Читать книгу The Light’s On At Signpost - George MacDonald Fraser - Страница 11
ОглавлениеNEVER MIND PEERAGES, can law-making be bought? If an animal rights organisation were to contribute to a governing party’s funds, would this assist the passage of a bill against parrot-kicking or butterfly-baiting or some similar blood sport? And if the Fruit of the Month Society made a similar donation, would this win government support for lowering the age of consent for homosexuals? I ask these questions in all innocence, and am ready to be told that it is disgraceful even to mention them – which usually means that the question has hit uncomfortably close to home.
On this head, I was an interested observer of the campaign to ban fox-hunting, deer-hunting, coursing, etc., and found myself wondering whether the proposed bill was the result of judicious investment or just mental derangement. I have never hunted, and never would, but I have a foolishly sentimental affection for it which comes of reading Surtees and Trollope and singing at school hearty songs like “Drink, Puppy, Drink”, and “A-Hunting We Will Go”, and of course “John Peel”, and I should be sorry to learn that they were no longer sung in this politically correct age.
This is very wrong of me, but there it is. I haven’t shot an animal since I was nine, when I nailed a rabbit and promptly burst into tears. And once I had my copy ruthlessly spiked when I was sent to write an article celebrating the Waterloo Cup, and turned in a passionate denunciation of coursing.
So I understand the position of the anti-blood-sports people (and would gladly shoot those of them who commit evil acts of terrorism, but that’s not germane to the argument). I’m neutral to the extent that I don’t give a dam about the morality of hunting, but as a country lover I have to defend rural traditions and the right of people to make a living from them. But my real interest, I confess, would be to watch the attempted enforcement of a hunting ban, something which I suspect the banners haven’t really thought about. I’m not sure how the police are going to proceed against law-breaking huntsmen – when they assemble, when they set off, when they first get on the trail of a fox, or when they kill it? Assuming they do. I would truly enjoy the sight of PC Plod in pursuit of the Blencathra, running up and down the fells crying: “Stop, in the name of Blair!”
I mustn’t be cynical, or wonder why the government debated fox-hunting while the countryside was dying from foot and mouth disease; whom the gods would destroy they first make mad. But I would like to know why the ban-the-hunt brigade don’t demand the outlawing of angling, which is horribly cruel, consisting as it does of the slow torturing to death of a fish with a barbed hook in its jaws. Could it be that while they inveigh against people who chase foxes and deer and blow the hell out of grouse and pheasants, on the erroneous assumption that they are all “toffs” and fair game, the antis are scared to tackle the anglers, vast numbers of whom are working-class? Of course it is. They know, too, that a bill against angling wouldn’t stand a chance – but being men and women of stainless principle, shouldn’t they try for one, or at least state boldly where they stand? Or don’t they care about fish?
