Time to cry foul over fish

This guy wants pro-hunt campaigners to gang up with the RSPCA against angling.
Time to cry foul over fish

Completely ballsed-up the link.

I've corrected the link, you put spaces in that weren't needed. Rik

Nice one Bob!

I think it's rather a bit of reverse psychology at work. I.e: If it's ok for angling then fox hunting should never have been banned.

Nice try, though.

Trouble is he is reciting the arguments about fish feeling pain and, reverse psychology or not, suggesting that there are good grounds for banning angling, and this in a major sunday newspaper. The damage is done and what chance is there of getting the contrary opinion voiced ?

So here's my proposal. If a human rights appeal succeeds, pro-hunt campaigners should then join with the RSPCA in mounting a legal challenge against angling, on the grounds that in all respects it matches the criteria used to ban hunting. Faced with banning three million anglers, the Government might suddenly discover that, after all, hunting constituted an infringement of human liberties.


Am i reading this right?.... is the author suggesting that PRO hunt campainers should rally AGAINST anglers?.

Isn't that the old... "attack is the first line of defence" strategy?.

the bloke must be a moron!

You are reading it right. Whether he actually wants to rouse some anti-angling jealousy on the part of the pro-hunters, or not, I am not sure. The trouble is that this strategy, once suggested, does not need to wait for the outcome of a human rights appeal, as he suggests, but could actually become part of it.

Whatever his intentions towards angling the strategy could result in a situation where the government adopts a defensive stance against it's policy on angling and seeks to distance itself from angling.

No government can afford to lose 3,000,000 votes that's why only a handful of politicians support the anti-angling brigade.

I would agree with Christopher Hudson only on his opening argument;
"If I have an axe to grind, it is in the belief that government should not legislate against traditional liberties"

Otherwise he bases his argument on the common 'fallacy of division' inasmuch as he takes the livebaiting issue and applies this to ALL forms of angling - a common error, but nonetheless one which part time authors often employ when faced with a deadline, and having nothing else to say!
This is not to mention of course that the so called reasearch to which he alludes is fundamentally flawed.
(see Barrie Rickard's article)

That said, I do wonder if this piece was not written so much as anti angling as anti-stupid-legislation.
The two litmus tests that the backbenchers and the government went to great pains to avoid would have put the current government in an unenviable position w.r.t. a possible approach to the beginnings of a ban on angling, regardless of how many supporters our sport might be able to muster.

As a fianl comment, why do we constantly refer to 3 million anglers when the EA web site states that they issue "about a million" licenses annualy?
Are there really 2 million sea anglers out there?

And IF there are 3 million anglers ,all 3 million won't vote for the same political party anyway ....so they wouldn't be losing 3 million votes

NEVER underestimate the spiteful mindset of a certain sort, and its response to those ("detestable oiks" - aka "us" - you and me) who let them (aka "us" - meaning decent, hard-working, but naturally, on occasion, fun-loving, leisured, ra-ra sorts like...") in their (that is, OUR) hour of need...

Got it?

Payback time, clearly, now, from some of those who desperately needed us for a time, but who never cared a fig (the latter, a polite, non-modern rendering). Takes one to know one, having gone to school with the boogers, but walking away from them for good (like that Head Boy black lad in TV's recent 'Rotters Club'), 35 seconds after the last exam)...

http://seatroutfishing.proboards34.com/index.cgi?board=Debate&action=display&num=1108421613

Whichever way you look at this article its not good news. Its only a matter of time before the anti-hunting brigade turn their attention from what will soon remain of fox hunting to angling.

Although I have no strong views about fox hunting either way, I sincerely hope that they fight the new law so long and hard that it keeps the anti's busy for years to come while angling, hopefully, gets its house in order at the top, ie FACT etc with emphasis being placed on angling conservation and community enhancement aspects of angling (such as DACE) which are not emphassised enough at present in either the media or in angling itself.