August 15, 2011
Promised Vote on British Foxhunting Ban “Dead and Buried”
A new generation of urban Tory has upset the countryside’s applecart. Notwithstanding Prime Minister David Cameron’s pre-election pledge to allow a free vote in Parliament on the hunting ban, twenty members of his party are opposed to revisiting the ban. Calling themselves the Blue Fox group, they comprise a younger set of MPs who are conservative on economics but liberal on social issues. They insist that the Tory party should no longer be identified with “the hunting, shooting and fishing fraternity” and characterize Cameron’s pledge as “dead and buried.” Privately, some MPs of a more traditional view are also reluctant to insist upon a vote. They take the view that the ban as passed in 2004 is so unworkable and full of holes that hunting with hounds is proceeding without much police interference anyway. See Brenda Carlin’s article in the Mail for more details. Posted August 15, 2011
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The Lunesdale and Oxenholme Staghounds
Not your ordinary fell foot pack!Don’t bother looking this one up in Baily’s! (Not to be confused with the Lunesdale Foxhounds.) The Lunesdale and Oxenholme Staghounds concluded its sporting operations upon the outbreak of World War II. The hunt was an anachronism in the Lakeland fells of northern England, and its history, as related by Ron Black in a just published fifty-eight page booklet, taught me something of carted stag hunting that I found sufficiently fascinating to relate here.
