Hiya Zambuck,
Yeah, the link to the Times could be better for some reason? I’ve copied the article and pasted it below, so that anyone passing through here can read it, etc.
I’ll give you a call at home so that we can catch up –about time?
Cheers
Mayfly
*********************************************************************************************
The foxhunting ban revives those ugly social divisions that were thought to be waning
HOW will history remember Tony Blair? As the saviour of foxes and butcher of hounds and horses? As the patriotic warrior who sent soldiers to die under false pretences for a country which may soon not even exist? As the idealist who promised to put Britain at the heart of Europe but did not even try to join the euro? As the humanitarian who pledged to “sort out” Africa and then stood by while Sudanese militias massacred more people in a single summer than Saddam Hussein did in ten years? As the social reformer who wanted to modernise the National Health Service but was too weak to overrule his Chancellor? As the environmentalist who spouted hot air on global warming while quietly sabotaging the only plausible solutions: higher petrol taxes and nuclear power?
Maybe not. Perhaps we should be more charitable — as the voters probably will be next year. Although almost everybody in Britain now seems to loathe Mr Blair, there is a grudging respect for his performance as a politician which in my view comes down to one core achievement: Mr Blair was the man who ended Britain’s century-long class war. Not only did he reconcile the Labour Party and the trade union movement to a capitalist economy ruled by market competition and private ownership. More broadly, he persuaded the British people to start thinking of themselves as individuals, instead of feudal vassals, born into predestined social classes, with values imprinted by their economic positions and lives ruled by tribal loyalties and taboos.
The creation of a classless society in Britain would, on its own, have been enough to compensate for all Mr Blair’s deceptions, evasions and failures. This great social transformation also lies at the heart of the economic successes for which new Labour receives (and deserves) much praise. If Gordon Brown managed not to squander the golden legacy he inherited from the Tories, this was largely thanks to the change in social attitudes wrought by Mr Blair. In dealing with taxation, public spending, industrial relations, welfare, inflation control and a host of other economic questions where political views had previously been defined by tribal allegiance, class war was suddenly replaced by rational debate.
The question after yesterday’s pandemonium over hunting is whether this period of social harmony will turn out to have been just a temporary ceasefire in the class war. That such a sweeping question should be promoted by something as parochial and eccentric as a ban on hunting foxes may seem ridiculous to anyone unfamiliar with the tribal instincts still present in British grassroots politics. The foxhunting controversy now promises to bring class politics back in its nastiest, most visceral form.
Anyone who believes that the ban on foxhunting is motivated by humanitarian principles or the generally sentimental attitude to animals in Britain has totally failed to understand the political dynamics that have pushed this issue to the top of the Prime Minister’s agenda. This is not an issue of morality but of class hatred.
There is no moral difference between a huntsman who finds it exciting to chase a fox with dogs and a fisherman who finds it relaxing to torture a pike with hooks. In fact, opponents of hunting do not have a moral leg to stand on unless they campaign for a total ban on all other forms of unnecessary killing for pleasure, including the slaughter of animals for meat. The slaughter of farm animals is at least as “cruel” and “unnecessary” as the hunting of foxes. The cruelty is demonstrated by the many biological indicators of intense animal distress in transportation lorries and abattoirs. The lack of necessity, by the fact that human beings can survive perfectly well without eating meat. Indeed, a well-balanced vegetarian diet would probably improve the health of the population and would certainly be good for the environment, given the huge waste of energy and the large contribution to global warming made by the rearing of cows. In sum, the only reason why cows are terrified and then killed in abattoirs is to provide us with a sensual pleasure — and a rather unhealthy one at that. Indeed the only animal killing which is not essentially a human indulgence is medical research. Morally, vivisection is the only form of killing which can be fully justified.
Why, then, do opponents of hunting feel so passionately about saving foxes, but do not worry about the suffering of fish, cows and sheep? Why do many of the same activists attack women wearing mink or sable, but do not give a damn about leather shoes? The difference is not about morality but about class and tribe. Hunting, like fur, is identified with the rich and the toffs. Fishing, like leather and hamburgers, is an indulgence of the urban working class.
While it has not been in the interest of either side to acknowledge the class origins of the struggle over hunting, this nasty reality is going to emerge with a vengeance in the coming months. Viewed in isolation, the poll tax was also a small and eccentric issue. But it sparked a wave of protest which helped to bring down Margaret Thatcher because it seemed to condense in one symbol the injustice and arrogance of Thatcherism, which the country had started to hate.
Could hunting turn into a catalytic issue of the same kind? Probably not in the short term, since hunting has little to do with the features of the Blair Government, such as dishonesty and opportunism, which the public most dislikes.
Looking beyond the next election, however, Labour’s biggest problem is likely to be its relationship with what used to be called Britain’s “ruling class”. This is no longer the rural aristocracy, but the rapidly growing meritocracy of rich and privileged professionals. These are the people who will bear the brunt of higher taxes to support Labour’s social ambitions, whose children are openly targeted for educational discrimination, whose businesses and pensions are threatened by oppressive regulation, whose cultural pleasures are losing government support. These are the people who worry that Mr Brown will turn out to be a socialist class warrior if he ever replaces Mr Blair.
By supporting the anti-hunt activists and reneging on the earlier compromise for licensed hunting, Mr Blair is opening the Pandora’s box of class warfare. In doing so, he is risking all that he has achieved.
