**Thu 02 Sep 10**
MEMOIRS - TONY BLAIR CHEERFULLY CONFESSES,
AS IF IT WERE ALL SOMETHING TO SMIRK ABOUT

Comments below from WAAC's patron Brian May

Well, seeing Tony Blair's Memoirs in the news has jerked me out my silence.

Reading this stuff has disgusted me so much I think I will have to write my own memoirs.

I have to say that the biggest disappointment in my limited experience of politics is Tony Blair.

When he came to power, how we all smiled and sighed with relief ... "At last, a decent, nice man, an ordinary man, a man who has a boyish innocent charm, even plays the guitar, and is obviously much too down-to-Earth to indulge in the kind of Empire-building and skullduggery that has characterised politicians to us in the recent past". I met him, early on, excited, and shook hands with him ... full of hope that this man would do the decent thing in all circumstances. A bunch of photographers gathered around to record the moment.

A few years later, I found myself beside him at the launch of a scheme (half-baked, as it turned out) which was going to empower people to make as much mess and pollution in the world as they liked, as long as they purchased units of "cool", to compensate. Blair and his mates had endorsed this scheme, and Tony himself had just made an excellent speech, convincing us all that here was something which was going to banish the terrible threat of Global Warming in the twinkling of an eye. He had come over to say hello, and presented, as before, a very pleasant and affable face. This time, as I noticed a swarm of photographers gathering, a feeling of extreme unease crept over me. If I shook hands with this man now, smiling as one does at a social occasion if one is reasonably polite, the photo would be there for all time, apparently saying "Here's Brian May publicly endorsing a man and his works ... including illegally and immorally invading a virtually defenceless country, smashing its culture and its infrastructure, and causing the unnecessary death of thousands of men, women and children." I could not in conscience do that. So I said something like "Hello - excellent speech" and did not take the required step forwards; this allowed about half a dozen delegates to step forward in my place, who obviously WANTED to have their picture taken with Prime Minister Blair. There is no political figure in my lifetime in whom I had had more hope and trust, and in whom I felt such a bitter disappointment.

Of course, I had also noticed many other things along the way about our nice Prime Minister which looked suspect, including the fact that he disappeared at the time the vote was being held on the introduction of the Hunting Ban - which to me at the time seemed a rather cowardly omission on his part.

There's a load more stuff. But I suppose I nursed the hope that, in fact, Tony had taken part in the invasion of Iraq as a means of moderating the warmonger Bush. And that he actually had some very important reason to be elsewhere when the whole future of Britain's wild animals was being determined. And ...

Well, the Blair Memoirs certainly scotched all that. Very cleverly, of course, Tony has announced his intention to give away the royalties of his book to help the veterans and dependents of the Iraq war. Cleverly? I am a writer too ... and I can tell you if you are not Harry Potter it is not a very lucrative profession .. so, well, forgive me, but I am not the first to point out that the relatively small amount of money he would have made from the book might be seen as a small price to pay to secure his precious 'legacy'.

Remorse? I don't see it. I don't feel it, reading the book.

And then there is his light-hearted account of the fox-hunting issue. This I found disgusting, not just because his behaviour was a betrayal of hundreds of thousands of our beautiful wild creatures, but because, even by his own admission, he sabotaged his own government's bill. He paid lip-service to a cause which he did not believe in, and seems smugly proud of the fact that he ended up with a situation which pleased no-one. Even if he had come out and said "Look, I've changed my mind - I no longer believe in this act" one could have a shred of respect for him. But no; the book describes how he desperately wriggled, and squirmed, and tried to find a way of backing out without being seen to lose face. A man so desperate to please everyone and to be thought a hero, he took the cowardly way out ... simply turned his back at the last minute. It's so lame. He relates it in a rather jocular, condescending way ... as if it were some kind of silly game, rather than about the suffering of animals.

But the most shameful part is yet to come. Having tried to make his own legislation ineffective (and failed even at that), he did something so disgraceful, that the true essence of the man leaks through.

So, as the final below-the belt blow to the hopes of thousands of caring individuals who had spent years of their energies trying to put fox-hunting where it belongs, alongside Slavery, Bear-Baiting, and burning witches at the stake ... he robbed his own police force of the balls to enforce the law properly.

I found all this so shocking I could hardly speak for most of today, going about my business. I guess someone like Tony Blair thinks that, like Richard Nixon, he can come out and confess his lameness and dishonesty because it's all in the past, and we will love him anyway - it wasn't really serious, was it? It all turned out fine, right?

