Who do you hate more – foxhunters or bankers?
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Dear readers,
I’ve seen a couple of interesting news clippings that have uncovered almost identical poll results from completely different questions, so to start off this week I thought I would find out what you make of them…
In the foxhunting corner:
In a landmark legal ruling, the European Court of Human Rights has ruled that the Hunting Act does not breach human rights legislation. The case, brought by the Countryside Alliance and Brian Friend, 70, of Axminster, rested on whether or not the Hunting Act 2004 breached the rights to a private and family life, freedom of association, and protection of property. The court rejected all arguments.
The court rejected arguments that the Hunting Act infringed an individual’s right to a private and family life on the basis that hunting is a public activity and it is not integral to an individual’s identity. The judgment also made clear that the ban on hunting had “not created serious difficulties for earning one’s living”.
Welcoming the ruling, Douglas Batchelor, Chief Executive of the League Against Cruel Sports said: “This is a victory for common sense. No-one has the right to chase and kill animals purely for sport. The Hunting Act is a landmark piece of animal welfare legislation and today’s decision sends a clear message to politicians and the hunting community alike that the ban on hunting is here to stay.”
An Ipsos-MORI poll in September found that 75% of the public support the ban on fox hunting, and 84% and 85% support the ban on stag hunting and hare hunting respectively.
And in the bankers corner:
A recent YouGov poll showed that 79% of people supported the new tax on bankers’ bonuses, while a separate PoliticsHome poll found that 64% of the public think it’s a good idea
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So who do you hate more – foxhunters or bankers?
Witanagemot Blogs
As someone who hates foxhunting and the wholly pointless bunch of society misfits who indulge themselves in bloodsports; that’s an easy question to answer . . .
It’s “Bankers” !
I don’t hate either, so long as each group follows it’s own rules and doesn’t impinge on other’s rights
That means no trampling unwelcoming farmers crops or lending money to people who you know can’t pay it back, safe in the knowledge that the taxpayer will be forced to bail you out…
Foxhunting bankers in civil partnership with same-sex abortionists!
Who can top that?
*sorry but it seemed like one of those threads…
Dear LFAT. I have long agreed with Oscar Wilde, who defined foxhunting as, “The Inedible pursued by the Unspeakable”. Trained snipers with starlight or IR scopes, or gassing vixen’s dens in the breeding season would be far more effective in controlling the fox population than smearing fox blood over the faces of adolescents. Not withstanding that, the decision by the European Court is patently a political decision in support of Labour’s campaign of social engineering, and for that reason should be ignored and the Law repealed.
As to Bankers, I have already posted at some length. May I reprint Talwin’s post from yesterday?
@Grumpy Old Man – This week’s Private Eye provides a timely reminder of Brown’s hypocrisy. Viz. speaking to Parliament in 2004, “I think it is sometimes forgotten that big bonuses are a big source of extra income tax”
Says it all, really. I humbly suggest that most posters would be inclined to cease banker-bashing once they understand that, by hunting with the baying pack of uninformed hacks whipped in by Bunker spin directives, they are giving aid and comfort to the hideous foe. Save your ire for the Huntsman, not the quarry, because he’s after you as well.
How many innocent Incapacity Benefit claimants with wives doing part-time ’self-employed’ jobs were hunted from horseback and attacked by packs of dogs to force them to pretend they could afford to buy their houses under self-certification mortgages? How many guns were aimed at the Labour politicians to compel them to abandon the rule of law in financial services in favour of ‘regulation with a light touch,’ I wonder?
I’m all for property rights, and can see that maybe foxes don’t fit into that category, but people are going to continue to die from the results of Labour’s economic corruption: die from suicide in despair; from illnesses untreated and hospitals left uncleaned; from unaffordable body armour and the failure to purchase fully functional armoured personnel carriers.
Talk about ‘The unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable’ as long as you might, but Labour still has about 30% support in the polls. The unthinkable in pursuit of the unthinking will be Labour’s next election strategy.
How about a poll about banning Gordon Brown?
@Grumpy Old Man – Not sure how the ‘Eye’ comment got in there!!
I hate politicians even more!
