UK
Hunting’s Last Call
13’49
June 2002



U.K. Fox HuntingNow the clarion call of victory for foxes and stags against hunters and hounds. By year’s end, it’ll be a crime in Britain to chase wild animals with dogs and a traditional country pursuit will pass into memory. At least that’s the idea.But right now, the baying of the hounds is being drowned out by the baying of their masters, outraged at the ban and seemingly prepared to go to gaol. Matt Peacock dons his tweeds to wade into the biggest spat to sweep the English countryside in years.
English countryside

When they’ve finished their sausage rolls, sandwiches and stirrup cups they’ll ride out and chase and kill a fox. But soon, if they kill a fox they’ll be going to gaol.
And here are the Devon and Somerset Staghounds. 15:28
These people are going to kill a stag today, and when the Parliament in London bans hunting , they’ll go to gaol too if they keep hunting deer.

Horseman : We’re not going to finish. Peacock: What do you mean by that?Horseman: Well, we’re just going to stick to the end. If we've all got to go to gaol , we'll all go to gaol.Peacock: So ban or no ban, you're going to go on hunting?Horseman: Yeah, we'll go on hunting, yeah. Yeah, they’ll have to lock us all up , won’t they? Hope the gaols are big enough. 15:46

Banks: It’s barbaric, it’s unnecessary
Tony BanksLabour MP - on all the grounds that the supporters profess and it should be banished along with bear-baiting, bull-baiting, dog-fighting, cock-fighting all of which used to be legitimate and lawful sports. 16:29

Peacock: Labour MP and former Sports Minister, Tony Banks, is the driving force behind the Bill which seeks to ban hunting with dogs. He’s passionate about it, and just doesn’t understand what sort of person hunts animals.
16:44

Banks: It’s someone who, for some reason or another takes pleasure from killing wild animals. I just can’t understand that. I just think it’s barbaric, it’s unnecessary, it’s dehumanising and frankly it’s intolerable in a modern society. 17:00

Horseman: Well, it’s a thing we do 3 days a week or 4 days a week. This is as far as you get, and our government wants to try and put a stop to it. 17:18

Peacock: These are Tony Banks' barbarians.
Horseman: A way of life, part of life, it's part of the countryside, it something that we involved with all these people round here. We meet them, we wouldn’t meet them otherwise. It’s a focus for country activity. 17:31

Peacock: Country people just don’t understand why the city people don’t understand.

Janet: It’s strange, everybody loves the countryside in Britain, everybody loves it. Most people don’t know how it works. They don’t understand what goes on. 17:50

Peacock: Janet George has formed one of the pro-hunting groups, the Countryside Action Network. She sees the proposed ban as part of Britain’s political life. 18:03

Janet: I think a lot of it goes back to the old class war. Labour sees hunting as a sport of the Tory upper classes. 18:15

Banks: How they dress up, what they look like, what their class background is, where they come from, I’m not interested. I’m not against people wearing nice clothes -- 18:25

Banks: I rather like wearing them myself. I’m certainly not against people enjoying the countryside and riding in the countryside and jumping in the countryside and going out with dogs in the countryside if they wish. They don't have to have something ripped to pieces at the end of it. 18:34

Peacock: Jack Waters has been a foxhunting devotee with the Minehead Harriers for sixty years and he thinks that class is an issue, but only for Tony Banks' Banners.Jack: We’ve got a society with urban MPs now,

Jack: so they’ve got this idea because you’ve got a coat on which happens to be cut the right shape so that you can sit on a horse with it, it’s supposed to be dressed up like a bloody clown and all the rest of it and…Peacock: They think you’re a toff.Jack: They think you're a toff. Well all I’ve done is shovel muck all my life… 19:05

Peacock: Jack Waters is fascinated by the battle between the blood lust of the pack and the cunning of the fox.Jack: You've got to think like a fox Peacock: And how do you do that?Jack: Takes a few years… 19:31

Peacock: Jack knows that the end is inevitable. Jack: He didn't panic until they’re that far from his neck just about to kill him. That's when panic sets in.
Douglas Douglas: I think you have to put your moral judgement out to lunch, that’s the trouble with this. 19:54
Dogs kill fox Peacock: Douglas Batchelor is the Chief Executive of the League Against Cruel Sports. It's now you need to look away now if you don’t want to see animals being killed. 19:59

Douglas: It’s basically where people make a sport out of chasing an animal uphill and down dale for their own entertainment before they kill it using a pack of dogs. 20:14

Peacock: Douglas Batchelor doesn’t think there can be any compromise with the hunters. 20:24

Douglas: You can’t half hunt, you can’t be slightly pregnant and you can’t be slightly cruel within the law; you’re either cruel or you’re not. You’re either hunting or you’re not. 20:29

Douglas It’s not a fit activity for people in a modern society. 20:43

Janet: Well, quite frankly, if I was a fox I’d rather live in a good English foxhunting county than anywhere else in the world. Without hunting every man’s hand is turned against the fox. 20:47

