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Showing your true colours I see - threats from small pricked worms don't bother me and never have.

Well there isn't really a democracy in the US is there? - just look at the trouble even an independent with some money behind him like Ralph Nader has had in even getting on the ballot - what hope would anyone without money have?

by the way to announce in a public forum that you deliberately tried to run someone over (and I've witnessed this myself in the past from hunt supporters after more blood) is somewhat idiotic to say the least.

diplodocus wrote:

The wishes of the electorate being denied by the unelected
Lords is a much worse attack on democracy

Bollocks! When was the referendum held?
The proposed ban is the direct result of a Private Members Bill, followed by an Early Day Motion.

After 7 years Tony Blair has finally confirmed what many have suspected all along -
that he is an UNPRINCIPLED GUTLESS HYPOCRITE
He leads a morally bankrupt and corrupt government whose overriding principle is to assuage the ignorant class prejudice of its back-bench MP's at whatever cost to the people they are intent on persecuting. Whilst defending the values of politically correct minorities, he is quite happy to kick his own rural minority in the teeth. The heritage and culture of all manner of other minorities are promoted whilst he systematically belittles and destroys his own.
He has picked an unnecessary fight with the wrong people. If he has an ounce of integrity left, he will live to regret it bitterly.

why hold a referendum on a relatively simple issue that was clearly stated in the pre election manifesto?
How many times do you want to mess about with additional voting?
Would you hold a referendum on every issue you don't like?
I'm of the opinion that we vote politicians in to make decisions, if we don't like them vote them out
your post sounds like more of an anti Blair sound off than anything to do with hunting

Thanks for that.
I'm waiting for the reply but not holding my breath.

Mart

For me the issue was never about hunting but the constitution of our country.
The question will be ?Just what do we mean by ?tolerant representative democracy? when the heritage, way of life and in many cases the homes & livelihoods of an allegedly unpopular minority can be extinguished by a simple but transient majority in the elected chamber, with total disregard for ?principle and evidence??

How can the legitimate interests of any minority be protected in such circumstances?

Each one of us is in a minority in some of the things we do. We do things that others do not wish to do. Some of us take part in, belong to or admire activities which others find distasteful or ridiculous. We practise religions with beliefs and ceremonies to which others find it difficult or impossible to give credence.

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The Spectator- 26th April 2004

'The dubious means by which Labour hopes to ban hunting by Christmas'

by Peter Oborne

Peter Hain intimated last week that the government intends to apply the Parliament Act. So long as the Bill is presented to the Lords 30 short calendar days before the end of the session, it can become law. All that is needed is for the Speaker to attach a certificate saying the Parliament Act applies. Then off it goes to Buckingham Palace for royal assent. According to this scenario ? accepted by MPs of all parties ? hunting will be criminalised well before Christmas.

There is little question that the proposed procedure amounts to an abuse of Parliament. It means that hunting will receive special treatment, quite different from practically every other issue. As a general rule, legislation is scheduled to a leisurely timetable, with long gaps between second reading, committee and report stage and then third reading, followed by a further interval for consideration in the Lords. This is all quite deliberate, so that all sides of the problem can be thought through, and all voices heard. That is why, in the normal course of events, only emergency legislation gets rushed through the Commons, typically relating to terrorism and national security.

Hunting qualifies on neither count. Tens of thousands of people depend on hunting for their livelihood, while millions of people support it. The Hunting Bill will be a specially bitter, divisive piece of legislation, and a responsible government should have ensured that it was properly aired. Rushing it through Parliament in the way business managers propose would be a reckless and provocative act, amounting to an incitement to civil disobedience. Indeed there is every sign that the government is bracing itself for the prospect. This year?s Civil Contingencies Bill, purportedly to do with terrorism, contains a mysterious clause permitting emergency powers to be exercised to prevent ?destruction of plant life or animal life?. Preparations ahead of the looming foxhunting ban is the only plausible explanation.

The Countryside Alliance has already prepared the ground for a legal challenge to the ban. It is contemplating a two-pronged approach. The Bill raises massive human rights issues concerning compensation. These will be fully tested in the courts, and so will the abuse of Parliament implicit in the government?s use of the 1949 Parliament Act. The validity of this Act has frequently been doubted by lawyers, but never once tested in the courts. If the government presses forward with its ban on foxhunting, it will provoke a classic legal case that will solve one of great constitutional mysteries of the 20th century.

