With today’s call for grouse moor licensing by the Labour Party the SNP needs to act to maintain its formerly leading position on grouse moor reform.
In the race to be ‘top UK government’ on grouse shooting reform the SNP government is strolling down the straight, way out ahead of the Conservative Party in England who deny that there is a race and deny that there is a problem. Scotland has by far the better track record which, I’m afraid, may have made them complacent on the issue. When will they act strongly on Werritty? Today would be a good day, the Inglorious 12th, but there is no sign of it coming that I have seen.
Although Labour is not anywhere near being the party of government in England, the expectation is, that if it ever were, it would introduce licensing of grouse shooting. The SNP is the party of government in Scotland, and its policy is to introduce licensing, and it has the feeble Werritty report which tells it to introduce licensing of grouse shooting, and yet, in power, the Scottish government does not act. We’re all wondering why.
I was struck yesterday when I dipped into Nicola Sturgeon’s statement on coronavirus which was dominated by castigating football players for not playing the social distancing game, when a couple of times Ms Sturgeon said something like ‘There can’t be one rule for footballers and another rule for everyone else. To have the privilege of their sport going ahead, they have to stick to the rules’ – or something very, very, similar to that.
My mind, each time, inserted ‘grouse moor managers’ instead of ‘footballers’ and I agree completely. Just like Ms Sturgeon looked rather miffed and as though the football industry was showing her government disrespect in a very public manner, that is, she must realise, exactly what the grouse shooting industry is doing. And has been doing for years. And they aren’t a bunch of young brash men – it’s a very calculated ignoring of the law by the grouse shooting establishment in Scotland.
Your move Nicola.
But it’s your move too, as a UK resident you can make your voice heard by signing the Wild Justice, RSPB, Hen Harrier Action e-action – click here to see whether you can add your name to 30,000+ others please. Thank you!
To get some movement, the smart money should be pushing the Greens, the Independence for Scotland Party or the Alliance for Independence to get this on their agenda. The SNP is likely to take the lion’s share of the vote next May but with several members of the SNP leadership very chummy with the shooting fraternity all you are probably going to see more foot-dragging.
Should something horrible happen before the next elections the SNP might end up with fewer seats that expected and so needing support from the other parties. This scenario is unlikely to be honest but if it did happen then you might be in a position to ask for a lot.
I wrote again to Nicola Sturgeon concerning the Golden Eagle Tom and the Hen Harrier Silver. No response yet after 4 working days, we shall see what happens.
It is however long past time that this SNP gov’t stopped sitting on its hands, keeping its powder dry, or thinking about doing things and actually got off their superannuated bottoms and actually DID SOMETHING…
Yes, come on the Scottish Government let’s have some action now on licensing driven grouse moors as you have promised.
Leaving aside Nicola Sturgeon’s natural caution, the Scottish government’s position is inexplicable by normal reasoning. So what explains the inexplicable? For a long time I thought that the bizarre kowtowing to the tartan tories was the inevitable consequence of the SNP being a broad coalition where the fear was that marginalised groups would splinter off to become Tories or LibDems. But that doesn’t really work, Fergus and his mates are not about to commit electoral suicide by joining the Tories. So then, new realisation, it’s about the approach to independence. There’s quite a battle going on between constitutionalists and Catalonians. And in that battle, Nicola needs the tartan tories. So our task is to make her more broadly aware of public opinion than narrow debate within the SNP. I don’t think that’s futile: they are acutely aware that as the party of government, they face a stern task in keeping on the right side of wider public opinion.