Boxing Day fudge

Tweet Boxing Day brought the hunting fraternity out in force, and with them came the now traditional annual calls for the repeal of the hunting legislation.  Here in Wales, politicians representing three of Wales’ political parties supported the calls – only Labour was noticeable by its honourable absence from the list.

Whilst it’s clear that politicians from three parties have signed up to demand change, what’s a good deal less clear is how many of those are doing so from any conviction, or whether they’re just saying what they think a particular section of the electorate wants to hear.  A desire to win votes – or at least, to avoid losing them – can lead some to forget any hint of principle or conviction.

Conventional wisdom has it that farmers and rural communities in general are pro-hunting, and that any politician who wants their votes has to reflect that view and be seen to support it.  Given the extent of opposition to repeal shown in a series of opinion polls, I’m far from convinced that ‘conventional wisdom’ should go unchallenged.

Certainly, there is a strong feeling in agricultural areas that fox numbers need to be controlled.  I have no illusions about them being cute furry little creatures, and in a managed countryside can see the need for control measures when problems arise.  But the jump from “we need to control foxes” to “we need to allow groups of people in fancy dress on horseback to follow packs of hounds chasing a single fox for an hour or two before watching the hounds tearing it apart” is a very large jump indeed.  There are a few missing steps in the logic – and they’re missing for a good reason.

I wonder about the honesty of any politician who can so easily jump from the one statement to the other.  I rather suspect that many of them know as well as I do the scale of the non-sequitur involved, but are prepared to fudge it or the sake of their own political careers.

The other fudge used by politicians in Wales is to call for the issue to be devolved to the National Assembly to decide, usually with the sort of nod and wink which implies that a decision taken at a Welsh level would somehow be different.  That idea – that the subtext of devolution is repeal – seems to me to be even more disingenuous.

It’s less conceivable to me that the Assembly would repeal the legislation than that the House of Commons would do so.  It would require two things to happen; firstly that the three opposition parties together could muster more votes than the Labour Party within the Assembly, and secondly that the three opposition parties would all be unanimous in their support for repeal – turning it into a party political issue of Labour vs. the rest.  Whilst the first is a credible scenario, the second, as the English bard might have put it, “stands not within the prospect of belief”; it’s much less likely than an English Tory majority at Westminster overturning the ban.  Perhaps the nodders and winkers are secret opponents of hunting after all – knowing that what they propose would effectively kill the issue in Wales.

There are some, of course, who see the question of repeal as some sort of question of principle, based on the inalienable right of the unspeakable to continue chasing the inedible, largely because they’ve been doing so for centuries.  I don’t think that there are actually many in that category; unprincipled vote-seeking is a much more common motive.  And doing something purely because “we’ve always done it” doesn’t stand up to the more rational scrutiny of the modern era, thankfully.

No doubt the calls for repeal will be repeated fro a few more Boxing Days yet; but the issue has probably been settled permanently by now. It just needs the politicians to stop pretending otherwise, and misleading people in the process.

Huntin', Shootin', and Votin'

Tweet An anonymous comment on my previous post takes me to task for my 'ridiculous stance' on hunting during the election campaign, and claims that I lost votes every time that I attacked the Tory candidate for his pro-hunting views. Actually, I don't think that I once 'attacked him for his pro-hunting views' – my attacks were more about the way he chose to fudge or hide his views on the issue.

I do have a view about hunting, and I expressed that clearly whenever the question came up, as it often did on the doorstep. (And, incidentally, it was raised far more often by those opposed to hunting than by hunt supporters.) I know that there are some who would have preferred me to have been less forthright in expressing my views, or to try and fudge in the way that others have been prepared to do. But that's not my style – it may be old-fashioned, but I believe that if someone asks me my view on any issue, they have a right to expect an honest answer, not a lie or a fudge.

But my real concern in all this wasn't actually about hunting as such – it was about three things which worried me – and continue to worry me – about the integrity of the democratic process. In this context, hunting was merely the common thread running through them and binding them together.

The first was the way in which a local constituency of a major party can be infiltrated and then taken over by a group of people motivated by one specific issue.