But here was a man going around telling the world he supported a cause, but actually hiding the truth - that his belief was gone, and he was going to try to torpedo any good effect that might come out of the crusade to get a better deal for animals. No remorse for the fox-cubs who are this moment being fed alive to packs of trainee hounds, to give them the taste of blood. But would you expect remorse for this from someone who can't even express remorse for causing the loss of thousands of innocent human lives? How silly of me ... they're only animals, right? ... and this country cares too much about animals, right?

Yes, Blair's Prime Ministership is in the past. But who could ever trust a man like that again?

Brian

 thought you might be interested in the work of internationally renowned artist Ruth Norbury. Ruth specialises in animal rights issues and has recently produced a piece about the badger cull in Wales .

Ruth is currently also running a competition to win one of her embroideries with 20% of the profits going towards an animal rescue group.

Please visit www.ruthnorbury.com to take a look

PLEASE SIGN AND CIRCULATE TO THE MOON AND BACK – THIS WOMAN MUST BE PUNISHED !!!! 

 

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TO SEE LOVELY VIDEO OF URBAN FOXES visit TONYWILDLIFE's channel

 PRESS RELEASE    for immediate release [3-5-10]                 

From Protect Our Wild Animals associate, Alan Kirby, M.Sc

Hunters and their friends have poured millions into Tory coffers, says anti-hunting campaigner

 STATEMENT TO PRESS Research by Protect Our Wild Animals [POWA] associate, Alan Kirby, has revealed that millions of pounds of donations to the Conservative Party have come from active hunters, hunt members and strong supporters of hunting. Mr. Kirby claims that his ongoing research has already identified around £4.25 million of donations from such people since the Electoral Commission Register for Party donations was set up in January 2001. More than half of this has been given since David Cameron became leader in December 2005. The figures do not include any donations in first quarter 2010, details of which are not yet published. Mr. Kirby said, ‘Several senior Conservatives clearly have a personal passion for hunting:- Mr. Cameron himself, Nick Herbert, his Shadow Environment Secretary [a former Master of a hare hunt], William Hague, Edward Garnier, James Gray, Nicholas Soames and others. Unsurprisingly, all of Cameron’s Shadow Cabinet appointees, and the vast majority of Tory PPCs, favour repeal of the Hunting Act 2004.  But one must ask to what extent the sheer scale of the donations the Party has received from hunters and hunt supporters might also help account for its apparently irrational commitment to pander to the wishes of a tiny and widely-disliked minority.’  A large proportion of the donations have come from people associated with the Heythrop Fox Hounds, based in David Cameron’s constituency, with which the Conservative leader has close associations.   He added ‘Mr. Cameron’s favourite Hunt has had several of its followers convicted or cautioned in recent years for attacking or menacing hunt monitors. Their huntsman was facing charges of illegal hunting until the CPS dropped the suit after a High Court ruling made it extraordinarily difficult to prove a case against an organised hunt. Mr. Cameron has been reported as suggesting that the Hunting Act was being widely flouted, but has not been heard condemning the alleged law-breakers. Nor did he publicly criticise the 50,000 hunt supporters claimed by the Countryside Alliance to have pledged to break any law banning hunting wild mammals with dogs before the Act was passed. The Heythrop also appears to be part of the nationwide Vote OK operation, which enlists and helps organise hunters to campaign, in ‘plain clothes’, for pro-hunting candidates – nearly always Tories - in marginal constituencies held by anti-hunt candidates. Mr. Cameron’s home Hunt are believed to be targeting Parmjit Dhanda, the Labour incumbent in Gloucester.’  Mr. Kirby also said ‘The Conservative manifesto pledge of a government Bill to repeal the Hunting Act confirmed that Mr. Cameron and the Tory leadership are intent on restoring the cruelty and havoc of unfettered hunting of wild mammals with dogs for ‘sport’, though they’ve mostly been strangely reluctant to mention or debate the subject during the election campaign. Despite polls showing that large majorities of both Tory voters and rural dwellers want the ban kept, they mean to reward their hunter friends by sweeping away a highly popular Act which inconveniences and affronts them.’  He continued, ‘I have been able to uncover, in my spare time, this scale of donations from pro-hunters via little more than one Hunt’s subscriber and donor list, which someone ‘left on a bus’, and Google. Goodness knows how much of the Tory Party’s funds would be seen to come from fans of live quarry hunting if I’d had access to such lists for all 300 UK Hunts, or how much might lie undiscovered in donations by companies that have no obvious connection to hunters.  Mr. Kirby concluded, ‘Dr. Brian May, the astrophysicist, Queen guitarist and force behind the new SaveMe campaign, recently wrote- ‘… if Cameron is allowed by the voters to form a government, this country will effectively be governed by the Countryside Alliance.’ This is perhaps only a slight exaggeration. Certainly it would be a disaster for many of our nation’s wild animals, mark a triumph and reward for those who refuse to respect the law and the democratic process, associate the Conservative Party in decent people’s minds with a reversion to cruelty and barbarism for years to come, and diminish our country’s moral standing.” END OF STATEMENT TO PRESS   Digest of discovered donations follows below.              Supporting details available on request. 

