Here is an update on three e-petitions about grouse shooting:
Gavin Gamble’s e-petition in favour of banning driven grouse shooting – c26,115 signatures
Jane Griggs’s e-petition supporting grouse shooting – c14,714 signatures
Ed Hutchings’s e-petition in favour of licensing grouse shooting – c2,390 signatures
Last week saw the ‘Gamble-ban’ e-petition adding another 570 signatures and pulling another c340 signatures ahead of the ‘Griggs-protect’ e-petition which accrued only c230 signatures. More progress in the right direction. The ‘Hutchings-license’ e-petition added c350 signatures.
Here are the leading constituencies supporting a ban of driven grouse shooting so far – those with more than 100 signatures. The list has grown by the addition of Argyll and Bute.
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- High Peak, Ruth George MP, 147 signatures
- Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey, Drew Hendry MP, 134 signatures
- Sheffield Hallam, Jared O’Mara, 125 signatures
- Westmorland and Lonsdale, Tim Farron MP, 120 signatures
- Calder Valley, Craig Whittaker, 119 signatures
- Ross, Skye and Lochaber, Ian Blackford MP, 111 signatures
- Skipton and Ripon, Julian Smith MP, 112 signatures
- Isle of Wight, Bob Seeley MP, 110 signatures
- Suffolk Coastal, Therese Coffey MP, 110 signatures
- Stroud, David Drew MP, 106 signatures
- Thirsk and Malton, Kevin Hollinrake MP, 108 signatures
- Argyll and Bute, Brendan O’Hara MP, 106 signatures
- Sheffield Central, Paul Blomfield MP, 104 signatures
- Derbyshire Dales, Patrick McCloughlin MP, 105 signatures
The strongest constituencies supporting the Griggs petition in favour of grouse shooting remain these same top-10:
- Chelsea and Fulham, Greg Hands MP, 402 signatures
- The Cotswolds, Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP, 299 signatures
- Thirsk and Malton, Kevin Hollinrake MP, 268
- Battersea, Marsha de Cordova, 251 signatures
- Kensington, Emma Dent Coad MP, 246 signatures
- Richmond (Yorks), Rishi Sunak MP, 258 signatures
- Cities of London and Westminster, Mark Field MP, 217 signatures
- Skipton and Ripon, Julian Smith MP, 205 signatures
- Northwest Hampshire, Kit Malhouse MP, 186 signatures
- South West Wiltshire, Andrew Murrison MP, 176 signatures
There are still c35 constituencies which haven’t leant a single signature to this e-petition – just another example of how concentrated is the support in a few rich areas of the country at the moment.
The Hutchings RSPB-supported e-petition has only seven constituencies with 20+ signatures – four in the north of Scotland, South Dorset (which includes the RSPB nature reserve of Arne) and a couple which form a large part of the catchment for the RSPB HQ at The Lodge. It will be interesting to see how RSPB support for this option shapes up but this petition has been running for 5 weeks and is in the low 2000s, whereas Gavin Gamble’s e-petition flashed past 10,000 signatures in under four weeks – just saying.
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It’s good to see you and your readers keeping the pressure on the RSPB. It’s time for action. Conservationists have had enough. The odd nod of agreement for a petition supporting the position of the RSPB won’t do. Let’s hear a roar of outrage; a stamping of the feet; a charge of attack!
That’s 64% in favour of banning driven grouse shooting, as opposed to 36% supporting grouse shooting. By comparison with the mandate that’s taking us out of the European Union, that’s an overwhelming majority of a reasonable sample of the UK population. This will be an interesting point to get across should another debate take place at Westminster. Hopefully this time the gloves will be off, and the feeble disingenuous case put forward by the grouse shooting supporters will be more aggressively challenged.
By whom ? it would be another Tory stitch up , a fair and open debate at Westminster, when did that last happen?
Iain, those are awful statistics. The samples have to be random.
At a time when we should be lording the results of a 123000 petition over the heads of the Grouse shooters, we’re having to deal with pushing a couple of anaemic petitions which are limping along barely scraping by whilst covering the exact same ground as before, and an invigorated game shooting industry on the attack saying that it proves that public appetite for restrictions on country pursuits is waning. All so one man could try and launch a journalism career on the back of it. Goddamn, but it is infuriating. Gamble has set everything back by years.
Although I’ve signed the Gamble petition I’m still none the wiser as to the point of having another ban grouse shooting petition so soon after the previous one which got over 120,000 signatures.
Could someone enlighten me? Thanks.
Because the first one did not realise a ban?
The RSPB have emailed support for Ed’s licensing petition as second lead item in their January Campaigns Update. No mention on their web site, however.