The second was the way in which they then fought a campaign which deliberately ignored that issue publicly, whilst the human and financial resources for the campaign were being provided entirely or largely by people who wanted a particular outcome on that one issue.

And the third was the way in which individuals and groups can pour money into constituencies to obtain a particular result. Whilst that is a wider question for a number of constituencies, in this area, the same underlying issue was the prime motivation.

Regardless of one's views on the question of repealing the Hunting Act, I think that these are all valid concerns, and I do not for one moment regret raising them repeatedly.

Election round up

Tweet The official history of this election will be written in due course, once all the results are in. But after a long and hard campaign, here are a few initial thoughts, untainted, as it were, by any actual numbers.

Clearly, both the main UK parties thought they were learning from Obama by stressing the words 'Hope' in the case of Labour, and 'Change' in the case of the Tories. But it has seemed to me from the outset that they've heard the words, but not understood the message, because my perception is that the campaigns have actually centred around two rather different words.

Labour's campaign seems to have been primarily based around 'Fear' - fear of the Tories and what they might do. The Tories, on the other hand, seem to have opted for 'Despair' - despair about Brown and all his works. In short they've taken two essentially very positive words, and corrupted them into two highly negative campaigns.

Yesterday, Nick Ainger had an article on the IWA website, in which he said "many supporters of Plaid Cymru and the Liberal Democrats have said they intend to vote tactically vote for me to ensure that the Conservative candidate doesn’t get in". I don't doubt that he's found a few saying that, as have I. I'm not sure about the use of the word 'many' though – but I'll come back to that.

Similarly, one of Simon Hart's leaflets carried a picture of a claimed 'Plaid supporter' who has switched to the Tories because "the only way to replace Labour is to vote for the Welsh (sic) Conservatives". He too has claimed that many others are saying the same.

Now, the fact that some supporters of Plaid and the Lib Dems are considering voting tactically against one or other of the main UK parties is no surprise at all. But I suspect that the extent of that is being exaggerated, and it's an over-simplistic analysis which ignores some other trends. Labour and Tory both need to exaggerate the trend, of course. So-called 'tactical' voting of this sort needs people to believe that lots of others are doing the same thing, or else it becomes pointless. In reality, to the extent that it is happening, I suspect that the two different sorts of 'anti' votes are largely cancelling each other out locally.

(As an aside, although AV is not a proportional system of voting, it does allow people to express a second choice, and have that second choice taken into account. I suspect that all parties would find that the second choices of their supporters are nowhere near as uniform as they seem to believe – and that some of them would be quite surprising. A topic for another day.)

The two trends identified by Labour and Tory candidates may be the only ones that they want to talk about – but they're not the only ones which are happening. There's a 'plague on both your houses' trend happening as well – traditional supporters of Labour and Tory alike, fed up at the sameness and bickering, who are looking for an alternative. Some of them will undoubtedly go to the Lib Dems on the back of Clegg's performance; but equally, I have picked up a sense that for some people, Clegg has simply 'joined the mainstream', and that the plague is now being cast upon all three of them.

Then we come to local factors.

'Hunting' is the one subject which the Tories have studiously avoided mentioning. It's easy to see why. Although hunting is a popular subject amongst a certain minority, it has no traction with the wider public. I suspect that even a majority of Tory supporters are opposed to repeal – I've certainly picked up some of them who will not vote for the Tory candidate because of this one issue.

Does the local campaign make any difference in the television age? I'm sure it still does, but it's hard to say how much. The Tory campaign, buoyed up by massive inflows of both financial and human resources from those whose sole aim is the repeal of the Hunting Act has been the strongest and most visible. Money talks – but is it enough to buy victory?

They've certainly had more posters up than anyone else, but most of them seem to be on farmland, which actually tells us little about the underlying strength of their support. And I've even heard suggestions that there have been landowners who have insisted on showing Tory posters even if the tenants are somewhat less enthusiastic. Now that would be an echo of the politics of the past, and of the reasons for the deep-seated hostility to Tories in parts of Wales.