@Talwin – I lifted the comment under your name from the previous “bankers” post a few days ago.
So, in short, if you all had to vote on whether you hated foxhunters or bankers more, you’d all vote for Gordon Brown.
Not strictly in the spirit of accurate polling, but each to their own!
You can’t even get past rule one of the anti-hunting guidebook – ‘never admit it is because you hate them’. Don’t you think that the title of your blog reveals your prejudice? Hate fox hunters all you like, but don’t go round calling yourself a tory and then justifying bans on the basis of your bigotry.
“They don’t hate us because we are cruel. They call us cruel because they hate us.” anon foxhunter
@LFAT – Dear LFAT. Thats because foxhunters and Bankers are ultimately both victims. Salvatore Mundi, self-proclaimed world-renowned negotiator for Climate Cooling Deniers, is the causation and Victimiser-in-Chief.
Wow that would be the first election in recent years that Gordon actually won. And by acclaim too. Oooh ‘eck. That’s not going to end well is it?
Personally I hate neither, the Bankers are doing a job and getting a negotiated remuneration whereas the fox hunters are pursuing a hobby with their own cash.
Hates an overused term and a wasted emotion too.
@QM – “Hates an overused term and a wasted emotion too”.
I agree. And, for me, that’s yet another reason to hate Gordon Brown. That one individual, because of what he has done, the mendacious way he has done it, and his sociopath tendencies, should generate in me a visceral hatred the way that it does, is bad and I know it. And, no, I’m not being clever; I really mean it.
I suspect there are plenty of people who, even if they don’t hate Gordon himself, hate what has happened to this country.
All the spin and deceit from Labour has failed to match what we all see and feel when we walk out our front foors.
I don’t hate either. I detest absolutely politicians, though. Oh, and journalists.
We have done it before but …
Who do you hate most.
MPs
Bankers
Tax officers
Parking attendants
Wheel clampers
estate agents
Ed Balls
Hate,No. Hold in contempt? Only Ed Balls. The others have little choice. A person must take employment as they find it, and a few give the majority a bad name. Balls has chosen his way without let or hindrance, and deserves the contempt of all. There is no reason to soil ourselves by personalising our issues with him – just treat as you would a rat in the woodpile or a fox in the chicken run. .Remove the nuisance as economically and as expediently as possible
What if there were bankers who went fox-hunting?
Would that make them worse than Hitler?
For the record I am in favour of (responsible) bankers and foxhunting.
@Richard Holloway – Worse than Hitler? It would probably make them worse than neo-cons!
What Julia M says. It’s as simple as that.
About the same proportion would like to bring back hanging and flogging. By the by, at 2.00 a.m. a couple of nights ago I watched four urban foxes hunting a cat in our garden. I was tempted to even up the odds by going after them with a hatchet, but what would have been the legal position?
Demetrius, I was unable to ascertain how many Sun readers voted in the polls quote above. They seem to like the death penalty more than the rest of us!
@Demetrius – you brute! I should report you to… I dunno… the BNP? I mean, foxes are indiginous to the UK whereas cats are feline migrants (mogrants?) who piggied backed in with the Romans.
LFAT,
I don’t even dislike either…
While I think certain bankers went bizarre on everyone, the vast majority were quite ok and to me, the culprit for this fiasco is the govt. If we had nationalised the failed banks, we wouldn’t be having all these problems.
Plus, its the government’s fault that people even think about fox-hunting (apart from the people that did it)!
This is so silly, how can you compare a bunch of murdering thugs with a bunch of nest-liners? Of the two the bankers would be on my Christmas card list, the hunters most certainly would not.
I detest fox hunting and hare coursing but I believe that we and the government, of whatever colour, should remember that what is loosely called ‘The City of London’ is now the centre of the financial world – as it should be. Frighten away the bankers and we will all lose out. Frighten away fox hunting and hare coursing and civilisation triumphs. How about signing my NoToHareCoursing E-Petition?
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/NoToHareCoursing/
Personally I detest the vigilantism that have sprung up after the non working Hunting with Dogs Act was brought in without action being taken against them for their self importance. The Police do not like the vigilantes and view them much more as a threat to breaking the law breakers than the vigilantes who harass the huntsman.
