General Chat

can I ask Helen - without wishing to be confrontational - who exactly doesn't know what they are talking about? everyone is entitled to an opinion

oh happy days for the hunt sabs! what fun we used to have with the anti-mate and assorted other "implements"...

don't forget hare coursing as well!!!

I am not a fan of fox hunting but I don't think the ban has ever worked properly and doesnlt seem to have been enforced - one would think that we should have been overrun with foxes by now but as far as I can judge that doesn't seem to be the case

I cannot for the life of me understand why people would see the need to get all dressed up in special outfits to go killing animals

That said, I can understand people who have lost pets and domestic animals to foxes being angry - I asked our local conservative guy for his take on it and he said the subject never comes up!!!

This seems to be turning into a political thread!!! I studied history at school and Blair and Brown and most of the Labour party appear to be "champagne socialists" who enjoy an upmarket lifestyle while forcing the rest of us to live under the rules they invent. Very Eastern European, if you ask me.

Robin, you are wrong when you say hunts don't respect people's property: around here hunts only ride on the request of the landowners over whose fields they ride.

My son used to hunt under the hunting ban; no foxes sought, they had a lot of fun riding over fields in the fresh air. What's wrong with that?

And although the hunt "masters" might be well educated and well paid in jobs that they are qualified to do when they are not hunting, the majority of riders are very ordinary people with nothing posh about them at all. Like my son, in his last year at the local comprehensive with no money behind him. He just loves ponies. Lots of kids ride out with the hunts.

Amazing to see the prejudice on this thread from people who don't know what they are talking about.

I overspent at Christmas.... very seriously, lolol... but what the heck, I had a lovely time, and thoroughly enjoyed myself.... problem is, it all has to be paid back..... so stringent measures have to be employed to return harmony to my Bank Manager, lolol... I have to make cutbacks, savings, be more prudent for a little while.... it is basic good housekeeping.

What I mean is.... there has been so much waste, so much dreadful waste, of money, resources... I think I read somewhere that for every frontline NHS worker (doctors and nurses to you and me) there are 5 penpushers/Managers... now how the heck can that be right?

The constant changing of the school curriculum... messing around with what isn't broke.... and children being allowed to run riot because the teachers are not given the laws to help them... I am not saying they need caning, but discipline, and the power of that is not there anymore cos kids know their rights from about the age of 5!!

The MOD... now that I do know a bit about!! They employ someone who has no idea about what an Armed Force requires, on the ability of a certain piece of technology to carry out it's job... but the idiot ordered it anyway because it looked ok, and he fancied one himself (No, I reall am not joking, I can assure you)... but that piece of equipment is costing 10 times more than it's much better and more functional rival!

I also believe (although don't have the stats) that there are more penpushers in Whitehall than there are service men and women in all 3 combined services... makes you wonder, doesn't it?

And what about the police? They have to meet targets... they have masses and masses of paperwork to complete for each incident... whether that is a lad spitting and hurling abuse at an old lady, or a multiple rapist or child murderer!!

All around us, there are frontline fighters (Police, Nurses and Doctors) whose hands are being tied through petty rules and regulations... and meanwhile, crimes are not being investigated whenever there is a strong chance that the paperwork involved is far greater than the crime would seem, at first glance (I think even petty crime should be dealt with promptly, as that is what often escalates into more serious stuff) and hospital beds lay empty, wards closed not because there is no call for them, or the population has suddenly become healthy... no, because savings have to be made, and those savings mean the first people to be axed are the nurses and the doctors... for goodness sake, why? Why not cut back on the managers? On the fatcats? There certainly weren't these in the time of the Tories, as far as I remember.....

And Brown knew exactly what he was doing as far as the Treasury was concerned.... as did Blair. They sold us out to the banks, all wrapped up and stuffed like turkeys ready for the oven!

Nope, thank you for this thread, Liz, I have talked myself right off Labour, lolol

Oh.... and my sister is about to lose her house.... she is a frontline nurse, has been for 30 years, but had the misfortune to get breast cancer a few years ago... carried on throughout her treatment.... but last year the effects of two of the drugs became too much, and she has had to leave as she has now become unable to transfer patients, draw up drugs etc.... and has been unable so far to re-deploy.....

