Simon Heffer

Good people ready to break the law

issue 14 September 2002

Simon Heffer will personally flout the hunting ban, and other country folk have more radical plans to combat Mr Blair

Earlier this summer I was discussing with a pillar of county society the effects of a ban on hunting. We were at a county showground, and he pointed to the ring where hounds parade each year and are awarded prizes. ‘These ****s say they want to stop cruelty to animals. We will have no choice but to put the hounds down. They can’t be domesticated. All they know to do is hunt. So immediately after the ban, we bring 50 couple of them here, to this ring, and shoot them. How will the antis feel about it then?’

It was just one random, but not isolated, example of the anger and militancy spreading among country people as the government prepares to bring forward its Bill to abolish hunting with hounds.

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