The second strongest and most visible campaign has undoubtedly been the Plaid campaign. 'We've only seen you and the Tories' has been a common message as we've travelled around the constituency. We even picked up a hint over the weekend that the Tories were becoming more worried about our challenge than about Labour.

The Labour campaign seems to have been much patchier than I've ever seen it before – little evidence of a serious effort in many areas. And the Lib Dems have been all but invisible; their campaign has depended totally on the performance of Clegg in the media.

So – where does that leave us? A week or two ago, Vaughan Roderick blogged that no-one had a clue what was happening. I agreed with him then, and still do today. There are movements in voting patterns, but without knowing the relative volumes, it's hard to see an overall picture. Each party - inevitably - concentrates on those switches of allegiance from which it benefits, and conveniently ignores the others. It's spin rather than analysis, of course.

Large numbers of people, even yesterday, were still saying that they hadn't decided. Traditionally, that's been a polite way of saying 'no' in some cases, but I think that there are genuinely more uncertain people this time around, and canvassers from other parties have been saying the same thing.

One final point, which much of the analysis of the latest polls seems not to take into account, is the impact of postal voting. Whilst those voting today will be taking account of all the final statements and news, many of those voting by post – around 9,000 in this constituency – will already have cast their votes on the basis of the position as it looked a week or ten days ago.

Overall, sadly, an overwhelmingly negative election, with no real enthusiasm either for the present government or for the official opposition. And they know that as well as I do.

Enough navel-gazing – out to get on with another sort of roundup.

Hustings # 5 and 6

Tweet Monday night saw us all gathered together again at Penuel Chapel in Carmarthen, and last night at Westgate Chapel in Pembroke. Tonight it's back to Carmarthen for number 7, "Ask the Climate Change question", organised by the RSPB.

We've had an interesting range of questions at the six events so far, covering a wide range of topics. Somewhat surprisingly, last night was the first time that the hunting question came up - and following the rota, it just so happened that Simon Hart was the last one to answer.

My response was the one I have given many times on the doorstep - that I fully support actions taken to control foxes where they are causing problems, but cannot and will not support chasing and killing wildlife for pleasure or 'sport'. Which is why I would not vote for the repeal of the current legislation. The Labour and Lib Dem candidates both made it clear that neither of them would support repeal either - so Simon had his chance to express an alternative view and explain why he supported hunting and repeal of the act.

And he fudged it. He made no attempt to justify or support hunting, and didn't even make out any rational case for repeal. All he could say was that in his opinion the act was nothing more than spite in the first place, and that legislation must be evidence-based in future. Given that everyone knows what his real views are, it simply added to the perception of a lack of openness and honesty about the nature of his campaign - an attempt to get all the way to election day without saying anything substantive about one particular issue.

What's irrelevant to some...

Tweet Faced with questions about the issue which must not be mentioned, it seems that the Hunting Party Tory candidate for this constituency described the issue as being "completely irrelevant to the overwhelming majority of people".

That's not really surprising - he has form on this. He has in the past claimed that there are 1001 issues more important to rural areas than hunting. Just for a change, I agree with him on both these statements.

There is a 'but', however.

Irrelevant it may be to most of the people living here, but it is not irrelevant to the candidate, despite his strenuous efforts to avoid mentioning it. What he cannot escape from is that the local Conservative Association was taken over by pro-hunters with the specific intention of selecting a pro-hunting candidate; that the campaign is very generously funded by people whose sole political objective is the repeal of the Hunting Act, and that much of the human resources (instructed not to mention the subject of hunting) for the campaign is being provided by an organisation specifically set up to promote the election of pro-hunting candidates.

In addition, the candidate's biography as published in his election material and in local newspapers seems to consistently omit his ten year period as a Master of Foxhounds.

The reason the issue is not going to go away is not because Simon Hart is a supporter of hunting; he's perfectly entitled to hold that view and campaign for it. It's rather because of the lack of openness and transparency about the objectives of the Tories' campaign. They'd be better off simply being open with people.

