The bully-boys – and their possible grave-digging pals – of the Badger Trust have been faced down by Elin Jones and the Assembly government.
The trust has since wound themselves up into a fury because Ms Jones has refused to give the names (and the addresses?) of the TB Technical Advisory Group and Programme Board working on the partial badger cull (following by restocking !) that Wales is planning.
Ms Jones has “slammed the door on open government”, says the trust’s press release.
Well, let’s have a bit of open government from the Badger Trust as well. Does Badger Trust Cymru really exist as an independent organisation? Or is it just a convenient made-up name for branches of a “national” (meaning predominantly-English) organization which are sited within our 22 counties.
We all know why the government won’t give names. It’s not only the grave-diggers – who dug up the recently-buried remains of a relative of a person involved in a totally-legal operation; but they are now serving time – but also their equally-extreme friends, to whom the ends justify any means.
Extreme animal-lovers are unfortunately sometimes extreme human-haters.
Badger Trust staff press officer Trevor Lawson (he’s from the English Midlands) himself went a bit extreme in his press release attacking the Assembly’s refusal to list names. These groups are “apparently packed with pro-cull farmers ad the vets who work for them”.
Well, not for the first time, Mr Lawson has proved so much out of touch with what happens in Wales that he counts as a “colonist”. I have known for some time that among the members of these “secretive bodies ” is the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
Perhaps Mr Lawson and his bosses in the outer-London suburb of East Grinstead should be told that the RSPCA has some slight concerns about the tone of the propaganda the BT is pumping out. Propaganda is the correct word – salient facts are omitted; the issues are simplified, sometimes beyond reason.
Mr Lawson hurls out complaints about “secret” groups. He talks about the Assembly as being a “Kremlin”. Well, I have a word to you. Your tactics – say something often and loudly enough, and people might believe you – perhaps bear the markings of Unter den Linden.
That’s where Josef Goebbels worked.
As to the Welshness of Badger Trust Cymru…
There’s no website, apart from the East Grinstead one. BT Cymru do apparently meet occasionally; their most recent meeting was in Knighton – no jokes, please, about the town that’s nearest to England, which is where the station is.
Steve Clark does exist (he’s listed as being able to speak “from Cardiff” but on a mobile, and mobiles can exist anywhere). In fact, he lives in Chepstow.
The rather extreme words – “Kremlin”, demanding an “apology” from the minister, and “how low Elin Jones is prepared to sink” – look very much as if they were not penned by Mr Clark who works in Cardiff – but by Mr Lawson. No doubt, throwing insults is just part of life in the deeply divided societies of both the Midlands and London’s outer suburbs.
The spokesman’s job used to be done by Mike Sharratt, of Whitland – but he had a minor stroke, although he’s back now answering calls.
The badger cull is the most inflammatory issue currently being dealt with by this government. England is a rather different country to Wales; as long as the BT continue throwing out English-style propaganda and there is no interest in searching for any kind of compromise or accommodation, we can expect the nastiness to continue.
Fortunately the Welsh police forces are pretty good.
I am told Ms Jones is willing to meet Badger Trust “Cymru” again. What a pity the Chief Vet doesn’t speak Welsh; otherwise the govt side of the table could hold their primary discussion in that language, and help put the other side in their place !
I have had pets, I love animals, but the bullying antics of these people who call themselves animal lovers are below contempt.
I always gave to animal charities but because of the bullying and sometimes viciouse attitude of these people, if you can call them that. I now refuse point blank to contribute towards any of them.
They never said a word when farm stock animals were slaughtered during the BSE and foot and mouth tragedies. When our television screens were filled with all those unnecessary pires of burning cattle, most of them probably healthy.
They don’t say a word about bear baiting or bull fighting etc in other countries . Why dont they try their bullying tacticts in those countries. They would probably end up being shot on the streets by the paramilitary police forces there.
You never hear them saying anything about abused children and the cruelty heaped on them.
