‘The unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable’ once claimed Oscar Wilde and a ‘sport’ where one animal is chased by several others sat on horseback armed with packs of hounds, fox hunting is hardly fair game!
Full of the joy of Xmas, Boxing Day used to be the day of the hunt when people used to dress up in red coats and go out and try and kill things. Galloping around on horses they would try and corner a fox with a pack of hounds so it could be torn to pieces. Many of them would be the bosses and magistrates indulging in the last British blood sport, the kind of thing that ‘civilisation’ was apparently built on with all kinds of civilized behaviour like smearing fox blood on childrens faces, was finally banned in 2004.
Being the big hunt day Boxing Day puts the focus back on the hunting ban but moves to repeal the ban on hunting with dogs in England and Wales may not happen in 2013, a minister has said.Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, Environment Secretary Owen Paterson appeared to rule out a vote next year.
But he insisted it was still the government’s intention to give MPs a free vote on lifting the ban.
Lovely. Whilst they are at it they should reconsider lifting the ban on all kinds of blood sports that have been banned over the years. Afterall, in the spirit of ‘we’re all in it together’, the blood sports that were once practiced in the city by the non landed gentry should also be considered , ahem, fair game. We can’t really have a league table of blood can we?
Fans of fox hunting, which is loved the ‘respectable’ pillars of society, claim it’s traditional and part of our culture but the first recorded fox hunt was in the 16th century making most other banned bloodpsorts beloved of the then poor far more traditional. If you want to bend things round and claim some kind of history to fox hunting and follow some sort of lineage back to hunting in ancient times then why not bring back the amphitheatre- and bring back some proper blood sport! We could have gladiatorial combat sponsored by the Daily Mail with ‘immigrants’ getting speared to death by stout Brits beamed on a live TV link up with Gary Linekar and Alan Hanson discussing the finer points of intestine removal or the etiqutte of the thumbs up and thumbs down.
Oddly, the non toff blood sports have been gradually banned over the years, with bear baiting getting banned in 1835, and cock fighting, dog fighting all coming a cropper with the law. When it comes to the masses there is always an establishemnt urge to stop immoral behaviour and cruelty to animals in the search of pleasure although X Factor seems to have escaped this ban.
It seems that, apart from some hunt master moaning about the injustice of not being allowed to gallop around the countryside killing things, that poking animals with sticks or being mean to animals for fun or ripping small furry things apart is generally frowned upon with most people backing the ban on fox hunting. Of course illegal hunting still continues, which kind of shows the attitude of our overlords to the law, as they are pretty swift to crush anyone who breaks the law unless it’s a law that affects them.
It always seemed a very complex way of conducting what they like to call pest control (despite the fact foxes are sometimes bred for hunting, especially in other countries). For everyone else this is not a matter of sentimentality, the fox is not cuddly, it’s not a very nice animal, after all it kills and eats things instead of buying dead animals in tins in the supermarket to eat.
These days seems to be more foxes in the cities but I’m not sure if gangs of kids on bikes dressed in red jackets chasing foxes with their big fat muscley dogs ripping them to pieces in people’s back gardens would not be allowed.
It would be banned even if they cited tradition and civilization…another example we’re all in it together?
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