Why does society, due to class hatred allow vigilantes to wander our roads intent on causing trouble? Imagine if these self styled vigilantes were allowed to walk the streets taking photos whilst on private property, harassing people for lawful actions because they happen to dislike certain actions which MAY be committed by someone breaking a law inadvertently?
The Hunting with Dogs Act was all about class hatred and nothing to do with animal cruelty; anyone who says it was not just has to wonder why Kosher or Halal killing, live animal export to the EU is still allowed.
Bankers bring in tax money, the banks the public bailed out should not have bonuses, the others yes.
@Geoffrey Woollard –
Sorry , but no, The Hunting with Dogs Act, many anti poaching laws, already cover this subject so we don’t need any more petitions or legislation. One more law for no purpose.
You cant hunt a fox but you can abort an healthy human foetus..
No normal member of the human species could ever work that one
out.Of course “voluntary” euthanasia will be the next to get
overwhelming popular support in the “independent” polls.
Polls in todays Britain
Plebiscites in the Third Reich
Be watchfull ,you who think you are safe
The New Babylon
Neither.
Fox hunters: well, they’re not killing endangered animals, and whilst I consider it as somewhat disgusting, I also consider getting sodomised as somewhat disgusting and that’s legal because we respect the rights of others, so I don’t see a problem.
Bankers: this is all a question of where blame lies and where motivation is. It’s like single mothers. I don’t blame young women who decide to have a couple of kids so they can get a council flat. They do it because the government creates the incentives to do so. Likewise, the people who earnt a fortune in commission did so because it was there. And most of the public, presented with “£1 million commission now, but your employer goes to the wall” would take that deal, regardless of the impact on the shareholders.
I hate people who abuse democracy to invade the lives of others.
“Fox hunters: well, they’re not killing endangered animals, and whilst I consider it as somewhat disgusting, I also consider getting sodomised as somewhat disgusting and that’s legal because we respect the rights of others, so I don’t see a problem.”
That’s a ridiculous argument. Those who practise what some still call b*****y have a choice (unless it’s rape). The fox has no choice. He/she runs like b*****y to provide ‘enjoyment’
for those whom I regard as cruel b*****s. Sorry about all of the asterisks but this is a ‘family’ discussion, is it not?
I don’t hate bankers, who I believe are mostly just decent, hard-working people who are being unfairly demonised due to the actions of the irresponsible few, and I certainly don’t hate foxhunters, who are just practising a hobby which doesn’t really hurt anyone. It doesn’t really hurt foxes, either, as Lord Burns (chairman of the government’s 1999 hunting with dogs enquiry) says:
“People ask whether we were implying that hunting is cruel … The short answer to that question is no. There was not sufficient verifiable evidence or data safely to reach views about cruelty … There is some scientific evidence about the impact on welfare of hunting deer … With the fox, there is an almost total lack of similar scientific evidence about the effect on welfare of being hunted … the evidence we collected in the form of post mortems convinced us that death is not always the result of a single bite to the back of the neck or shoulders by the leading hound as has sometimes been claimed. The post mortems indicated that death resulted from quite massive injuries to the chest and vital organs. Even so, we concluded that insensibility and death will normally follow within a matter of seconds once the fox is caught.”
“The post mortems indicated that death resulted from quite massive injuries to the chest and vital organs. Even so, we concluded that insensibility and death will normally follow within a matter of seconds once the fox is caught.”
Oh, well, that’s alright, then. After the election and if Cameron & Co. win and then win a ‘free vote,’ you’ll be able to carry on killing for fun. May God have mercy on your soul!
I don’t actually hunt myself, I just don’t want to restrict people’s freedoms for reasons that have nothing to do with animal welfare and everything to do with pandering to a group of Old Labour class warriors.
“I don’t actually hunt myself, I just don’t want to restrict people’s freedoms for reasons that have nothing to do with animal welfare and everything to do with pandering to a group of Old Labour class warriors.”
How about pandering to me, then, Anon?: I’m neither Old Labour nor a class warrior!