Don't mention the war

Tweet According the the Tories locally, their candidate is head of the Countryside Alliance, "which campaigns for rural communities and provides outdoor education opportunities for youngsters". It's a bit like saying that the Army runs the largest apprenticeship scheme in the UK. Both are entirely true, but neither statement conveys the entire truth about the organisation's aims.

The Countryside Alliance, like the Tory candidate in this constituency, has one single over-riding objective, namely the repeal of the Hunting Act. It's never mentioned locally though - those who support hunting know who to vote for, and those who don't would only be put off by the candidate's real objective.

No surprise then that the Labour campaign did their very best to highlight the issue yesterday.

In Paxton's footsteps?

Tweet There was a time when only the wealthy could afford to become MPs; but then Sir William Paxton was a very wealthy man. So when he stood for the Whigs in Carmarthenshire in the Great Election of 1802, he was in a position to spare no expense. There were only 2,500 people eligible to vote in the whole constituency, and Paxton assiduously set about winning their support.

By the end of the campaign, Paxton had spent £15,690 on trying to win over those electors – including the provision of 11,070 breakfasts, 36,901 lunches, 684 suppers, 25,275 gallons of beer, and 11,068 bottles of spirits. It was a very large sum of money in 1802; it would be an enormous sum today.

'Treating' electors, by providing them with food and drink, was legal in those days of course, but these days it is not allowed – largely as a result of such historical excess. Election candidates must not 'treat' by offering food or drink to electors, as the Electoral Commission's guidance to candidates and agents makes perfectly clear.

Or does it? Certainly, once an election has been called, the practice is illegal, but how about in the days and weeks before that? It's an interesting question – and far from being entirely academic, either.

The local constituency association of the Conservatives in Wales is also quite wealthy. Funded largely by hunters and hedgies, their own accounts reveal that they have a healthy reserve of £85,000 available to spend. Enough for the odd buffet or glass of wine, at least. And the postage to invite electors to come along and partake.

Last night, they held a little get-together in Cynwyl Elfed – described as an opportunity to meet the Tory candidate informally "over light refreshments". The invitation made it clear that there was no requirement for people to give advance notice of their attendance, but said that advance notice "would help us arrange the catering".

It's a sensible precaution – if you're inviting a lot of people to an event, I can see that it might be difficult to ensure that you have the right quantity of food and drink available. And they do seem to have invited a large number of people. A very large number of people. Everyone in Cynwyl Elfed and Llanpumsaint – including, of course, Plaid's many members and supporters in the area - seems to have been invited by letter sent out through the post. That's about 1400 people in total.

And it seems that t's not the only such event that they've organised – they held a similar one at the Pantyrathro Hotel in Llansteffan a few weeks ago, and seem to have invited everyone in the Llansteffan ward – around another 1600 people. I don't, at this stage, know whether any others have been held or planned, but I wouldn't be at all surprised.

There was a sting in the tail for Paxton. The people of Carmarthenshire were canny enough to recognise a bit of attempted bribery when they saw it. After partaking of his hospitality, and in the privacy of the polling booth, they voted for his opponent anyway.


A few years later, Paxton built a large folly, officially dedicated to the memory of Nelson. But many locals still claim that Paxton's Tower was actually built as a place from which he could look down on those who had rejected him; a permanent reminder of the events of "Y Lecsiwn Fawr".

Will history repeat itself? Only time will tell - but "Hart's Folly" has a certain ring to it.

Pink chinos and Barbours

Tweet It was no surprise to see that Carmarthen West and South Pembs featured on the hit list of seats to be targeted by supporters of hunting. The Tory campaign locally is largely funded by hunt supporters, and this one issue is the prime motivation for the Tory campaign. (Although the candidate continues to follow his own advice and avoid all mention of the subject).

I hadn't realised, though, that I should expect them to be dressed in pink chinos. But now they've been warned that they can be thus identified, I guess they'll resort to some sort of cunning disguise. All suggestions for other means of identifying them will be gratefully received.

