This could clean up the debate a little
Are any of these untruths?
One in six working Londoners is functionally illiterate
25 per cent who are leaving, at the age of 11, unable properly to read or write.
That is your interpretation. We shall see what the OT finds come the summer
Inform the OFT of your thoughts, it is open to all
It is shocking behaviour and no place to hide
Tail docking ban in Scotland, causing animal suffering or preventing it?
Delight As Ban On Tail-Docking In Scotland Confirmed Campaigners Call For Review Of All Other Animal Mutilations
Advocates for Animals has welcomed today’s confirmation that the docking of all dogs’ tails will be banned in Scotland. The Scottish Executive today announced that the ban is to come into force on 30 April 2007.
Advocates has campaigned for an end to tail-docking on the grounds that it is an unnecessary mutilation that causes pain and distress. The animal protection organisation has also called for all other animal mutilations to be reviewed.
THE Scottish Gamekeepers Association (SGA) is putting pressure on the Scottish government to end the ban on the tail docking of working dogs, claiming it is causing unnecessary suffering.
Tail docking was outlawed under the 2006 Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act after consultations with veterinary bodies and the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA).
Animal Welfare Legislation covering the rest of the UK contains an exemption allowing working dogs such as spaniels, retrievers and terriers, to have their tales docked – but not in Scotland.
The SGA claims the ban means that working dogs. which require to work over and under dense cover such as bramble, are now suffering avoidable injury, leading to costly and painful amputations.
It is claimed that many gamekeepers and farmers are being forced to travel across the Border to source docked puppies.
The Scottish Government has now commissioned Glasgow University Veterinary School to conduct research into the frequency and nature of tail injury in working dogs and terriers.
Their figures will be published this summer, with many in the countryside hoping the evidence points to the ban being overturned.
Comon sense prevails at last, the day had to come when the RSPB had to face facts and tackle predation on there reserves. Gwyn Williams seams to speak very sensibly on this matter. However, many members are not happy. So I wondered what your views may be on this subject
RSPB members’ fury at society’s policy
RSPB policymakers are increasingly recognising the value of predation control and wildlife management on the Society’s reserves, despite opposition from members, writes Graham Downing.
Speaking at the annual BASC Wildfowling Conference on 24 March at Sutton Coldfield, the RSPB’s head of reserves, Gwyn Williams, told delegates that reserve wardens were now tackling fox predation.
He also said that the RSPB had stuck to its guns over its support for the elimination of ruddy duck — now believed to number fewer than 100 following a Government-backed control scheme.
Mr Williams said: “It was difficult for us to get right. We didn’t duck the problem or ignore it; we had to recognise the need for control, and the need to remove those birds.
“We’ve lost quite a lot of members over it, and I’ve lost count of the number of letters I’ve written on the subject. The chief executive of Animal Aid even called me a fascist, but we’ve stuck to our policy.”
BASC had been “fantastic” in joining with the RSPB to help stamp out illegal killing of hen harriers, he said.
“One of the easiest ways of dealing with this would be to play the animal welfare card,” Mr Williams said. “But if that adds to the unwillingness of the public to accept predator control in the wider countryside, that could backfire on us in the long term.”
Here is a fairly recent article written by Jim Barrington, (James (Jim) Barrington is a former Executive Director of the League Against Cruel Sports. He has been involved in various animal welfare campaigns for almost 40 years) a man whose opinion I have grown to respect very highly, a man motivated purely by his drive to protect all animals. It is, in my view, well written, balanced and a sensible approach to an emotive and complicated issue.
Over the years, I and others here have debated hunting with hounds several times, I thought perhaps it time to move the debate on to a proper law to replace the ill thought out hunting act we currently have in place.
"We need to achieve a proper balance between the needs of animal welfare, the need to avoid deliberate cruelty and the rights of the countryside to pursue its sports such as hunting." So said Labour peer Lord Donoughue in explaining his thinking about repeal of the Hunting Act to the Sunday Telegraph in 2010.
The long-running controversy over whether or not hunting with dogs should be banned is an example of how easily an important issue can be hijacked and turned into a purely political argument, quite divorced from reality. It would be almost laughable if it were not for the fact that wild animals are now suffering in greater numbers. Lord Donoughue sums up the challenge very clearly and indeed has been at the forefront to find a solution.
If everyone who is genuinely concerned about the welfare of wild mammals could take a step back from what they think they know about hunting -- and hunting people -- it might just open the door to a fair resolution to an issue that remains stubbornly difficult for many legislators.
Where does one begin? Well, shouldn't every law start with a principle? Certainly the prevention of unnecessary suffering is a principled aim, but to then assume that all one has to do is ban hunting with dogs to achieve this is as naïve as it is ridiculous. Yet it was this simple assumption that played a large part in putting the hunting ban into law. Here's what a former director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare claimed during one of the many debates beforehand, "All we need to do is look at what happens in areas where there is already no hunting or where hunting has ended. There we find no hunting and no welfare problem either." So take hunting with dogs out of the picture and everything would be fine, would it? This is the sort of crass nonsense that has conned the public and some gullible MPs into believing that a hunting ban is a good thing.
Back to that principled position. For many years the legal definition of cruelty has been the deliberate infliction of unnecessary suffering. It's obvious that legislation which outlaws all unnecessary suffering to all wild mammals in all circumstances is not only broader than a ban on hunting with dogs but fairer too. Furthermore, such a law would be far more workable than the Hunting Act, which is confusing and based on an assumption of cruelty. It contains illogical clauses that create technical offences rather than ones that genuinely improve animal welfare.
The whole article can be read here;
This was an interesting report when it came out;
A team from Loughborough University that calculates the Joseph Rowntree Foundation's minimum income standard index carried out the research for the CRC.
This index is based on what items people think households need to be able to afford to achieve a minimum acceptable living standard.
The report found that, with low pay more common in rural areas, many rural workers fall well short of being able to afford their essential needs.
The findings show that the more remote the area, the greater the extra costs.
According to the report, to afford a minimum standard of living a single person needs to earn at least:
£15,600 a year in a rural town;
£17,900 a year in a village;
£18,600 in a hamlet or the remote countryside.
When factors such as taxes and tax credits are taken into account, that equates to a difference with the urban figure of £14,400 in take home pay of 10-20%, researchers said.
'Wage gap'
The report also found:
A car is a significant additional cost for rural households because people said public transport is inadequate
Many rural dwellers face higher energy bills because they are not always connected to mains gas, so must use other fuels
In a hamlet, a family of four needs more per week than a similar urban family
The report's author, Dr Noel Smith, said: "We were struck by the gap between how much people would need to earn to meet these rural requirements and the level of some of the wages actually available.
"Workers in the most basic rural jobs can work very hard yet still fall well short of what they need for an acceptable standard of living."
Nicola Lloyd, executive director at the CRC, said: "Although it is now widely recognised that one in five rural households experience poverty, this is the first time we've also had reliable data to show the minimum cost of living in the countryside is higher than in the city."
Representatives from the Office of Fair Trading met with residents in Kinlochewe, Wester Ross as the cost of fuel, food and delivery charges came under scrutiny.
The picturesque village of Kinlochewe in Wester Ross is popular with visitors, but people living there feel they're penalised by a higher cost of living than other parts of the UK.
It is thought that people living in remote or rural areas can pay up to £40 a month more than those in the towns, with vital items such as fuel and food at the top of the list of more expensive goods.
The Office of Fair Trading is on a fact-finding mission to seven rural locations across the UK. The visit to Kinlochewe was the only stop in mainland Scotland.
In two weeks the investigators will visit Shetland, before findings are published in the summer.