The Labour Government haven't helped her one little jot! Nor me.... I don't get benefits, not even my stamp paid....

So.... back to the manifestos.... Lib Dem or Tory!!

Love

Daff who has had a bit of a rant there, sorry Liz!! xxxx

Don't bank on interest rates staying artificially low.
The budget deficit is running at just under £170 billion per year and the current government is only aiming to reduce the rate of increase by half over the next four years.

That means the national debt will continue to increase and we will be dependent on other Countries lending us the money to finance it and the higher the figure goes the higher interest rates which will be required to keep selling gilts (Government debt), (or else our taxes will have to rise).

As for savers, the returns being offered unless you constantly shop around are an insult, as low as £1 per annum interest, less tax, on the life savings that pensioners are relying on to supplement their meagre State pension.

The public sector is absorbing an unsustainable proportion of the National income and resources. All the speed camera operators, parking attendants, five a day co-ordinators, equalities advisors, managers, regulators and thousand of similar jobs advertised in the Guardian add nothing to our GDP, they just extend the Nanny State into every aspect of our lives and reduce efficiency in the wealth-producing part of the economy. Whole departments which have been added since 1997 need to be shut, not just asked to make efficiency savings.

In 1997 the State spent just under 40% of the Nation's income. In 2010 it is spending 52% and increasing. Unless that proportion stsrts to come down we are on a spiral to destruction lasting a generation.

Daff, like you I don't like Gordon Brown at all, and I can't stand Mendelson, but when I think back to the eighteen years under the Tories, I can't even think about giving them my vote. I like Nick Clegg and Vince Cable, but I'm still undecided on who to vote for, but it won't be for DC and his Tory pals. At the end of the day can we really trust any poiticians, they are all there to feather their own nests.

Maybe as Robin said, a hung Parliament might be a good for now. I hope all is going well with you and continue that way.

Love, Sallie.xx

A lot of truth there Daff. Some of the real facts tend to get tainted.

The pits closed because they were making huge losses that the taxpayer could no longer sustain. It would not have mattered who was in power, they had to close.

Total taxes are higher now under Gordon than ever before

Under the last Tory government we were able to double our household income in real terms, move from a grotty 1 1/2 bed terraced to a 4 bed detached. Yes it was a lot of hard work too, and three house moves across the length and breadth of the country to go where the work was.

Under this current lot, I have seen our household income fall year by year, my pension cut by 25%. I was made redundant at 57, get no serious help in finding work and zero social security because we own our house and were stupid enough to save a bit for a rainy day.

Bus pass and free prescriptions have even been postponed by a year.

As I said earlier, there are more important things to worry about than hunting foxes.

I haven't decided yet where my vote is going... well, other than it isn't going to Plaid, lolol.....

But I have been scouring the manifestos until they are all merging into one... I have to say I hate Gordon Brown with a venom.... an absolute venom, but if the manifesto was ok and met with many of my views, then I would go along with it in spite of him. But they don't match my views, on the whole... and although I was pleased to see the hunting of foxes stopped.... I really am upset at the way that, and all those other laws, have been snuck in through the back door... ratification of the entire human rights act and gradual almost complete handover to Europe? The robbing of people's pensions, the quangos and the complete kowtowing to Brussels? Oh... and Mendelson. Who the flaming heck voted hoim in? Er? No-one!!

So maybe this recession is nothing compared to the last one under the Tories... well, I had been below the breadline under that Labour government and struggling to feed and clothe my two children, even though my husband was working full time, and Maggie altered my standard of living within two weeks, so maybe my view would be coloured by that.

My sneaky feeling, is that we ain't seen nothing yet, if Labour get in again... so I am on the fence between the other two.

Oh dear, I do wish David Penhaligon was still alive! I wouldn't be in a quandary then!

Love

Daff xxxx

PS.... I am trying to be neutral, by the way... and as soon as tempers flare over politics and religion, I am off.... I dislike being harangued for my beliefs or non-beliefs... xxxx

I voted Tory in the past, and swore that I would never vote for them again, we had them in power for eighteen years, and as far as both my hubby and I are concerned things were a lot worse then. I don't agree with fox hunting, but I can understand that something needs to be done to control them. I agree with both Joan and Robin.

Sallie. x

Larger cruelties may well exist ...but getting rid of any cruelty is a start isn't it!

