Why I went hunting for candidates' true colours
THANK you to the Echo for choosing my question "What is your position on fox hunting? Are you for or against?" to put to Lincoln's three parliamentary candidates (January 6 to 9).
I would like to give my thoughts on their answers, and on whether they have changed the way I might vote at the next election (I currently vote Labour).
Reg Shore (Liberal Democrat) said he was personally against fox hunting, or indeed any blood sports.
While defending anyone's right to freedom, he didn't mean freedom to indulge in cruelty.
Karl McCartney (Conservative), instead of answering my question, started off by attacking MP Gillian Merron's time spent on bringing the fox hunting ban to law.
He then managed to bring unemployment, the NHS, the Armed Forces and education into the argument, before finally saying he was "for" fox hunting.
He says that "it's not an issue that preoccupies those in Lincoln who have lost jobs, serve in the Armed Forces, worry about the NHS and who want the best education for their children".
Well, I live in Lincoln, and it is an issue that preoccupies me.
I have two members of the Armed Forces in my family and the issue preoccupies them. I have, unfortunately, spent too much time in the care of Lincoln's NHS but I can tell you the service has improved and got quicker. As for education, I can't see fox hunting in any modern school curriculum.
Ms Merron (Labour) is 100 per cent against fox hunting and also pointed out that the Tories want to waste time on bringing back hunting instead of focusing on things like unemployment, the Armed Forces, the NHS and education.
On reflection, I will still be voting Labour, as Ms Merron ticks all the boxes.
Mr Shore was a close second, and I wish him well.
As for Mr McCartney, it's back to the drawing board and, to use an education term, "must try harder".
Mr K. Bean Lincoln.
While on a visit to Lincoln earlier this month, I was surprised to see a letter from Douglas Batchelor (chief executive of the League Against Cruel Sports) responding to others in your paper.
At the same time, I was impressed with the comments made by the Conservative Party's candidate for Lincoln, Karl McCartney, in his article that day.
Even if Mr McCartney hasn't been on a hunt before, it seems to me as though the people of Lincoln are very lucky to have a candidate who believes in something that has slowly ebbed away here in Britain. It's called freedom.
What this Government needs to realise is that people deserve this in exchange for all the stealth taxes it continues to throw at us year in and year out, be it in form of local or general taxation.
Mr McCartney also made a very valid point in saying that more than 700 hours of parliamentary time had been lost on this very subject. What a waste.
David Johnston-Allen Wharf Road, Guildford, Surrey.
3 Comments
by Brown Nose, South
Monday, January 25 2010, 12:57PM
“Yep, keep 'em up”
by Missouri Marten, Lincoln
Monday, January 25 2010, 10:41AM
“I don't care what pseudonym you use Sneer, I just loves ya posts - keep up the good work!!”
by The Anti-socialist, Lincoln
Monday, January 25 2010, 10:02AM
“"Well, I live in Lincoln, and it is an issue that preoccupies me."
That's because, Mr Bean, you apparently have all the political nous of your famous namesake.
Haven't you heard about the recession and how, despite The Great Leader's promises to the contrary, we will be the last G20 country to emerge from it? Have you not heard about how we have a national debt the level of which is unprecedented since the war? Have you not heard about unemployment rising at record rates? Has the footage of our soldiers returning in coffins from an unwinnable war passed you by?
Or does none of that matter so long as the cute ickle foxy-woxies aren't being chased by the nasty doggy-woggies?
"On reflection, I will still be voting Labour, as Ms Merron ticks all the boxes."
I would say the same, if only my list of boxes consisted of sticking your head in the sand, riding the expenses gravy train like a true champagne socialist and posting a load of hypocritical drivel on your website. Not forgetting, of course, ignoring your constituents and furthering your political career by voting exactly how the Labour whip tell you, just as a good little lickspittle should. Sadly, none of those are amongst my boxes. Am I expecting too much?
However, it's something of an event to meet this rare breed that thinks that they're being represented by Merron.
Presumably you agree with her voting against the gurkha's settlement rights? And that the Iraq war was a good thing and shouldn't be investigated? That parliament shouldn't be transparent? That PO closures were the way to go? And that not bothering to vote on the fuel poverty bill, something which might for once have actually benefitted some of her constituents, was OK? I mean, it was a Friday afternoon and all...
Howver, I'm probably wasting my breath. There are no bigger sheep out there than Labour voters. New Labour is nothing more than Tory lite and bears little or no resemblance to the Labour Party of old, which, for all its legion of faults, at least stood for something. Yet still the unthinking brain-dead hordes keep voting for them. Baa! Baa!”