Jack: Man's pretty horrible, and if man is allowed to go on his own round the countryside there's going to be some bloody awful things happen.Peacock: You mean shooting foxes?Jack: Shooting, digging them out, trapping them, and they won’t waste a bullet on them. They’ll stamp on their head or hit them on the head with a stave and I don’t want to see that. Peacock: Why not?Jack: It’s bloody cruel. 21:02
Pack of hounds Peacock: The hounds -- stag hounds or fox hounds like this pack are both the villains of the piece and the fascination for hunt followers. 21:39

Janet: The huntsman knows every hound, knows whether that hound is reliable or whether it barks at anything. And a huntsman has to think like a hound. In fact he is basically Top Dog, he is a hound. 21:52

Banks: All they’re concerned about is their so-called sport, which in the end involves an animal being ripped to pieces, and if you can see an animal ripped to pieces and be responsible for it, I think you’re sub-human. 22:12

Peacock: Subhuman may be a bit strong, but the feelings are strong and certainly people in the countryside think that the people in the city just don’t get it. 22:24

Horseman: The only people against stag hunting… who've never been or just don't understand it… Don't know nothing about stag hunting. If they actually came down and witnessed it -- I mean you can't comment on something unless you’ve witnessed it. 22:35

Peacock: And that’s what you hear in the pubs. 22:50
Woman in pub Woman: Deer have to be culled, we know that, foxes have to be culled, and this is the most humane way of doing it and people who don’t understand think it’s cruel because we’re all dressed up smartly and we’re on our horses looking as though we’re mega-rich, which we're not.
Banks: It’s a common fallacy to assume that this is a town versus country split -- it isn’t. There’s a majority in favour of abolition of hunting in the country as there is within the urban areas and this isn’t me just saying it, it’s me knowing that I have the evidence in the people who write to me, the opinion polls and the various other expressions of public sentiment. So it’s a nonsense and it’s misleading nonsense to suggest that this is town versus country.Janet: Well Tony Banks wouldn’t think there’s any split 23:10

Janet between the city and the country because he never goes to the country so he wouldn’t know. Certainly I don’t know a country person who thinks Tony Banks lives in the real world. 23:42

Peacock: Hunting is hardly some relentless killing machine. In fact, it can look fairly chaotic. Lost hounds… people going in different directions. Even a lost Hunt Master, But clearly everybody is having a good time -- huntsmen and hunt followers alike. Come the ban, the good times will be over.23:54

Peacock: It's your typical little English village -- a couple of pubs, thatched roofs and a church. But there is one big difference, say that locals, about this village, and the others like it. And that is that they depend on hunting. Ban hunting, say the locals, and they die. 24:40

Janet: There’s going to be a lot of jobs lost and there’s going to be a lot of knock-on effects on other industries --even on horse welfare. There’s going to be something like 25,000 horses that don’t have a job. And a horse without a job, nine times out of ten ends up as a welfare case or on a Frenchman’s table. 25:00

Banks: That is a load of bollocks! 25:19

Douglas: What we’re talking about is about 700 people who make their living out of hunting . 25:20

Peacock: The hunters have demonstrated and they'll keep demonstrating, but the numbers are very much against them. In March, the House of Commons voted in favour of the ban by 386 votes to 175 -- that's a majority of 211. The Bill will be in the Queen’s speech in November and then it becomes law --protests or not.Banks: Well good luck to them, it’s a democracy and they’re entitled to protest, but it’s not going to influence me, 25:29

Banks: it’s not going to influence the great majority of Members of Parliament in the House of Commons, and certainly ain’t going to convince the public.Peacock: Is there any room for compromise?Banks: No! No, how can you. I mean you can’t compromise on cruelty. 26:05

Horseman: I suppose we’ll have to see whether we just carry on hunting or not. That might well be the issue -- that it will be civil unrest. If the law’s an ass you don’t take any notice of it, do you?Janet: A lot of people say they’ll go to gaol rather than obey it. Most hunting people are law abiding people; they've got jobs that require them not to have a criminal record. It’s so ridiculous to be making basically quarter of a million people 26:18
Janet criminals overnight for doing something they’ve done for years. 26:44

Banks: They say things like why should you criminalize us? Now, we don't criminalize anybody. We pass laws, and if you then choose to defy the law, you've made yourself -- if you're found guilty -- you have made yourself a criminal. You've turned yourself into a criminal. We don't create criminals, we just pass laws. 26:47
English countryside

Peacock: No compromise from parliament or the League Against Cruel Sports. Come next year more than 180 hunts will have to find something else to do. Jack Waters doesn’t know what he’ll do. 27:17

Jack: It would mean that I would be like the rest of society in this country where there wouldn’t be a sense of community. The whole of life would take on the aspect of a commuter village then. It would be just a collection of houses, it would be just a collection of people and no community. 27:32

Banks: I will only ever be happy when we’ve been able to eliminate all cruelty to animals, so I doubt that I’ll ever be a happy man 27:56

Banks but when we’ve got rid of fox-hunting then John Peel is going to have to find something else to do with his horn in the morning. 28:03

Music 28:23
Credits U.K. FOX HUNTINGReporter: Matt PeacockCamera: John BenesSound: Mark DouglasEditor: Stuart MillerProducer: Andrew Haughton