The Toryside Alliance

Tweet A link to an interesting letter found its way into my inbox this week. It's a letter from our local Tory candidate, in his guise as Chief Executive of the Countryside Alliance, providing a briefing to Tory candidates in marginal seats. It's a novel way for the Chief Executive of an "all-party" campaign to behave.

The "all-party" campaign has itself, it seems, been conducting "extensive and detailed polling" in some of those self-same marginal seats asking "whether the Conservative Party's position on repeal is likely to alter voting patterns". The boundaries between the CA and the Tory Party seem to be becoming a little blurred here, to say the least.

One of the other points made in the letter is a suggestion that the League Against Cruel Sports may have abused its position as a charity, since its activities might be perceived as being 'anti-Conservative'. The point of principle - i.e. that a charity may not get involved in party political activity - is correct. It's a serious allegation, but it is a matter for the Charity Commission and the law to determine whether LACS have actually breached the law.

I note however, from the CA site that all donations made to them, as well as the greater part of membership monies, qualify for Gift Aid as charitable donations. Most of the work of the CA is, it seems, regarded as coming under the remit of 'charity'. So clearly, if that organisation were to be caught out undertaking activities aimed at benefiting one party, wouldn't that fall to be dealt with under the same rules?

Kiss and make up?

Tweet I noted a few days ago that the local Tory campaign had received a significant donation from the fourth Baron Daresbury. What I hadn't realised at the time was that this seems to mark something of a reconciliation between his lordship and the local Tory candidate.

In 2004, the two men had a bit of a spat over correspondence between their respective organisations which became unintentionally public, as this report from the Sunday Times notes.

As then-Chair of the Association of Masters of Foxhounds, the Baron wrote to masters and chairs of hunts berating landowners for not doing enough to help foxes breed, leading to a danger that there would be "a shortage of foxes" to hunt.

The Chief Executive of the Countryside Alliance replied in a somewhat stroppy e-mail to the effect that this was rather undermining the case for fox-hunting, which publicly at least was claimed to about pest control. Breeding pests in order to control them by hunting might look 'suspicious', he said.

Indeed. Not to say downright dishonest. But clearly the two men have now kissed and made up.

Hereditary funding

Tweet It's an open secret that the Tory campaign in this constituency is centred around one issue only, the repeal of the hunting act, although the candidate carefully follows his own advice to talk about everything but that. It's been perfectly clear for many months however that the campaign is almost entirely funded by hunting supporters.

The Daily Mail reported yesterday that the extent of donations to the party and its candidates from pro-hunting groups may be investigated by the parliamentary watchdogs.

I hope that the watchdogs will go further and look at the much wider issue of people with a vested interest donating large sums to policy makers. It happens on both sides of this debate, as well as on a range of other issues. I've always been uneasy with any suggestion that policy might be determined, or might appear to be determined, not on the merits of the argument, but on the size of the donations made to the policy-makers.

Locally, the Tory campaign received another hunting-related donation in May this year, when Lord Daresbury passed them £2,000. Lord Daresbury is, or was, the Chair of the Masters of Fox Hounds Association.

His peerage is of the hereditary variety. The fourth Baron, as he is, seems to owe his title largely to the fact that his great-grandfather was a Tory MP, whose own hereditary title was upgraded from a mere Baronetcy.

(As an aside, the current Baron used his maiden speech in the House of Lords to oppose the introduction of the smoking ban in pubs and restaurants at a time when he ran a business which just happened to own some 2,000 licensed premises. Interest properly noted in his speech, of course.)

The old saying is that he who pays the piper calls the tune. It's obvious who's paying the piper locally - and therefore who's calling the tune.

Reverting to type

Tweet The Conservatives have been busy locally delivering a little leaflet on behalf of their Westminster candidate.

He's clearly been following his own advice. "I am currently head of one of Europe's largest membership organisations lobbying for rural communities" is hardly an entirely open reference to the Countryside Alliance and its main aim. No reference at all to the main objective of the Conservative campaign locally (the restoration of fox-hunting), despite the fact that the campaign is almost entirely funded by people pursuing that aim.

