h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

As you will know ( in the UK anyway ) there is to be a march by various campaign groups who " claim " to represent the interest of the rural parts of the Uk.
Any thoughts.
With the FT saying today that the taxpayer subsidises the rural economy to the tune of £2.5 billions every year are these people justified in saying they want more?
Where were all these people when miners, dockers, shipworkers, steelworkers etc etc were losing their jobs as those industries changed?

Has the march been hijacked by the pro hunting lobby?
It is a good march as the people who actually own the counrty side line in Belgravia any way!!!!

Should we change there slogan of liberty and livelyhood to one of greed and arrogance as their representitives say that if the government doesnt help the there will be trouble and a campaign of civil disobiediance will begin.
Should a minority be able to dictate to the government?

Can these people eqaute their " struggle " to that of the civils rightsd movements over he world?

Comments!!!!

Tricky stuff. Some of the issues I have a lot of sympathy with (rural poverty, transport problems, post office closures, house price rises), and some I don't (the fact that a lot of these are the fault of the rural rich and the feudal hangovers (good name for a band), and some I think are an irrelevence (foxhunting).

I think the "where were you farmers/lorry drivers during the miner's strike/" etc argument is flawed. If it's true that miners and "left leaning" industries deserve support from the worst excesses of market forces which devastate entire communities, it must also true that all industries do.

It's very tempting to indugle in some serious schardenfreude while the country mob who happily voted Tory for decades to look after their own interests and damn everyone eles get a taste of their own medicine, and it's certainly true that they've been inconsistent in their views over the years, but it's not clear that the everyone else should do the same.

Having said that, it's difficult to maintain this view in the face of the hate-filed Tory bile that some of the "protesters" spout: thinking that it's okay to shoot fleeing burgulars in the back, that fuel duties should be cut regardless of the environmental consequences, the notion that the whole nation revolves around them, and that all of the countryside's problems are someone else's fault, rather than the fault of the rural rich.

Otto

Does 'liberty' include the right to roam the countryside? I don't know but my impression is that it doesn't.

They seem to me to be more the equivalent of a rural version of the CBI, or a trades union, than a civil rights movement. Neither being a bad thing to be.

"Should a minority be able to dictate to the government?" No, but they do have the right to try to influence it. Minority groups have achieved a great deal of good, eg the movement to abolish the slave trade or capital punishment. The latter is still the preference of a minority isn't it (in the UK)?

To force the issue by making trouble and acts of civil disobedience will require public support, or at least public aquiescence, to succeed I think. So they won't be able to dictate without, in fact, winning majority support of a kind.

As an environmentalist they don't have my support at present, (nothing to do with fox hunting), although I sympathise with some of the points they make.

Your comment about the miners etc is a good one, I remember hearing miners, being interviewed on TV, saying that about farming during the foot and mouth outbreak. They weren't unsympathetic - just pointing out the facts as they saw them.

schardenfreude?

Otto, you posted between my pressing the reply button and the post button. I was replying to the first post. I need to type more quickly .

I take your point about the miners strike up to a point.
We have now moved on from subsidy based industry to the free market ( for better or worse ).
So wouldn't farm leaders be better off helping the government to smooth the UK's entry into the euro zone and also reform of the CAP?
Hunting is a spurious issue but it is being used as a touchstone to say that city folk are dictating to the contry folk.

There are a great many farmers who are against hunting ( indeed I was friends with one such when I lived in Lincolnshire ) yet these voices are kept quiet.
No rural group campaigning on poverty, conservation and social policy will be at the march.
However it is sponsored by the NFU and the NFU Wales.

I also lived a bit in north Wales and have much sympathy with the housing lobbies, but expensive housing is now a national issue.

It is the element of the middle and upper classes ( whoever they are )
spouting in the Telegraph and Spectator that they will cause anarchy and there is to be troulbe for the government that cause me the most worry.

I dont suppose the Duke of Devonshire ( highly vocal this week ) has to worry about how long his job will last or can he pay the rent / mortgage this month ( lots of miners etc etc etc now cant )

Sorry - shcardenwotsit is explained at A287255 (possibly not the kind of thing that would make it into the edited guide now, but hey....)

I have to agree that it's very difficult to sympathise with the rural toffs and squires who for the first time ever are not having everything their own way, and now threaten everyone else with civil disobedience. To these, as an ex-Londoner, I say

"Get orrrrfff moi laaahhhhnndddd".

Otto

just because it there in your personal bit,
don't ever consider going on strike your self
Who would that inconcvienience ? As deep thought said!
sorry couldn't resist.

Dont you think it all just stuff to embarrass the PM?
People who are claiming to be a political taking clearly political action is a bit strange.

Just made myself laugh!
I,ve got the world service on the PC and the local hunt from where I use to live is featured ( The Southwold In lincolnshire ).
Now some years ago hunting was nearly stopped because they like to start a meet with a stirup cup etc in a pub carpark.
Over 2 seasons they were banned from every pub etc in the area because of their appalling behaviour, rudeness etc and disregard for other peoples land.
This proves a point about the people who are going on this march.
Well some of them any way.

