The Anti-angling Green Party

Ok so it's politics time again, but here's one on which surely we can all stand together.

Just found this on the Green Party's website

Policy "AR412 The Green Party is opposed to angling as a bloodsport. We will ban livebaiting which is inherently cruel. The Green Party will ban the use of all lead shot / weights used by anglers which are harmful to many other forms of wildlife. The Party will promote the voluntary cessation of angling through public education programmes."



They're a bit out of touch on the Lead shot ban. Like 16 years out of touch!

I just sent her (the candidate) this Email:

"As a life-time angler and one who REALLY cares about the environment, as opposed to you people who pay mere lip-service to it, I will NOT be voting for you in the forthcoming elections.

I have also drawn attention to your (out-of-date) policy on the banning of angling to everyone on as many websites as I can access. Furthermore I hope the national angling magazines pick up on this and that every one of the 3.5 million anglers and all of their families refuse to support you also.

I do truly hope that this is the very last we hear of people like you trying to get into politics.

Fortunately, there is a waste paper collection tomorrow so your leaflet on recycled paper will be recycled yet again."

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Oh boy, I just love good political debate. )

Just sent this to Green Party headquarters:

"You really do need to bring your policies into line with reality. Your proposal to ban lead shot in angling is somewhat out of date. Lead shot was banned in angling 16 years ago.

If this is a typical example of the accuracy of your research then it?s god help us if you should ever come to power.

Graham Marsden

One of 4 million anglers who probably won?t be voting for you."

Go on, send 'em some more!

Well done Graham!

Any more? Send them to:

office@greenparty.org.uk

I just sent this to the Chairman and Policy Director. 'chair@greenparty.org.uk'; 'dbates123@onetel.net.uk'.

"Having completed a degree in Environmental Science in 1982, I have taken a continual and active interest in Environmental issues, and personally believe they should become a priority within our political process and tightly integrated into the future running of this country. Indeed I take this actively into my home where I have been educating and gaining interest from my children in areas such as waste recycling, composting household waste, using the bus and turning lights off!!

So, having read your policy AR412 and your desire to ban angling, which in effect is what you are trying to do even though you are using good old Labour spin techniques by calling it ?voluntary cessation of angling?, I felt compelled to write to you.

Angling is not a blood-sport. Anglers do not go out there to kill the fish unless it is for the plate (I assume you do not promote only vegetarianism?). More importantly, through the dedication and hard work of many angling organizations and pressure groups, more environmental benefit is being gained by promoting the sport. I am personally taking part in a river clean up scheme soon on the River Cray, which will not only benefit the fish, but also the other wild life. And there are many, many other examples of cleaner rivers, and more well run stocked lakes that are protecting fish species. Anglers are also the first people to detect any form of serious pollution or violation.

As a sport, angling has continually brought in rules and regulations in order to protect the overall welfare of the fish, and these debates are ongoing and always positive.

Put simply, if there is no angling, there is no interest in fish. People will not pay to stand on the bank and watch them, and you will lose 3-4 million people who have an active interest in environmental issues. This will mean no money from anglers, which goes back into helping enhance the environmental aspects of rivers and lakes

I think your policy is really flawed, and you should re-evaluate this. You should be working in combination with groups like ACA, not against them. I strongly advise you to change AR412, you will lose 4 million votes at a swipe, which includes mine as I voted for you in the last European elections.

By the way, lead shot was banned 16 years ago.

Kind regards.

Stuart."

At least they had the decency to reply:

"Hi Graham,

I'm not an expert, so I had to have a look at what campaigners have said. So I looked at the Pisces campaign website, which points out that 'The Control of Pollution (Anglers' Lead Weights) Regulations 1986 (SI 1992), bans the supply and import of lead weights between 0.06 and 28.35 grams (1 oz). In angling terms this means that lead shot from size 14 to size 8 and lead weights of over 1 ounce can still be used in fishing. Swans are still dying of lead poisoning. This could be due to them picking up lead weights still in the mud from before the ban; anglers still using illegal weights (anglers have often been prosecuted for this in recent years); or poisoning occurring from the sizes that are still legal.'

Best wishes

Adam Stacey
Administrative Officer
The Green Party
020 7272 4474"

I'll reply to point out the error of their ways as soon as I get chance and then let you know if they come back to me.

You can point out also that much of the shot that might be found in water these days comes from shotgun cartridges. Easily separated as the shotgun stuff also contains antimony, highly poisoness.