He also follows Cameron's lead – don't tell them what you're for, just keep stressing that you're not Labour. As I've suggested before, with one lot campaigning on the basis that they're not Labour, and the other lot campaigning on the basis that they're not the Tories, this looks like being a pretty uninspiring campaign from the UK parties.

PS – Whilst previous efforts from the blue camp locally have tended to include one sentence in Welsh (telling people that a Welsh version of the leaflet is available as a special favour if they request one from the office), this one reverts to the Tories' normal monolingual approach. In an area where the majority of the population are fluent in Welsh, they are distributing a leaflet which, but for a change of logo, could have gone out in any constituency in England. Valleys Mam commented a few days ago on the lack of commitment by the Conservative Party to the language. It seems to me that, as far as Welsh is concerned,the English Conservative Party in Wales is merely reverting to type.

Which message?

Tweet The leader of the Repeal the Hunting Act Party visited Carmarthen briefly yesterday. He came, he bought a bun, and he departed. He'd obviously been well-briefed by his party's local candidate to talk about anything other than his candidate's main objective.

The problem is that he seems to be less well-briefed on what to say about anything else. In an article in the Guardian today, he managed to say that "I am a confirmed localist, committed to turning Britain's pyramid of power on its head". But not when he visits Wales, apparently, since he seems to have ruled out any further transfer of powers to this corner of the empire if he ever gets into government.

He also maintained the line that the recession and collapse of the financial markets are all the fault of the government, and nothing at all to do with the short-sellers and gamblers who provide a substantial part of his party's UK finances, and almost the whole of the local constituency's funding.

No, it's nothing at all to do with his rich friends and their gambling and speculating. It's all the fault of Labour that Wales' GDP per head lags so far behind that of England after 10 years of Labour rule. Presumably it was also the government's fault that Wales suffered in the same way between 1979 and 1997 when his lot were making the decisions? Or maybe someone from Conservative HQ will make a quick visit to Wikipedia to change the facts and show that Wales was really well-off after 18 years of Tory rule...

A Conservative Obsession

Tweet On Friday, I met with a couple of local animal aid activists, who wanted to know my views on a range of issues associated with the Hunting Act. As a candidate, I get a range of invitations to discuss specific issues with all sorts of groups, and always try and oblige.

Hunting is an issue which can be difficult for candidates in elections. Both sides of the argument hold strong and passionate views, and the gap is not an easy one to bridge. My response on issues like this one is simply to state what I think. I know that I can never please everyone, so I just try and give people information on my views, and let them make their own judgement. Some will agree with me; others will not. And there are differences of opinion within all parties, as well as between parties.

On this particular issue, my position is a very simple one. I do support measures to allow the control of wildlife, particularly in support of agriculture, and I do support the killing of animals for food. I do not support the hunting and killing of wild animals purely for 'sport', and I think that whatever methods we use to catch and kill animals should be as humane as possible.

Hunting is likely to be made something of an issue in this constituency come the General Election, of course, not least because the Chief Executive of the Countryside Alliance is the Tory candidate. (Although, for some reason, he chooses not to make mention of that rôle on his election material, despite it carrying a salary of around £100,000 a year. He prefers to describe himself as a former chartered surveyor. Quite curious really). And, of course, Cameron has said (as Evidently Chickentown posted, although the blog seems to have completely disappeared) that if he is elected, he will hold a vote on repeal of the act. Inevitably the anti-hunting lobby will also therefore concentrate a certain amount of their effort on the constituency as a result, so, as I said, it will be an issue.

In the series of questions that I was asked, one in particular stands out for me as being a very good question indeed, and one on which I can only guess as to the correct answer:

“As the Countryside Alliance (CA) states that more people are attending hunts but are operating within the law, hunting jobs have not been lost, horses and dogs have not been put down, in your opinion since the 2004 Hunting Act why does it appear to you that the Conservative Party and the CA wishes to repeal the Act and what are the hunts now missing that they wish to repeal the 2004 Hunting Act?”

Indeed. I don’t know why the Tories are so obsessed with the issue. Even their candidate has himself said that there are 1001 more important issues to the countryside. I for one will be concentrating on the top few of those, rather than on number 1002!