Weather fails to dampen hunts' determination
(Source Countryside Alliance Alice Barnard 28th Dec)
Despite bad weather affecting most of the country, over 250 hunts met for their traditional Boxing Day meets yesterday. Up to half of them were unable to move off afterwards owing to poor conditions, and many met on foot rather than on horseback.
On this, the biggest date in the hunting calendar, supporters across the country braved the conditions to show their solidarity for hunts. Obviously the icy conditions have been a huge factor and many people have been unable to get to their local meet, but hunts have been delighted by those hardy souls who managed to make it.
This support is encouraging, especially when set against the back drop of new independent polling which shows that six out of ten people think the Hunting Act has been a waste of police time and eight out of ten believe animal rights activists should not be allowed take the law into their own hands (click here for our news story on this poll).
Support for hunting this Boxing Day once again extended way beyond the rural community to include all those many thousands of people who see the Hunting Act as a failed law. David Cameron has consistently repeated the Government's commitment to a free vote and his own support for repeal. We cannot expect hunting to be top of the Government's priority list in these dire economic times, but the eventual delivery of a vote on repeal is a matter of trust. Hunts were in a pragmatic mood at Boxing Day meets - repeal remains our goal and we are united in moving towards that.
The Countryside Alliance recently commissioned a short film by Fieldsports Britain explaining the case for repeal. It is required viewing in which Quantock Staghounds Master James Hawthorne leaves the viewer in no doubt that repeal of the Hunting Act is vital to hunting's future. Watch the film here.
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