Animals like children do not deserve abuse and cruelty, but neither do people derserve to be terorised by these activists.
Shouldn’t love be shown towards all life on this earth, human as well as animal.
I have just read the article in the WM about these people wanting to know details about whom is on the Program Board.
They only want to know so they can bully and terrorise them. Well done Elin Jones for not giving in to them, she is proving to be the most able and outstanding Minister in the Welsh Assembly Government.
“I have known for some time that among the members of these “secretive bodies ” is the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.”
Wrong again! Better luck next time.
You only have to look at the poor take up by farmers of the blue tongue vaccine to see how disease is spread. BSE came from cattle feed with animal remains in it. The DEFRA site has lists of prosecutions for illegal cattle movements in Wales over the last few years. The farmers are their own worst enemies and will put the blame on anything rather than their own actions. Elin Jones would do well to look at the scientific evidence and not appease the farming lobby. Cambriapolitico your blog borders on racism if the word “English” was changed for any other nationality. Is Wales just for full blooded Welsh speaking people or for everyone who has made their home in Wales, and pays taxes (including for a possible badger cull)? They have the same rights to an opinion as anyone else.
blue tongue is spread by midges not by animal to animal contact.
How many people can afford to have even one pet vaccinated for diseases and illnesses, let alone whole herds which Farmers have to.
The cattle feed was prepared and sold by Multinational Companies which made cattle canivorouse by eating other cattle remains.
It was in the name as usual of profit and greed.
Yes, like every one of us who will try to cut corners and get away with something, there are some unscrupulous farmers out there the same as there are unscrupulous manufacturers and retailers who sell us food laced with body destroying chemicals. Don’t tar all the farmers with the same brush as most of them, especialy in Wales, who don’t have huge farms, are just trying to make a living in very difficult conditions.
As for looking at the scientific evidence, surely like all evidence it is better to have as much of it as possible, to have a more informed and intelligent outcome. You can have say twenty scientists or commitees and each one can give a diferent oppinion on the same subject, as has been seen on many occaisions in court cases that have ended up sending people to prison for a long time and then years later the evidence they had given was proven to have been faulty.
Just because one or two commitees have said Badgers are not to blame for TB it doesn’t mean they are right. They could have had an ulteriour motive for saying that. So the more evidence the better. It can not be right that we just blame cattle and farmers for TB when there is no absolute evidence to prove that cattle, badgers or even any other animal is to blame by themselves.
Therefore, it is only by testing in as many ways as possible can we get a true picture of what is happening.
When you’re losing an argument, allege RACISM (Teresa uses the word). The Israelis do it; also Brit Nats; etc. Wales is for everyone within the country, whether or not they speak Welsh.
The Badger Trust play to a mainly suburban English audience, who believe farmers own thousands of acres and make millions.
Wales is rather different from England. But most of the English would rather ignore Wales – if you doubt that, check the Daily Mail occasionally.
And as for the RSPCA – I think you will find they are members. Animal welfare organisations have to realise that there are more important things in this world than the feelings of their members – such as democracy and its demands.
What a buch of ignorant people you are and especially the Scumbria Politico.
I’ll bet most of you, who wouldn’t know the truth if it bit you on the backsides, are badger baiters or some other scum like creatures.
Haven’t you bothered to read the ten year study that cost a damn sight more than £50 million and cost the lives of around twenty thousand badgers only to prove that killing these animals wouldn’t make a scrap of difference to bTB in cattle.
Farmers treating their animals like machines is what’s causing this terrible disease. Oh and before all you bigots start accusing me of not caring about people, I give around £30 a month by direct debit to the NSPCC, £10 more than I give to LACS.
Now I’m going to spread the word about farmers taking subsidies they shouldn’t be entitled to and of causing TB to badgers. Good will always overcome evil in the end.
Oh and Roger, don’t insult my intelligence by pretending to be an animal lover. With carers like you, the animals don’t need enemies.