And that it was decided to allow weights below .06 gram as most birds can pass this through. Weights over 28 grams are hardly likely to be eaten by mistake by even the largest of swans. That would be equal to a human swallowing a housebrick and saying "Oh! Now how the devil did that get in there?"

Poisoning of swans from lead has fallen off dramatically since lead in petrol was banned and many boats now use diesel. I just wish I had the figures.

as far as i'm concerned the green party are as close to peta and the rest of the anti movement as sinnfein are to the IRA.

UKIP for me. No Gree ban on angling and no German compulsory killing of fish.

......and no chance either !! Although something has to give soon. I am just not going to bother any more, I have lost all faith in the entire process.

It is worring i admit but they won't get in.
I reckon graham or ron should put them selves forward as candidates, God those debates would be intresting. What do you think lads n lasses?

" Voluntary cessation of angling through public education programs"

Smacks of Mao Zedong and the "Cultural revolution" that one.

Does that mean,
Public beatings and denouceations for owning a fishing rod, followed by hard labour on a corrective farm, recycling used toilet paper.

Stu,

I'm glad you have the foresight to address your Email to the ChairMAN, rather than the ChairPERSON. All that PC stuff is crap.

I cannot stand anything to do with political correctness. It is a load of c##p. While we have a President sorry Prime Minister who shares his bed with a Human Rights activist then nothing will change. I have always voted for the UKIP as it is the EU which has turned this country into a soft touch. Who sighned up to the Human Rights Convention when they came to power.Yes Mr and Mrs Blair. Check the turnover of Matrix who Mrs President works for. And you thought the Greens were a problem. They are very lower division but like all aspiring ego maniacs they will use lies (sorry spin) to further their cause. Anyway its quite simple vote UKIP.
With regard to fishing then make contact with those who earn a living catching fish from the sea. EU rules say dump God knows how much dead fish back in the sea if you have gone over your quota. Conservation at its best.
The Greens are not a problem it is you who do not bother to vote.
Take your blinkers off and get down there on voting day.

I’m amassed that no one has picked this one up “……I'm not an expert, so I had to have a look at what campaigners have said. So I looked at the Pisces campaign website…….”

Pisces is an anti-angling campaign group. Period!

So the Green party relies on distorted anti-angling propaganda for it’s reference material? Its spokesperson fails to check with the policing authority EA on how many prosecutions for the use of illegal lead they have taken to court?

The Green Party relies on a campaign group who has members who have committed and been found guilty of acts of wilful damage and vandalism, etc (Criminals) for it’s information?

And they want my vote your vote using information supplied by convicted criminals?
Are the Mafia (and I don’t mean New Labour) standing in the EU elections? Because don’t they also have convicted criminals in their midst?

I was going to vote Green, as I personally know two of the Candidates standing in my area. One of which is not anti-angling, but as he is standing on a ticket that wants angling banned, both have lost my vote, and likely another 100 besides through the community groups I’m involved with. I will now make it very public knowledge within those community groups about their stance on angling.

And if they think I’m exaggerating the 100 votes I have talked about, I suggest they reflect on this, locally the community groups I’m involved with are really p****d Off with the antics of the New Labour Councillors who pretend to represent them. And they are desperate to vote for someone else both locally and at EU level to give these puppets a kicking. I could out of a community membership of over 700 delivered at least 100 votes locally and at EU level for them. I am not now!
I’m going to actively campaign to dissuade those members from voting for them.

The green party knows that it stood a good chance of at least getting one of its members elected in the NW this time, and 100 hundred votes might just have taken it over the required 10% it need to gain that seat.

As others have stated it’s lost a potential 3-4 million mathematical direct votes from anglers, but it forgets that each angler can probably influence 2 other people at least, and probably more. Therefore it has mathematically lost itself between 9-12 million votes by its anti-angling stance.
What’s more it’s green councillor who was elected last year in my City represents a ward that is working class with many angler and a historic angling club in it. Her majority was I think from memory less than twenty. The angling club has over 200 members. Me thinks dear Vennsa probably won’t get re-elected this time purely on the vote of anglers.

That's the spirit Phil!

I have a friend who left the Liberals years ago and joined the Green party. He's a decent guy with a passion for butterflys. He's always know about my passion for angling and has never questioned it other than to ask if I was going fishing at the weekend. I'm sure this was genuine interest and not trying to find out where I would be so he could mount a protest.

