10-05/labour-mp-backs-petition-calling-for-jeremy-corbyn-to-act-over-tree-felling/). If he’s interested we could potentially have a couple (along with Angela Smith) of Sheffield MPs in our camp for the next debate. I’d write to him but he’s not my MP so I’ll ask if a constituent will do it instead. Sadly I talked to my own MP, Paul Blomfield, on environmental issues recently and was entirely unimpressed.

  4. Yes, it’ll be interesting to see the number of words cut and pasted from the previous replies? Perhaps we should have ‘book’ on it, just for fun?

    Call me a cynic but after the initial enthusiasm wears off, MPs follow personal interest or survival if they’re in marginal seats so look to numbers

    Strange really that I’ve remained an agnostic, perhaps the science background;)

  5. I assume, should the required number of signatures be achieved, that written submissions, for and against, would be required as before ?.

      1. I’m not persuaded they provided the submissions to the ‘committee’ or more importantly it was even assessed on merit and a report provided which synthesised the submissions – but that’s democracy for you?

  6. I hope that someone will be heavily tweeting the petition and the town/country split during every COuntryfile broadcaston its hashtag, and during the upcoming AUtumnwatch and Unsprung shws.

    I was doing it last time, but my health has deteriorated since then and I won’t be able to do it this tim. I hope someone else picks it up.

    This is proof that it is the blody townies wh want shooting and hunting, and the countryside people whowant it ended. That is the real town/country split.

    1. You are partially right. The issue raises far more emotion among country people who are directly exposed to the deprivations of hunting, than townies who never experience them. I do not think the majority of townies actually go so far as to ‘want’ hunting: they simply do not see it as an important enough issue.

      That is why it is people living in villages and towns who feel most threatened by urbanisation and the changes in the planning rules than those already living in the urban jungles of our big cities.

      Unfortunately for us, the ‘blinkered world view’ as broadcast by the media is dominated by the biggest urban jungle of the lot, London, while the Labour Party remains largely an urban party and the Conservative Party remains unduly influenced by wealthy land owners. Double whammy:-( Ironically, the Green Party is also largely urban…

  7. Mark, given your wish to eradicate grouse shooting in an attempt to end illegal behaviour, perhaps you could explain here why you are prepared to appear alongside a convicted criminal as part of your campaign. Luke Steele’s convictions are numerous and serious yet you see fit to ally yourself with him. Is it a case of your enemy’s enemy is your friend, or did you simply make a mistake? If the latter, I’m sure people would understand. It’d be interesting to hear your side of the story, because right now, it really doesn’t look good.

    1. Mike – I answered this almost a year ago when I was photographed with Luke Steele and Jeff Knott on Westminster Bridge. This is what I said then:

      ‘Luke Steele has been one of the leaders of the campaign to end grouse shooting on Ilkley Moor. I have met him less than a handful of times. He hasn’t played a major role in our campaign but he has certainly supported it on social media. I didn’t know of his conviction until the last few days and that was after I was photographed with him. I haven’t googled every person I’ve met to check them out’.

      You are well aware that the photo you are promoting on social media is that old and you are clearly just stirring.

      1. Thank you for replying, Mark. Don’t be too hasty in your assumptions – I was an unaware of the date of the photograph.

        You are clearly a leading light in the campaign to make driven grouse shooting illegal: I think it’s fair to say that it is a consuming passion of yours? You describe Mr Steele as “one of the leaders of the campaign to end grouse shooting on Ilkley Moor”. I find it somewhat unfortunate that you, a leader yourself, were unaware of Mr Steele’s extremely shady background. How many leaders of the anti-grouse shooting world are there?

        So to be clear, do you now disassociate yourself from Mr Steele and his actions? Do you condemn his criminality just as you, and I, condemn those found guilty in cases of wildlife crime?

        1. Mike – really? Where did you get the photograph? And isn’t it you who has been hasty in your assumptions? So you are now going to delete those tweets about me are you?

          I condemn all criminality.

          I’m told that I was in a room with a convicted gamekeeper a few weeks ago but I didn’t know that either – maybe you’ve got me again!

          1. The photo was on Twitter. I made no assumptions, I asked questions, which if you read back you’ll see. I have no reason to delete tweets asking you questions.

            I note though that you’ve avoided the point about the small world and how unfortunate it was that you were completely oblivious of Mr Steele’s convictions. You really were extremely unlucky in that.

          2. Mike Weavers – where on Twitter? On whose Twitter feed? With what date? Random photos aren’t floating around on Twitter are they?

            You are stirring and seem keen to be nasty about me. That’s pretty obvious.

        2. Mike Weavers,why come on this blog just simply trying to cause trouble.
          You talk about associating with criminal behaviour,question is are you sure you have never associated with anyone who has committed an offence because if you know that you haven’t you are in a very small minority.Whatever is your objective.

        3. Wow Mike! You’ve used an image from one of the nastiest trolls out there to try and infer that Mark’s position is untenable because he was once photographed with someone who has paid their dues to society for a historical criminal offence. I’d worry more about becoming associated with Andy Richardson if you continue to lift material from his Twitter account.
          Or would you (to be clear) like to disassociate yourself from his regular abusive, misleading comments and downright lies?

          7274 this morning.

      2. What was Mr Steele’s convictions for? Serious crimes or just being disruptive to the gentry? The latter are not real crimes.

  8. To my knowledge Luke Steele was convicted for animal rights activities some years ago. He went to prison and, after his release, subsequently went to university and seems to have done well. Unless you know something that I don’t know, Mike, that seems quite a redemptive story. Now, I don’t like what many in the grouse industry are doing presently but, perhaps after one or two of them have paid their dues, should they then leave their former ways and move on to something more productive I’d also call that redemptive and wouldn’t hold anything against them either.

    2. Some information on Mr Steele, in response to questions. [Mark writes – rest of comment deleted. No-one asked and your comment is not relevant to the original post. Many people have access to Google thanks]

        1. Mike – he can look it up. But you (and I as the publisher of this blog) need to be careful of the Rehabilitation of Offenders’ Act.

          1. Is that the best argument for your sensorship? That mentioning convictions falls foul of that Act? Which particular section do you have in mind?

  11. Mike Weavers – If the letter of the law was upheld on the moors then there would need to be a lot of ‘disassociating with criminals’ going on. It’s great to see the ‘other side’ following their usual routine of personal attack – anything to avoid having to actually put forward a credible argument to retain Driven Grouse Shooting.

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