Christmas is cancelled – but the grouse must be shot

Mark 15 Comments
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/boris-johnson-rule-of-six-hunting-shooting-exemption_uk_5f5f4ad0c5b6b4850803110f?ggg&guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly90LmNvL0VOZWdJWmxPTDE_YW1wPTE&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAB4Bg-mciwWufmyuU0QNMDOqvbB68vME_WE9HqHbTky-6HQPVTg7ywMugkQAhLtKhQMnF94qntNT6vayHyUk_ghvA1XLZDXq9J05fc8N3esHAxxYDuE5zMpNZzYF-yXpPSBKTfhFjQguZ1qa5wpnj0krJ3L7bhZ-dqPrr72xvS4Z

A day at the races? No.

An afternoon at the football? No.

Jogging with six friends? Of course not.

A day on a grouse moor? Of course old boy.

Rich people travelling from the towns to the uplands, drinking and shooting and then travelling home? An epidemiologist’s nightmare! The track and trace records for these meetings would be interesting to see.

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15 Replies to “Christmas is cancelled – but the grouse must be shot”

  2. Personally I am disappointed that they don’t have tweed masks. The cufflinks on that beautifully starched and pressed, white shirt are rather nice though.

    The solution is rather obvious – just go to the races or out jogging with shotguns. The lack of grouse shouldn’t be a barrier to having a good time like those “rules for you, no rules for me” rich folks.

  4. Well, no surprises there. I’m sure none of the people foisting these arbitrary rules on the rest of us have any intention of letting them interfere with their own social lives. I, for one, won’t be judging my neighbours if they choose to ignore them.

    1. I’m sure you’re right Colin there is ample evidence that the Red Grouse and the Pheasant are major vectors of the Covid plague, so the less of them the better. Of course young Bojo (getting older by the day even his hair is thinning!) should have been on top of this and banned the release of all those Pheasants and dodgy healthed RLPs.
      Seriously whilst not unexpected considering this governments record on vested interests this is almost as shocking as unwise and unapproved visits to Durham and Barnard Castle. It screams louder than a human voice ” WE DO WHAT WE WANT AND YOU PROLES HAD BETTER LEARN YOUR PLACE AND DO WHAT YOU ARE TOLD” My answer is I will do what I need to do stay healthy and have a reasonable chance of avoiding “the plague” but as far as the blonde oafs rules go ” fuck ’em” and to him please fuck off now, if not sooner.

  6. You have a government happy to break an international treaty/law but it expects all its citizens to abide by the law, accept a few of course Some like Cummings. May as well get used to it, neither this government or Covid-19 is going away anytime soon.

    1. I note it was mentioned on Channel 4 news this evening, but in all honesty, is it really that big a deal? I mean the only reason its being mentioned is because your anti Grouse Shooting, but its a distraction surely in the fight to change this outdated practice?

      1. Matthew – I’m anti driven grouse shooting. Well it’s up to you whether you are interested or not. I am. You’ll see that the HuffPost made quite a lot of it, as did the Guardian and The Times – but who are three newspapers as judges of what is news if you aren’t interested…?

        1. Usual nonsense from Avery. Goes to prove that he is just against the people who go shooting rather than what they do and uses hen harriers as a smoke screen

        2. Mark,

          It seems to me that your gleefully making a rather petty point in relation to Grouse Shooting, which only goes to reinforce the views of those that engage in this activity, that the argument about driven Grouse Shooting is less about the ecological damage and illegal slaughter of birds of prey and more about attacking the rich and their pals who partake.

          I don’t actually think this is helpful, it obscures the real argument and gives the shooting fraternity a distraction from the core argument against their activity.

          Many of the comments on here seem to echo that line of reasoning and whilst I’m no defender of the deep social and economic inequality that exists in the UK today, surely we should keep the attacks focused on the ecological and environmental damage, the illegal slaughter of birds of prey and the legal slaughter of other wildlife?

          I long since ceased regarding everything that is in the media, be that newspapers, TV or radio as being news or that they are very good judges of what actually is news and even worse on reporting any news accurately!

          In short do I give a toss as to whether Shooting of any sort is permitted under current Covid-19 restrictions? No, do I want to see an end to Driven Grouse Shooting? Yes as soon as possible, do I believe this sort of attack will hasten its end? No.

          1. Matthew – the mistake you are making is in thinking, perhaps wanting, everyone to oppose grouse shooting for exactly the same reasons that you do. In building a movement for change you cannot have an intellectual purity test for admittance to the ranks of those who want change. Or if you do, it is rather self defeating. ‘No, you don’t precisely and exactly share my reasons for opposing grouse shooting so I will not encourage you or engage with you on this matter’ is a poor position, not least because if you looked into it then everyone who opposes driven grouse shooting has a slightly different vreason for that view.

            And actually your second mistake is to ascribe a motive to me in posting this post. It would have been slightly odd when engaged in campaigning against driven grouse shooting not to report an angle which has had really quite massive media coverage and has been mentioned in Prime Minister’s Questions this week.

            The fact is, more people who have never heard of grouse shooting and never been bothered about it are as a result of what they see as favourable treatment of this niche pastime of the rich compared with their own treatment by government, concerned, interested and uneasy about the subject. If you were the Moorland Association or Scottish Land and Estates then you would not be rejoicing in all those mentions of grouse shooting in the media this week, you would be wincing at their impact on your future.

  7. I don’t have any data on the demographics of grouse shooting but I would guess that a significant proportion of the participants fall into age groups where the risk of dying from an infection with Covid-19 starts to increase significantly. Perhaps the organisers will be placing little vials of hydroxychloroquine all around the butts for self-administered prophylactic treatment of the the shooters – along the lines of medicated grit trays? (Trump says it works so who can doubt it?).

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