http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/mar/30/foxhunting-supporters-marginal-seats-election
Supporters of hunting with dogs are targeting key marginal seats in an attempt to boost the chances of repealing the 2004 ban on the sport.
The pro-hunting organisation Vote OK claims it will mobilise well over 10,000 supporters and have an impact on far more constituencies than it did at the last general election.
Working out of a farm in Gloucestershire, the organisation has no paid staff but claims its ability to channel the enthusiasm of volunteers from more than 170 hunts in England and Wales will ensure its has a significant influence. Its leafleting operation is expected mostly to benefit Conservative candidates.
Nicky Sadler, the coordinator of Vote OK and a follower of the Croome and West Warwickshire Hunt, said: "At the last election, in 2005, we were involved in 60 seats; this time around we are organised in 140 constituencies. It's a big logistic operation.
"Vote UK is a bit like a dating agency. There's a list of candidates who [we can pick]. We are colour-blind; it doesn't matter what party they are from. No one is suggesting that [repeal] should be a priority for government. We are giving people who are pro-repeal contact details so they take can it from there.
"If there's a sitting MP who has in the past supported hunting from any party, such as Labour's Kate Hoey [in London Vauxhall] or the Liberal Democrat Roger Williams [in Brecon and Radnorshire], we will [back] them."
Sadler admits that the "vast majority" of MPs supported by Vote OK will be Conservatives.
A YouGov poll carried out for the Protecting Animals in Democracy (PAD) campaign published at the weekend revealed that animal welfare issues such as hunting and animal experimentation are deemed to be an important election issue for 41% of the British public. The same poll found that only 21% believing that there is very little animal cruelty in Britain today. "This is the first time that the enormous political significance of animal welfare issues has come to light," said Dr Dan Lyons, head of campaigns at PAD and an honorary research fellow in politics at the University of Sheffield, said: "It's a clear warning to the parties that support for cruel practices like hunting could prove politically disastrous."
What really disgusts me is that these politicians working within vote-ok are just volunteering because they are all hunters themselves. They do not care about the people who despise hunting which is a massive 75% of the public. No matter what spin these people put on hunting it is barbaric and does not represent the countryside as a whole. I have lived in the country for my entire life and I have seen awful horrors at the hands of the hunters: they have trampled through my garden where my baby brother was playing, the uncontrolled hounds have been hit by cars and then left to die on the roadside, a stag was dragged into a school in a nearby village where it was then mauled to death in front of the horrified school children, my neighbours cat was mauled to death by hounds. Its just horrific and Vote-OK just proves that the minority of those who do hunt are powerful and use their power to overrule law. Its horrific.
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