I'm not a townie, I lived most of my childhood in the country, nature is 'red in tooth and claw', no good whinging "but foxes kill my chickens"...well of course they do, they are wild animals! ...I certainly do not want to see a reversal of the hunting ban, I had waited 2/3rds of my life in hope of seeing it banned .

yet another reason why I won't be voting for DC.

PS our two beautiful cats were nearly victims of a ravening pack...not of foxes, of hounds and their ignorant 'master' who didn't care that they were on private property.

What Mr Cameron has openly proposed as set out by Daff seems quite open and fair to me. The "hunt" has a lot of supporters in this country.

I am not a supporter, but think the human race is arrogant. Animals are slaughtered; fish are hauled up on deck and left to suffocate. Just because we eat them, it doesn't make it right. Perhaps fish have feelings too.
Animals which never see the light of day. Poisons for small animals; sprays for insects..............

Just playing devils advocate. Too much passion is poured into this fox hunting debate when much larger cruelties seem to exist.

Happy days

Ahh! Thank you Brian... yes, that was it!!

Love

Daff xxx

I am not going to express an opinion on the rights or wrongs of hunting, but the allocation of over seven hundred hours of parliamentary time (many times more than any other topic in history) to a single issue in order to "prove" class war credentials and the use of the Parliament Act to force the legislation through was a gross travesty of the Parliamentary process.

If even a fifth of that time had been used for sensible debate on financial issues then we would not be in the sorry mess we are in now.

I don't think he is proposing to reverse it arbitrarily. What he is wanting to do is to have a new, and open *free* vote on the law... which would mean that the many Tory MP's opposed to fox hunting would be able to vote to keep the law as it is... the law was brought in under very strange procedures (can't remember the process, but I know it was an odd way to do it) or not as the case may be.... also, the same for all other MP's, as many weren't happy with the way it was introduced. And the current format is not wonderful, it would seem, either!!

What he says, which is true, is that the law as it stands is almost impossible to monitor... so there must be a way of introducing restrictions, whilst protecting the fox from the horrific deaths my cat went through, but also to find more humane ways to cull them... because they can be a problem, and do need culling. And still allowing the hunt... but without the fox! He didn't say that last bit... I added it!

I am not a supporter of the hunt, but would not let that stop me voting Tory, now that I have read the proposals..... I would just make absolutely clear that my MP was aware of my stance on it... and get all my friends, and colleagues etc to make sure that their mp's know how they feel... because these MP's would be able to vote against the government, even if they are Tory MP's and a Tory Government.

OMG.... is that as clear as mud, or what? lolol!!

Love

Daff xxxxx

If David Cameron...... wants to reverse the ban on fox hunting ....... that has cost him my vote ........i think its barbaric

I'm all in favour of control of the fox population and deer culling, when necessary.

I just don't want to live in a country where people take pleasure in chasing an animal to exhaustion then watching it being torn apart while still alive.

Gwynne

I'm not a fan of fox hunting with dogs but agree there does need to be a way to keep them under control.

The way the ban was introduced was completely wrong - to use the Parliament Act for this sort of legislation was simply a brownie scoring act by the Labour Government who wanted to prove to the House of Lords that they could overturn due process.

After all the ho-ha I don't think the legislation was totally effective and in any event there are more important things to worry about.

While I don't go foxhunting myself... I can certainly understand the venom some folk who have lost pets etc to them feel.... and before anyone criticises, I have a garden that is a regular fox run.... and haven't a problem with it.

But many years ago, my cat at the time went out for her first trip out after giving birth to 5 kittens.... Sharra had stayed near them, they were born in the attic bedroom... she just trotted off out while I was cleaning her dirt tray... I glanced out of the window at the side, looking onto the woods, when I heard a dreadful scream. It was my beautiful Sharra, being torn apart by a vixen and her two *teenage* cubs. I will never forget her screams.

My view is that it was a part of nature, no matter how cruel... but my two boys were just 8 and 10 at the time.... the 8 year old witnessed it, too, from his own bedroom window, and it has stayed with him all his life. He hates foxes.

Love

Daff xxxx

Our beautiful rabbit was ripped to pieces by a fox. When he returned (the fox) the following night if I had a gun I would have shot him.
Pat