The problem dates back to the original Parliament Act of 1911, the famous piece of legislation which arose from the momentous clash between Asquith?s Liberal government and the House of Lords. Before the passage of the 1911 Act, the phrase ?Act of Parliament? applied to only one thing ? a Bill, passed by the Lords and Commons and then assented to by the monarch. The 1911 Act created a special procedure which enabled legislation to be presented to the monarch after being passed not by Parliament as a whole but by the Commons acting alone. This procedure applied to Bills passed by the Commons in three consecutive sessions of Parliament, and then rejected in the Lords.

The 1911 Act was scarcely used until in 1949 the Attlee government ran into its own difficulties with the House of Lords. Clem Attlee introduced his own Parliament Act, which reduced the time delay from three sessions of Parliament to two. The government is proposing to use Attlee?s 1949 Parliament Act to ban hunting this year. But serious legal opinion has always doubted the validity of that 1949 Act. The problem is that the Attlee government used the 1911 Act itself to press through the 1949 measure. Right from the very start Britain?s leading jurists pointed out that the 1911 Act ? a piece of delegated legislation ? did not permit the monarch and Commons acting alone to change its own terms. They pointed out that if they could, Britain would have effectively moved to a unicameral system and the Commons would have unlimited power to change British constitutional arrangements as it wished.

But the argument was never put to the test. The 1949 Act has been used only three times, once to push through the 1991 War Crimes Act, and more recently for the Sexual Offences Act and the European Parliamentary Elections Act. None of these cases gave rise to a legal challenge.

It looks close to certain that at some stage this autumn the Speaker Michael Martin will be asked to sign the certificate claiming that the Hunting Bill is subject to the provisions of the Parliament Act. At that moment the Countryside Alliance will strike, demanding a declaration from the courts that the use of the 1949 Act is invalid. The stage is set for one of the most dramatic collisions between Parliament and the law courts since before the first world war.

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So my question is, Who & what is next?

There are many positions stated in a mannifesto, but to draw the conclusion that it is the wishes of the public to support every single item is naive to say the least. This is especially the case when Labour won the 2001 general election with 10.7 million votes, only about 42% of the total, so not even with a majority of the votes that were cast.

Few people, even within a given political party, will agree with every issue in any particular mannifesto. They are a tool by which to demonstrate a common vision and get elected.

Clearly the ban on fox hunting is not a simple issue, and it is dominated by a vocal minority on both extremes. If the "people" really really wanted to expedite this issue through parliament why hasn't there been parades of tens of millions of people in the streets against fox hunting.

Politicians are paid to make decisions on the electorate's behalf, but they have many conflicts of interest - such as financial donations, key voting blocks, PR. In practice most politicians vote according to either their own interests, their party interests, or their own beliefs.

In this particular case it is Blair rewarding the Labour back benchers for support on certain key issues which he needed as otherwise he didn't have the votes. It is a pay-off to a minority in the Commons who have made promises to their key supporters and need to deliver. It is politics.

The Upper House exists in our parliament, and many others, exactly for the purpose of cooling off any overly zealous government. Since when has any party the right to turn our two house style of democracy into a single house? What will the next issue be that a government (be it Labour, Tory or Liberal) decides to whip out the Parliament Act.

Do I want to see referendum common on the political landscape? Not really, but if it is the only way to keep the law of the land in the hands of the people you bet.

You may think that I am some true-blue-fox-hunting-right winger stereotype, but I am not. I have supported the Green Party and green issues for many years now, and I am NOT a supporter of fox hunting. But I do think this is an abuse of our parliamentary system, and the fox hunters have the right for two sided public debate and not to be sold out as political currency.

I agree that Blair is a piece of shite and that there is an element of buying off the cowards on the back benches who didn't have the balls to go up against him properly over Iraq but I think you will find that the vast majority of people in the UK are in support of this legislation all the same. Poll after poll has shown this and many have been outraged by the unelected rich boys in the house of lords riding roughshod over what the public wants time after time - not just on this issue but on things like gay rights as well. I'm not in favour of a referendum but if there was one I'm certain that a) the pro hunting lobby would get trounced and b) they would still stick two fingers up and say they don't care because at the end of the day they only care about what they want. So this referendum issue is another red herring.