The largest donors who appear to be associated with the Heythrop Fox Hounds are:- 

 ·         Robert [aka Robin] Fleming   Total donations £294,000.  Seems to be regarded as the head of the Fleming family. Lives in Oxfordshire, where he and his wife are one of four Fleming households to subscribe to the Heythrop. He is a serial donor to the Conservative Party, especially to David Cameron’s constituency, Witney. This is part of the Heythrop Fox Hound’s country. Mr. Fleming also apparently gave £10,000 to David Cameron’s Tory leadership campaign fund. ·         Roderick [Roddy] Fleming   Brother of Robert/Robin.  Total donations £224,000.  A leading supporter of the Heythrop, Roddy has reportedly also made large donations to the Countryside Alliance. Has been the largest shareholder in the financial business Fleming Family and Partners and is said to have a private tax haven in Liechtenstein. Reportedly also a large donor to the Countryside Alliance [at least £100k + a £75k loan],  and to be a close associate of David Cameron’s in Witney constituency.  

The Fleming family also own an 80,000 acre Scottish estate, where deer stalking and gamebird shooting are promoted.

 

·         Sir Anthony Bamford, head of JCB, with £86,500 in personal donations but a further £1,128,000 through his company. Family mansion in Oxfordshire. His wife, Lady Carol, is a donor to the Heythrop Hunt. His brother, Mark and his son Joseph have both made huge personal donations to the Conservatives [totalling £1.6 million], but, as I have not been able to firmly establish that they are hunt supporters, this figure is not included in the totals.

 

·         David and Susanna Peake. Donations exceed £26,000.  Both are donors to, and known strong supporters, of the Heythrop. David has been Chairman of the nearby Christchurch and Farley Hill Beagles, a hare hunt, since 1992. In 2003, The League Against Cruel Sports accused the Heythrop of using artificial earths and feeding foxes, including on land owned or in the trusteeship of the Peakes.

 

·         Simon Keswick, the business tycoon, has donated just under £100,000. Former Chair of KwikSave, now a Director of Jardine Matheson and several other companies, including Fleming Mercantile Trust. His wife is a subscriber to the Heythrop.

 

Other Heythrop subscribers or donors have given at least £27,000 between them to the Conservatives, making a total of almost £1.7 million. Some have also made contributions to David Cameron’s campaign to be elected Tory leader in 2005.  These amounts are not included in the totals here.

  

Beyond the Heythrop Hunt, the brothers of Heythrop donor Simon Keswick have also made substantial personal donations to the Conservative Party:-

 ·         Sir Henry Keswick, and his wife, Tessa, are believed to be supporters of the Tedworth FH in Wiltshire. Their joint donations total £241,000. Sir Henry, the Chairman of Jardine Matheson, now also represents the pro stag-hunting group FONT on the National Trust’s ruling council. They are also believed to be keen game bird shooters.  

·         Sir Chippendale [‘Chips’] Keswick, former Director of Hambros Bank, is a strong hunting supporter, and has given nearly £35,000. In 1999 his name reportedly appeared on a mysterious chain letter, along with 100 other rich and powerful people, which the Independent claimed was part of an attempt to rig opinion polls to look as if the public did not want hunting banned.

 

Jardine Matheson, the company of which Sir Henry is Chairman and Simon Keswick is a Director, has been accused by Wetlands International of ‘environmental vandalism’ in Indonesia in connection with rain forest clearance for palm oil plantations by a J.M. subsidiary, AAL.

  

Active and formerly active hunters themselves have also contributed mightily to the Tory books:-

 

·         Johan Christofferson, a Norwegian American hedge fund manager, has given almost £250,000, personally or through the UK arm of his company. Christofferson Robb. He is the Joint Master [JM] of the Jedforest Fox Hounds [FH]. When JM of the Isle of Wight FH, he was reprimanded by the Master of Foxhounds Association for failing to prevent his Huntsman and a supporter, who is now their terrierman, from staging a carcass-dumping stunt in Brighton when the Labour Conference was on., which caused great public outrage there and for which they were convicted. That Huntsman, Stuart Trousdale, is now Christofferson’s Huntsman and fellow JM at the Jedforest FH. Christofferson has directed £40,000 to the constituency being fought for the Tories by Simon Hart, CEO of the Countryside Alliance [Carmarthen West], which the strongly anti-hunt Nick Ainger is defending for Labour. Christofferson also reportedly made donations to David Cameron’s leadership campaign and Nick Herbert’s private office [both £5,000]. These sums are not included in the totals above. 

