To celebrate this festive season we thought we would recap on the top ten failures by Wild Justice and their friends over the past twelve months.
Day One - A hopelessly one sided grouse shooting debate in parliament
Back in June, Wild Justice’s Ruth Tingay, Mark Avery and Chris Packham attempted to revive the debate in Westminster about potentially banning driven grouse shooting.
Mind you, it hasn’t been dead long – the same trio tried and failed to make the same case back in 2016.
[SNP MP Dave Doogan speaking in the debate]
This fact was pointed out by several of the MPs taking part, with one noting that there was even “less support” for the motion than five years prior.
This time round two Labour MPs, Olivia Blake of Sheffield Hallam and Kerry McCarthy of Bristol East put forward argument for ban, attempting to portray grouse shooting as a practice that only benefits wealthy landowners.
This was a poor and hopeless effort to drum up some kind of ideological warfare, astutely dismissed by MP for Ipswich, Tom Hunt. Mr. Hunt maintained that it was in fact those isolated, rural moorland communities that would bear the brunt of any ban on grouse shooting.
SNP MP Dave Doogan echoed Mr. Hunt’s views, sharing his personal experience of the employment benefits he sees in his constituency, Angus Glens, from grouse shooting.
Meanwhile Kevin Hollinrake MP extolled the conservation benefits that come with the moorland management driven shooting demands.
The debate ended with a resounding no for Wild Justice’s plea, shortly after Hunt aptly surmised the general bemusement at the issue being raised in Westminster again. He concluded, “It strikes me it would be a great deal of pain, for no clear gain.”
Hopefully, at least, this failure will now be the last debate Wild Justice quiet for longer than five years this time.
Perhaps best to end with a quick recap of the Chancellor's comments in the last debate.