Perhaps not all Green Party members believe in that policy, but it's like a bag of chips, there's always the odd nasty green one in there.

My reply to Adam Stacey, Administrative Officer, The Green Party:

Dear Adam

It seems incredible to me that you had to refer to an anti-angling group, and one that has been successfully prosecuted for criminal acts against people (not fish) on numerous occasions, to get your information. Didn?t you think that the information they give out would be somewhat biased? Surely it would have made much more sense to refer to the proper authority, the Environment Agency, where you could also have checked just how many anglers have been prosecuted for using lead shot. Go on, surprise yourself.

This email from me is biased too, being as I?m the editor of the UK?s most popular angling website, but I can assure you that what you may read from me is the absolute truth.

The real truth about lead shot is that anglers do NOT use it in the banned sizes, and legal smaller sizes pass through birds while the larger sizes allowed are too large to be swallowed. However, the shot used in shotgun cartridges, which get sprayed over waters by the thousand, are a different matter. As for birds eating the shot left in the mud before the ban, well, if there is any truth in that or not, banning angling now won?t alter that one jot will it?

Your AR412 policy calling for a ban on angling (although you spin it as ?a call for a voluntary ban?) has more holes in it that a landing net. Anglers do more to protect fish against pollution and other threats than all the anti-angling organizations (and I now include the Green Party) on the planet. If you did a proper study into angling, in the areas where you would get at the truth rather than anti-angling campaigning websites, you would soon realise this.

One influential angler I know had this to say yesterday:

(Extracted from Phil Hackett's posting)

?I was going to vote Green, as I personally know two of the Candidates standing in my area. One of which is not anti-angling, but as he is standing on a ticket that wants angling banned, both have lost my vote, and likely another 100 besides through the community groups I?m involved with. I will now make it very public knowledge within those community groups about their stance on angling. The Green Party knows that it stood a good chance of at least getting one of its members elected in the NW this time, and 100 votes might just have taken it over the required 10% it needs to gain that seat. The Green Party has lost a potential 3-4 million direct votes from anglers, but it forgets that each angler can probably influence two other people at least, and probably more. Therefore it has mathematically lost itself between 9-12 million votes by its anti-angling stance.?

You really do need to revise your stance on angling if you hope to make any headway in government. You see, anglers are great conservation people, many of whom have voted green, until AR412 that is, but who are now doing their best to influence people NOT to vote for the Green Party, which is a pity as many of your other policies are worthwhile and far from misguided.

Regards

Graham Marsden
Editor, www.fishingmagic.com

And Adam's reply:

"Hi Graham,

As I said, I am not an expert. I am one of the Green Party's three permanent staff trying to field a nation-ful of enquiries. Of course I am aware that an anti-angling campaign group is putting one side of the argument. I was given asking why we take a certain stance, so I gave the arguments given by another group who take a similar stance, saying clearly that I was doing so. This seems reasonable to me, as I cannot go away and do an in-depth study of every issue that I get an e-mail about, or try to get hold of one of our experts (since they are volunteers and therefore usually at work).

The rest of your e-mail assumes that our policy calls for a ban on angling, which you know is not true. You accuse us of spinning it as 'a call for a voluntary ban', which is also a misrepresentation of our policy, even putting it in quote marks as if you were quoting, which you are not.

Best wishes

Adam Stacey
Administrative Officer
The Green Party
020 7272 4474"

Perhaps the national angling press should be made aware of this policy.

The Mirror launches campaign within like-minded groups of people so why can't angling? Why don't Angling Times, Angler's Mail and all the other magazines for once join forces and spoil these Partys' policies and any chance of them getting any votes?

ABOUT TIME WE BECAME 'ANGLERS WITH ATTITUDE'!!!

<The rest of your e-mail assumes that our policy calls for a ban on angling, which you know is not true.>

Weasel words. Voluntary or compulsory, they still want angling banned. I was seriously thinking of voting Green because I do think many of their policies are the sort that will do some good, but I absolutely will never vote for any party that even hints that it wants angling banned.

<Why don't Angling Times, Angler's Mail and all the other magazines for once join forces>

Good idea. Widespread publicity would cost the Greens a lot of votes. I emailed the angling section of the CA bringing their attention to AR412 - maybe they were already aware but it can't hurt to remind them. I've had no reply from them so far.