Tougher calls than shooting a Tory fox
DID I not predict war over Dennis Skinner’s seat?
The SNP are determined to claim the Commons’ opposition front bench but after a 3-0 win for the Beast of Bolsover this week, they are seeking compromise.
We need a deal before the Queen’s speech when Skinner is involved in the archaic ritual of heckling Black Rod as he knocks on the Commons door.
When the SNP said they would shake up Westminster, people didn’t realise it was the seating arrangements they were talking about. NEW SNP MPs report one of their biggest mailbags, albeit electronic, is on the repeal of foxhunting in England.
Anti-hunt campaigners are bombarding Westminster in anticipation of a Bill overturning the Labour ban on foxhunting being in the Queen’s Speech under “other measures”.
With a majority of just 12 MPs, there would only have to be a few Tory rebels for repeal to be blocked with the help of Labour and the SNP.
The SNP are still making up their minds, although Nicola Sturgeon has tweeted a sure hint the party don’t agree with repeal.
The trouble is, SNP MPs usually do not vote on issues that only affect England and Wales. This could be an exception, creating a precedent, leading to a pattern.
There’s no guarantee Cameron will grant a vote. He can dangle repeal across the Tory benches, as Blair brandished the original ban whenever he was in trouble with his party.
It is not the hardest line the SNP will have to cross over five years.
There are no votes to lose in England, plenty to garner in Scotland and the SNP wouldn’t want to be accused of backscratching the Tories by abstaining.
But a more pressing animal welfare issue for the SNP is when to decide to start culling the number of seals around Scotland’s coast.
Protected grey seals now consume nearly 7000 tons of cod each year off the west coast, where landed catches amount to only a few hundred tons.
Our hungry friends are munching through more than 40 per cent of the total cod stock, making a mockery of fishery conservation measures.
A new book by Dieter Helm, an energy guru who is not anti-green, questions the whole balance of animal conservation versus natural resources.
Fishermen do, too, but not so much politicians.
Licensed marksmen shot 205 seals in Scotland last year, taking the total to 1400 over the last four years.
Most would have been dispatched around salmon farms, where the mammals come into conflict with the £285million export industry.
But the Montrose-based Scottish Wild Salmon Company chose to give up their seal cull last year after being confronted by activists.
Animal rights are a sensitive issue but why worry about vixens in our neighbours’ yards when jobs are at stake in our own communities?
It takes a braver Scottish politician to back a seal cull than to shoot a Tory fox.