Should we get political?

There is an interesting piece in this weeks AM. It covers the country sports issue, which we're already talking about in another thread, but actually goes farther than that, to suggest that we should consider voting Conservative to preserve our right to fish.
Now for those of us who are already on that side of the political fence, there's no big deal with that. But what about those of us who, for various ideological, economical, or whatever, reasons have never voted Conservative before?
I guess it all boils down to whether we feel that Labour is a threat to fishing, whether they can be trusted on the promise that they won't try to ban our sport. Or whether we should be united with hunting and shooting etc anyway, for the sake of solidarity.
If we do feel that labour is a threat to fishing, it will then boil down to how strongly we feel about the issue, when balanced with other voting issues such as health, the econon, education etc.
Whatever we feel, it is a FACT that we wouldn't be having this discussion if we had a Conservative Government.

That's true Sedge, sadly a liberal stance in this country just mean's you will get stamped on from both sides. I know which way it's got to be at the next election, although the thought of just William as PM makes me shudder.

This will cause some stink........

Having grown up with undoubtably the best Prime Minister this country has ever seen, the great Lady Thatcher, I have no qualms about voting Conservative.

All those people that are now complaining about underfunded this, overstretched that, look at all these tax increases (lost count when I tried to tot them up), all I can say is

"I TOLD YOU SO"

Get these sad tax and spend communist out of Westminster and get someone in who will benefit us, Portillo seems the man to me.

There is no doubt that the greatest threat to angling comes from the present government. Bunny Huggers have never had it so good and countryside pursuits have never had it so bad.

My My My !What short memories we have Gentlemen! Lets take a little trip down memory lane shall we.

The butchery of shooting sports started under the last Tory administation as a Knee jerk reaction to the Michael Ryan incident the present socialist administation simply tightened the screw with its own daft laws re hand guns.

However the real villians of this piece is ACPO paranoid chief constables who want to have the means of power concentrated into their hands. The truth is that criminals now have easier access to guns than they have ever had and do so and use them!

Equally bills to ban hunting with dogs came before the House of Commons under the Tory administration and thankfully the Lords blocked them. Many Tory MPs were happy to sell hunting down the river.

Angling did not escape unscathed anyone remember the lead shot issue?

I no more support Dictator Blair and his cronies than I could weary Wille and I will have to do a lot of soul searching before the next election, although it matters little how I choose to vote as you could pin a blue rosette on the backside of a baboon and it would be elected in this constituency!

Indeed it could be argued thats what they have done!

The fact of the matter is that those concerned with rural issues are going to have to band together and become more professional in lobbying their case than those who seek to destroy us.
This means that apathetic anglers are going to have to get off their collective fat backsides and do something.

Sadly they will have to be made to do it which is why I support the idea of doubling the license fee and making that extra money available to our new collective body. 1.5 million license payers at ?20 per head + ?30.000.000 per annum. Now that is serious money for the purpose of lobbying. Belive me we need it when there are groups like PETA who are prepared to spend millions in destroying our way of life.

Money talks Gentlemen and we can use that money to extract support from politicans, especially when we can deliver it and votes the party chosen is irrelevant.
Cheers
Alan

Alan

Well put mate! It makes little difference who is in power. Any government will listen to those who are in their face and shouting loudest.

The trouble with anglers being apathetic is many fold.

1). They have no single body behind which to unite and which is easy to join and communicate with.

2) Angling is for their enjoyment and relaxation outside of the pressures of work. To be fair, who wants to walk out of the stresses of their day job and into an argument involving their one piece of stress relief? Kind of defeats the object.

3) Most anglers don't believe yet that they can be touched by the anti's. The majority are still in 'it can't happen to us' mode.

I think we really have to get an umbrella governing body and self regulator in place to fight our corner and that's not just specialist groups or matchmen or sea anglers, its all rod and line anglers combined. Then we will have the might to do something.

However it will take one or two very special people to make it happen and sadly I don't think they exist.

