General Election - June 8th

I thought it might be!

I agree that tactical alliances might arise in certain constituencies especially those voting Remain. But I rather think they will coalesce into something more formal and on a nationwide scale. You may not wish to be a part of it as I think there's every likelihood of it being led by Blair.

I see where you're coming from but your constituency voted overwhelmingly to leave the EU. Although your MP campaigned for Remain, she like almost all those in her position, has accepted the result, quite possibly with a heavy heart. But that's democracy - unlike the pale imitation favoured by Brussels that required voters in France, Denmark and Ireland to vote again because they returned the "wrong" result. Theresa May's situation was different: I suspect she secretly supported Leave but is MP for a strong Remain constituency. She banked on her instinct that despite his assurances that he would remain Prime Minister in the event of a leave vote, she was sure Cameron would resign and she was the favourite candidate for the leader's job.

http://news.sky.com/story/vote-2017-theresa-may-wants-to-bring-back-fox-hunting-10870395

What the heck is all this about? Are we really going to revisit something from nearly 15 years ago to put our country back in medieval times? I hope this is some inaccurate reporting, though it's been reported in several other sources.

Surely once a vote has been held, that is it. You respect that decision and are never allowed to question it again. Isn't that what the Brextards have been telling everyone this year?

Don't understand why you link this to Brexit.

Do you think that all "Brextards" (as you call them) are medieval, and want to shoot cute puppies?

The rest is just politics...

You're a city-dweller, I assume, and not a sheep or poultry farmer. Apart from providing employment to a surprisingly large number of people, Hunts provided an essential service absolutely free of charge. They controlled the fox population that would otherwise wreak havoc with livestock and bird populations. Foxes love to kill and maim and if given free-reign will kill far more than they can eat so they have to be controlled in any event. Right now they use a variety of costly poisons but these often cause a slow lingering death. But the baits are a danger to other wildlife and domestic animals including dogs. And animals can't read.

Brexit will breathe new life back into the countryside as EU-imposed quotas and restrictions disappear to allow farmers to grow food for humans and other animals to consume rather than to fill intervention stores from where it is dumped on the Third World. You should visit sometime.

Frankly, whilst I happen to think that fox hunting is OK, your tone is somewhat patronising.

If you think that EU farm subsidies have anything to do with "growing food for intervention stores from where it is dumped on the third world" I can start to see where your misguided support for Brexit comes from.

I think that, were you to take your own advice, and visit the British countryside, you would be in for a big surprise.

We hear about the "Progressive Alliance" and it is getting a few of us/you hot under the collar.

Now we have the, can I assume, "Regressive Alliance" with UKIP standing aside in Norman Lamb's seat and telling their voters (8,300) to vote for their sister party.

Firstly, are you a poultry farmer? A sheep farmer? If not, then you are not arguing from authority, and are trying to sweep aside a differing viewpoint with the patronizing tone that seems to lace your arguments and provide you with a false air of superiority.

Apart from the gross inaccuracy you spill out about the Countryside, I have witnessed fox hunts in my childhood, some were planned weeks in advance in areas where there was little nuisance posed by foxes. Men would travel miles to take part in a few hours of dressing up and wasting hours chasing a single fox. Hardly an efficient control of population.

One of these men once flashed me and my sister (I was 12, she 8) a v sign purely because we were sat on our wall watching. Brave men indeed.

A good farmer will deal with the problem more humanely, and indeed many do. Fox hunting is legal. Anyone can, with license, shoot a fox or trap one.

What Maggie May wants is to allow people to dress up and spend a day riding around before letting a pack of dogs rip the still living fox from limb to limb. We need to be clear that this is what May wants to bring back.

250000 people took part in recent Boxing Day hunts. These are called drag hunts and, whilst supposedly bloodless, there are foxes being killed. It's quite commonly known that many hunts carry on as they always have done when they believe they are not being watched.

My opinion is, there are more humane, efficient and effective methods to control fox populations. All we are doing is allowing some blokes in daft outfits to ride around with a boner for a few hours with the aim of ripping a fox to shreds at the end of the day. Ra ra effing ra!

Cats?

Andrew Lloyd Webber

If, as you say, my message was "somewhat patronising" then it is reflective of that it answered.

I spent all my childhood and most of my adult life from the age of 39 living deep in the British countryside. My last home in the UK backed onto a sheep farm and his neighbour is a dairy farmer. Members of my family were actively involved in hunting, shooting and fishing in both England and Scotland, a cousin was Master of a Hunt and I have ridden to hounds on quite a number of occasions. In short, I am, in my opinion, rather better acquainted with rural Britain than you may realise

The question of farm subsidies is not simply about interventionism although that is a "crime" in itself. A very good friend of mine is the latest head of his family's cheesery; they make a particularly tasty cheese in Pembrokeshire, much of which is exported to the US. Before the EU-imposed milk quotas came into being, his family were able to contract their milk supply with local farmers. He is not permitted to do this and both he and the supplying farmers would be prosecuted if they dealt privately. Instead he has to buy milk from a regional creamery, which charges him the same wholesale price as to the bottlers and he has to pay for it to be trucked across country. He and a few other "artisan" cheese makers did originally benefit from a MAFF dispensation allowing them to source locally but this was countermanded by Eurocrats acting on complaints raised by large commercial cheese producers. The milk is no longer local and yet he is surrounded by dairy farms - a good percentage of whose output is taken away and poured down the drains.

The fact that Britain must import a percentage of its fresh milk from continental producers by EU diktat is a complete nonsense when a similar quantity of home-produced milk has to be dumped into the sewers. Try buying a pinta of British milk in Amsterdam or Paris - you won't be able to, just as you'll be very lucky if you find British cheese on any supermarket shelves on the continent and especially in protectionist France where the farming unions are all-powerful. Who does the CAP benefit most? Inefficient continental farmers, that's who, and it results it food prices being kept at an artificial high.

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Oh dear ... that'll be Caroline Lucas and Sarah Olney on the naughty step then...

The Crown Prosecution Service is not authorising the prosecution of 14 of the 15 Conservative MPs over their 2015 General Election expenses. The 15th, Craig Mackinley, the former Ukipper turned Tory who defeated Nigel Farage for South Thanet, is still under consideration.

I think I would remember the name if I was offered £250k wouldn't anybody?

Very naughty, and that is just one thing that has come to light.

I see little Timmy has been accosted again

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-39868894/man-takes-on-lib-dem-leader-over-brexit

I think Mark is spending too much time on Guido Fawkes.

Oo-er

From where one can quite often find newsworthy items before they're published by the print or broadcast media. Items such as a leaked copy of Labour's manifesto (which is hosted on Scribd and should be embeddable but isn't, for some reason).

Some journalists are claiming that Corbyn's manifesto runs to 43 pages, four pages longer than Michael Foot's 39 pager that one of his MPs, Gerald Kaufman, later dubbed "the longest suicide note in history". But it isn't. Yet. The leaked draft is only 37 pages long.

A BBC cameraman was knocked-down and his leg run over this morning by the car conveying Jeremy Corbyn to his party's manifesto signing event near Savoy Place in central London. According to ITN, Corbyn immediately disappeared inside the venue - not exactly living up to his new slogan to "give a toss about stuff" ...

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