Traditionally bad

Caitlin Moran (2010 columnist of the year) had an interesting piece in The Times at the weekend. It’s about tradition and mentions the Duke of Westminster (traditionally not paying inheritance tax on his late father’s estate worth £9bn – it’s a tradition, you know, for the very rich not to pay much in taxes). I…

World Birding TV launches

A new international internet birding magazine, World Birding TV, has just launched. Guess what? Episode 1 includes coverage of our campaign to ban driven grouse shooting and we get the chance to see and hear Amanda Anderson looking unconvinced and sounding unconvincing. Henry is filmed at the Bird Fair and a gamekeeper finds evidence of…

The SNP standard response – Firm Briefing 9

Before tackling the tricky issue of SNP MPs in the Westminster parliament, let me just say that support for our e-petition has been very strong in Scotland: it has received c12,000 signatures from Scotland out of a UK total so far of 118,000 – that’s c10% of all signature compared with Scotland representing c8.4% of…

A few goals for 20 September

Our rather successful e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting runs until midnight (I think) on 20 September.  Every signature is valuable in showing MPs and the world that this is an issue that requires urgent attention. I’d be very pleased if the total approached 125,000 at the end – there will be another significant milestone…

118,000 signatures, three weeks to go and Firm Briefing 7

Our e-petition is still moving briskly along – this will partly be thanks to the impact of last week’s Bird Fair. Some will have heard about the e-petition for the first time at the Bird Fair (that may be difficult for some of you to believe but it’s certainly true) and also 11,000 leaflets were…