In answer to Sledges original question, i think it inevitable that we (angling) must become able to demonstrate that we can be a power to be reckoned with and i honestly believe it goes far deeper than where party allegiances lie, in fact i honestly believe that route will cause more diversions than are good for us!
Cooperman sums it up well when he say's that angling desperatly needs a single powerful body we can all look to and stand behind,....the newly formed Speciaist anglers alliance professes to be this body and i really hope so, but in my opinion their first mistake is to use the word "Specialist" Why? because in my opinion the match, pleasure or any other group will turn away thinking it is the domain of the multi rod/camo brigade, Dave's term "Rod and line" would IMHO have more impact over angling than the word "Specialist", that said i hope they do manage to send out the right signals and become a political body we can all associate with but to do that they must start to move amongst us and sell themselves, at the moment they seem to be centred around Anglers Net,(understandable to those of us who also visit that site) they do put forward some sound debates but they do need to "spread the message", so if you read this you guy's from SAA come and talk to the guy's on FM, I'm sure they will listen and debate and make constructive comment.

Thanks for the laugh Alan. The thought of a blue rosette on a baboon's arse tickled me no end. My political sympathies have always tended toward the left / liberal. However, yes gentlemen, you are absolutely right when you say the threat lies in that direction. Alan and Roe and Paul Williams are also dead right when they say we need an umbrella angling organisation which has money and understands - professionally understands - the public relations business.

Alan, thats what i meant to say! we are in dire need of spin !!!!! but the effective sort!.....i think me chicken mushroom bhuna has arrived gotta go! or i'll miss the poppadums!

The new Specialist Anglers Alliance - when it is officially formed - is a remerger of NASA and the SACG (I'm currently assistant secretary of the latter). I'm not sure that the word 'specialist' is good but I don't think it makes a great deal of difference. After all match anglers are specialists etc...

The overall governing body is the National Angling Alliance. Now quite how it all works we will have to wait and see but it is a major step in the right direction just by virtue of the body being formed. It is quite common for anglers to gripe about the political state of angling and how apathetic we all are but the problem is there are still too few people involved in making things change.

Rob.

Rob is right, any move towards bringing the sport together, a joining of any of our representative bodies to form a more powerful force, has got to be a positive move.

Let's give the Specialist Anglers Alliance and along with it the National Angling Alliance, every possible encouragement we can in the shape of joining (to provide funds) and, just as important, verbal and active support.

It isn't an easy job, but they'll find it so much easier if we show we're behind them at every turn.

We all find it so easy to criticise at times and so difficult to offer words of praise and appreciation.

Yeah, good on you Rob. And Graham is so right, it's easy to criticise those who are doing things, if you're not doing anything yourself.

How enforceable could a ban on Angling possibly be?
There aren't enough coppers to police violent crime.
Would local police forces really divert resource to stopping anglers go about their business?
Angling is such a massive pastime. Massive in terms of participants, the businesses that support it and the 'pain in the arse' it would be to any one who messed with it!
Total ban I can't see. Restrictive futile regulations are a danger. Bio-degradable line has been mentioned before. Bio-degradable line!!
Britian has for so long been a moderate nation. Nothing changes that much. I just can't see it.(God I hope not!)

I agree with the 'it's easy to criticise' bit but....

My main worry is that organisations within angling are just too amateur to get anything done. It takes a special kind of talent to get this kind of thing off the ground and into a streamlined force, a real professional leader or team of leaders that have nothing else to do i.e. a day job. Getting a political force together obviously means a fulltime position and financial backing.

Which raises another question. Where is the tackle trade in all this? Don't they have businesses to protect here? Why aren't they doing something positive and supporting the cause both actively and financially?

I agree with Dave that we need the right leader/leaders to head up a group that is going to be a voice of angling.

Unfortunately I dont see a great deal of mileage in trying again to get more anglers interested in the political side in a hope that greater "numbers" equals more power. The simple fact is that most anglers simply don?t care about the political issues and are happy to let things free wheel and that?s not going to change significantly.
For me it comes down to who shouts the loudest and pulls the right strings in the right places (its not what you do who you know) and this comes back to having the right person at the helm.
..I think there are people better qualified than me to say who this could be.