Many of you are beginning to receive letters from your MPs about the expected debate on banning driven grouse shooting. Tomorrow’s blog post will give you some information for some ‘Firm briefing’ of your MP. Also, tomorrow evening I will post the ‘Star letter of the week’ from an MP to a constituent. I hope…
Category: CAMPAIGNING: petitions, marches, writing to your MP, HHDay
The Bird Fair – some pictures with me in them
The world’s most-loved Hen Harrier gets all the glamour gigs but I enjoyed the Bird Fair too – I’ll give you some thoughts tomorrow. But here are some images with just a few words. I see that Simon Lester has his own version of the Q&A at the Bird Fair out on the GWCT website….
The BBC and driven grouse shooting
The week before last there was copious coverage of driven grouse shooting before, on and after the inglorious 12th in the media – quite a lot of that was on BBC channels. This post is about how the BBC handled it and whether or not they were fair. I’d give the BBC only 5 out…
116,000+ signatures
We’ve passed 116,000 signatures and as I go to sleep we are close to 117,000. Woohoo!!! Here’s a list of all the constituencies over 350 signatures: Calder Valley 741 High Peak 538 Ross, Skye and Lochaber 493 Bristol West 485 Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey 459 Derbyshire Dales 450 Sheffield Central 429 Skipton and Ripon…
Leaflets – a massive thank you.
At the Bird Fair, over 11,000 leaflets were taken away for delivery around the country (certainly England and Wales). I’m grateful to those of you who will be walking the streets and delivering these leaflets over the next few weeks – thank you and every signature counts. I met karl (sic) and Dave at the…
You are wonderful – Firm Briefing 3 (update)
Yesterday, I spent most of my time responding to, and filing, emails from you lovely people saying that you had written to your MP. Thank you! Every time I thought I had dealt with the backlog built up over the Bird Fair weekend I looked again and there were some more emails. Thank you again!…
Henry at the Bird Fair
Here are some more images of the world’s favourite Hen Harrier at the Bird Fair fraternising with a whole bunch of suspected eco-zealots. Wildsounds and author Prof Tim Birkhead (review of The Most Perfect Thing here). Thanks to Duncan and team for some great book signings during the Bird Fair. Eco-zealots’ favourite magazine? Here Henry…
Firm Briefing 2
Firm briefing is the phrase I will use to describe how you can brief your MP ahead of a parliamentary debate on the future of driven grouse shooting. At the Bird Fair I had chats with the RSPB and LACS (separately as it happens, but I am sure the two organisations are sensible enough to…
Ups and downs of signatures
I emailed the House of Commons petitions Committee at 4am this morning (yes that’s right) with some concerns over the frequency with which our e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting is yoyoing up and down at the moment as bot attacks add signatures and then these are removed later in the day (often quickly). Just…
Tough for Tufty on grouse moors in Scotland
Those who were being taught how to cross the road safely in the 1960s will remember the starring role of Tufty in the Green Cross Code. Back then it was still possible to use a Red Squirrel in a national advertising campaign without most people creasing their brows and asking ‘What’s that? It’s red’. I…