Lovely to hear the voice of English suburban East Grinstead. My posting was in answer to the hysterics-machine which the trust maintains. Such anti-farmer blatherings merely mean that, when the National Assembly releases a report which accuses some farmers of sad ignorance on some bTB issues, its words are partly drowned out by the trust’s past hysterics.
All these issues are deeply political – because of the input of Labour-run Defra in London. That is why Wales, and northern Ireland and Scotland, all have to go their own ways. Who believes that a Defra report has not been tampered with; who believes, indeed, much of what the current English/UK government says ? You might say use of terrorist powers over Icelandic banking is remote from the badgers issue. But it’s the same issue – tampering by a Labour-run governmental machine with decent programmes of governance.
Animal farmers are the scourge of the planet – destroying an already impoverished land at an alarming rate.
The Welsh Assembly are refusing to take seriously the real causes of bTB. Cruel factory farming and land devoid of trace elements like selenium are at the root of this terrible disease, not badgers! And I think unless you’re completely ignorant, you might understand this! I’m not denying that badgers are also carriers of TB, but there’s no scientific proof to support claims by the Senedd (full to bursting with farrming AM’s) that its badgers passing the disease onto cattle. Badgers would also benefit from farm land rich in vital nutrients
But with silly twits like you tapping away at the mouse – getting annoyed at any kind of criticism, (basically because you don’t give a damn about the welfare of animals) are keeping ignorance alive and well.
To you mankind is above all over creatures, as if the laws that govern them, don’t apply to us.
But it’s not other animals (some that we shamefully call vermin) which are destryoing our world at an alarming rate – it’s mankind!
So much easier eh, to deny that animals are capable of suffering – much easier to view animals as mere commodities? That way we can make as money as possible from them, safe in the knowledge that animals don’t count – because they’re not capable of feeing fear, loss and pain are they?. Oh, but if only that were true?
What a sad world!
Well said Judi. The only extremists here are those like Cambrapolitico who insist on identifying anyone who disagrees with him/her as English!! As if plenty of Welsh people (including many farmers) can’t see that WAG’s plans to go ahead with this cull are just a ’sweetener’ to the farming lobby to actually start applying the improved cattle husbandry/biosecurity/movement controls/testing that really will bring TB infection down, and are furious with Elin Jones for attacking their own country’s native wildlife….I have lived in Wales (on a farm) for most of my life and two of my best friends, both of whom are Welsh (and Welsh-speaking) are campaigning against the cull (even though they have nothing to do with any animal rights groups). All the validated scientific research to date clearly shows that culling doesn’t work, as well as the experience of N. Ireland and Cumbria (both of whom have brought TB infection rates right down without culling) and S. Ireland – where, after killing 60,000 badgers, the TB infection rate is the same as when they started!
Noone minds a reasonable and informed discussion, but the kind of ignorant racist ranting that seems to come from a few on this site I’m afraid just shames the good people of Wales.
“Senedd (full to bursting with farrming AM’s)”
What an idiotic statement. Coupled with your howls of racism = negation of any half decent points you have made, which upon consideration were nil.
Congrats Judi! You are today’s prize turkey! If you seriously want to debate, then at least do so in a way that doesn’t make you look like an irrational windup merchant.
It is animal rights terrorists that are the “scourge” – taking to violent means to further a cause is inexcusable, whatever the issue. Any moral high ground they think they may have is destroyed immediately by their actions.
I’m all for non-violent protest, even direct action against property when necessary, but violence and terror tactics against people is unforgivable.
Stevie is quite wrong when he states that in the Irish Republic TB infection rate is the same as when they started. The number of reactors to the TB test had declined substantially since 1998, from 45,000 to just under 24,200 in 2006 (46% decrease). The Irish Agricultural Ministry reported that badger culling was making a significant contribution to this fall. Looking at the detail of the Irish experience it can be seen that a selective geographical cull is even more effective. This, I understand, is what is being proposed in Wales.