The fallout from the General Election has been spectacular on the Left. Few, least of all the pollsters, would have predicted that the Tories would be not merely back in Downing Street but also boast a genuine, if slender majority in the Commons.
Now the Left is bracing itself for all sorts of nasty behaviour. Already the home secretary Teresa May has announced she will be bringing back the Snooper’s Charter; lawyer’s favourite Chris Grayling is due to tear up the British constitution; and the hero of the educational profession Michael Gove will soon be abolishing human rights (or something like that – Ed).
All of which is mere preamble to the gravest travesty about to afflict perfidious Albion: the potential repealing of the Hunting Act. Such fears were prompted by recently returned prime minister David “DVD Dave” Cameron, who scribbled in the Countryside Alliance:
“I have always been a strong supporter of country sports. It is my firm belief that people should have the freedom to hunt, so I share the frustration that many people feel about the Hunting Act and the way it was brought in by the last government.”
Such a calamity has mustered the great and the good of the Left to that great modern forum of democracy Change.org, where a petition has been launched to prevent this calamity. As of the time of writing some 163,156 have signed it, three times the amount a similar petition has garnered (admittedly, after only 24 hours) asking for a referendum before Gove sticks it the Human Rights Act.
Whataboutery of the worst kind? You betcha. Still, a petition calling for reform of the broken first-past-the-post voting system has nearly 200,000 signatures, if you have your priorities in order.
Image – Colin ML Burnett