( Otto, I hope there's still room in the guide for entries like that.)

Does anyone else agree that for civil disobedience by a minority to succeed, it must have at least public aquiesence? Or is that wishful/woolly thinking on my part? It's a thought I've been reassuring myself with since reading the posters the Alliance put up last year saying 'never underestimate a minority'.

I think it's intended to embarrass the PM but I'm not convinced that he will be embarassed by this particular grouping of protestors.

"disregard for other peoples land" I've heard stories of tenant farmers whose hedges are damaged and crops trampled who feel they can't complain. That is what makes me inclined to support a fox hunting ban. ... But then I think we still allow football fans ...

(Really ning, to get the grass cut and pick damsons)

Millwall and Cardiff City fans ( a possible alternative to foxes )?

Oops posted before finished!
I agree about civil disobiedience, I don't think that any one could disagee too much about campaigning for better rural postal services , better social services including more funds for rural policing,
low cost housing that cant be sold to become holiday homes and a whole raft of other issues, so there is the implicit agreement.
But is this because, Health, education, housing,social policy are really national issues, not just limited to those outside the major cities and towns.

My main objection to the marchers is their utter contempt for the attitudes of "townies". No decent person is going to sypathise with a group of people who's most vocal issue is that they want the right to kill animals for fun.

There's also the issue of hypocrisy. The countryside alliance are heavily allied to the Conservative Party - a party that decries state-intervention to protect urban businesses. Yet both the Conservatives and the CA believe it is acceptable to siphon off taxpayers money to protect failing and unsustainable rural enterprises.

So is this the last gasp of good old class warfare?
I for one hope not!!!!!

Are the Tories allying themselves to this cause as a ploy to start to rebuild their megre support?
I think so.

God! you lot of lefties are as bad as the bile filled tory whatsits you revile!

the problem in this country isnt just the upper class oppressing the lower class! it works both ways! so by all means feel free not to support the march, but dont dip into sub red-top hate-filled bile. these are people too. and not all of them are as arsey as you make them out to be. its missunderstanding on both sides!

you want class warfare to continue so you can have hate figures, i think. and thats as bad as 'them'.

What I feel is wrong about this march is the lumping together of different campaigns under one protest heading. People may support one of the causes, but be against others. Nor do I like the inference of it being the people living in rural areas versus people in towns. It isn't!

I think they have the right to march as long as they recieve the same treatment as all protesters. Having been on the anti-CJB march and several road protests in the early/mid nineties I witnessed some apalling acts of provokation and violence by the police who seemed to strike out at young and old with indiference. This was of course under the tories. Under the present government I have witnessed the same treatment of the 'Free Tibet' campaigners when the Chinese premier came to town. Peacefull protesters were forced to the ground and arrested.
I severly doubt the Countryside Aliance (Allowance) are going to come in for the same treatment, as I would imagine a fair few of them could afford decent lawyers.
Like to see it though...
Oh and Uncle Heavy - rejecting the arguments of those that disagree with you as the spiteful ramblings of cretins who don't understand the situation...

i just dont like duplicity

Heavy,
No sense of humour?
Class warfare carried to the nth degree will result in a totalitarian state, yes?
I dont think that any of us would want that.
However, we are a democracy and if the elected representatives of the people decide that hunting shall be banned then so be it.
The ballot box is the place to change policy, not be civil disobedience by the very groups who , on the whole , have destroyed the liberty and livelyhood of many other groups.
The last protest( fuel ) didnt achieve a great deal.
Taxes were eased slightly but oil companies just made bigger profits, and all that it did do was make me late for work.

Heavy,
Just read your personal space bit.
Attended Whincester and now Oxford.
Kinda fulfills the stereotype wouldn't you say.
Sorry , but I was a child in Lancashire when our local mill closed.
My father's home town in South Wales is devasted now the Pits are gone.
I've friends in Nottingham whose families were torn apart by the miners strike.
So I think I have a right to dislike the " establishment " ( the very people who never showed support for the groups above, including dockers, shipworkers, fishermen, steelworkers, printers, car workers and on and on ) and the sudden upset of the landowning classes does not cut much ice with me.
Under 18 years of the Conservative party, we endured 2 ressesions,run down public services,, high interest rates, high inflation and massive unemployment, the sale of state assets etc etc.
As a member of the RAF I was even made redundant my self by that nice MR Portillo ( when he was less feely touchy and more don't mess with the SAS ), and contracted out many service functions to the private sector.
So please dont tell me that I am a whineing lefty bigot.

It's funny that all these people weren't complaining when the tories were decimating rural transport by deregulating bus companies, closing post offices, underfunding the police, privatising the railways, encouraging the sale of council houses. This is essentially a protest march in support of the people who *own* the countryside, but are now p****d off because they don't run it. Their civil disobedience should be dealt with in the same way that others' have been in the past. A spell in chokey may teach them a little humility.

Andy (very angry this morning)