Anti-hunting ban campaigners descended on Westminster tonight. Hounds and all…
The protesters gathered on on Marsham Street for a protest organised by the Countryside Alliance outside the DEFRA offices, where Labour peer Baroness Mallalieu attacked the government for being out of touch. Protesters held banners bearing the slogans “hands off the countryside” and “fight the ban, save our countryside.” Any sane person would recognise that Labour is waging a war on the countryside…
The protest comes a day before the end of the government’s consultation on banning trail hunting. More than 75,000 people so far have responded to the government’s consultation opposing the ban…
Tim Bonner, Chief Executive of the Countryside Alliance, told Guido:
“This demonstration outside Defra highlights the massive opposition to the government’s proposal to ban trail hunting which has seen over 75,000 people respond to the consultation to tell the government to drop the idea. There could not be a clearer message. The countryside rejects this return to culture war politics and the anti-rural policies of this government from the Family Farm Tax, to hikes on business rates, to attacks on game shooting and gun ownership. The countryside, and the country as a whole, has a thousand greater priorities than Labour’s vendetta against hunts.”
Cry havoc and let slip the hounds of war…
Andy Haldane, Burnham’s recent adviser on the economy who has not taken up a No10 job, told Andrew Marr on LBC:
“The market now suspects that this is a traditional tax-and-spend socialist government with better TikTok videos…
imposing windfall taxes on oil & gas or on banks or upping capital gains tax would […] repeat the mistake that Rachel made […] The Achilles heel, the fiscal Achilles heel of this government thus far has been its unwillingness and/or inability to cut public spending.”