 

·         The Samworth family. Until his retirement a few years ago, Sir David Samworth was head of the Samworth Brothers meat products firm. He is a former Chairman of the Quorn FH and JM of the Cottesmore FH, and has donated nearly £56,000. He appears to have been a substantial Tory donor for longer than the Register has existed. Sir David’s wife was also a JM of the Cottesmore FH. Sir David’s son Mark, now in charge of the family business, donated £125,000 in April 2010.

 

·         Lord Peter Daresbury,  Director of numerous companies, with a large Cheshire estate, is Joint Master of the Sir Watkins Williams-Wynn FH. He has contributed £53,000. Daresbury is a former Chairman of the Master of Foxhounds Association [MFHA]. In 2004, a leaked email revealed that he had been castigated by Simon Hart, CEO of the Countryside Alliance, after Daresbury had apparently written to Hunt chairmen urging them to ask their local farmers to help more foxes breed so they’d have plenty to hunt. Daresbury has contributed to the Conservative constituency funds of Carmarthen West, where Simon Hart is Tory PPC.

 

·         The Vestey family.  Sir Edmund Vestey, another former MFHA Chairman, who died in 2007, had donated over £50,000 of his own money between 2001 and then. He was a Master of the Thurlow FH for more than 40 years. Hunting remains a family passion. Mr. and  Mrs. R.J.Vestey are now JMs of the Thurlow FH and Sir Edmund’s son Tim, is a JM of the neighbouring Puckeridge FH. A Vestey-family owned shipping company, Star Reefers, made donations totalling £73,500 to the Conservative Party in 2008 and 2009. In the 1990s, the League Against Cruel Sports claimed to have strong evidence that artificial earths for foxes had been constructed in Thurlow hunt country and that food was sometimes put out for them.

 

·         Sir John Craven actually lists ‘hunting’ among his recreations in ‘Who’s Who’, scorning the usual ‘country pursuits’ euphemism. He has donated £26,000. He was Chairman of Lonmin plc [formerly Lonrho] until he retired last year. He appears to have his country seat at Tetbury, Gloucs, but it is not known which pack he hunts with. However, as he is now Chairman of Fleming Family and Partners, he is presumably close to the Fleming brothers [qv], who are subscribers to the Heythrop.

·         Oliver Hemsley, a former JM of the Cattistock FH in Dorset, and CEO of the finance group Numis, gave £25,000 in 2008. Mr. Hemsley was, reportedly, once accused by a fellow hunter of causing the death of one of his horses, and injury to another, by over-furious riding.

 

·         James Haigh, MBE, Chairman of the Rockwood Harriers in West Yorkshire, has contributed £5,000.

 

·         Mark Andreae, the Joint Master of the Hampshire FH since 1991, has been comparatively stingy, contributing just £4,200. He is a wealthy farmer who used to own the magnificent Moundsmere Manor in the Hunt country. He sold this to a Tory mega-donor, Sir Irvine Laidlaw [£3 million +] in 2005. The Hampshire met there while Andreae was owner, and may have continued to do so. However, Mr. Laidlaw, a Monaco tax exile, has apparently not lived there. As I’ve been unable to confirm him as a hunt supporter, his giant donations are not included in my totals.

  

Aristocratic hunters and strong hunt supporters have been identified as contributing generously to Conservative funds, though the multiple different names they tend to use may have caused some to be overlooked:-

 

¨       Lord Alexander Hesketh is the 3rd Baron Hesketh, and a former Tory Party Treasurer. He used to have his own Formula 1 team and motorcycle manufacturing company. His donations total £289,000. Educated at Ampleforth, which has an in-house hare-hunting pack, he comes from a family with deep hunting roots. He was the owner of Easton Neston house, with a very large estate, in Northamptonshire, until selling it in 2006.  He regularly played host to the Grafton FH. In 2002, the Telegraph reported that he and his butler had grappled with and removed a hunt saboteur who had gatecrashed the meet outside the house.

 

¨       The Rothschild family also have deep hunting roots, both here and on the continent. Between them they have donated £370,000 to the Conservative Party since 2001. The family had their own stag hunting pack in Buckinghamshire until at least the second decade of the 20th century. I have been able to discover little about actual participation in hunting of any of the present British side of the family. However, the Bicester FH meet regularly at Waddesdon Manor, one of the Rothschild seats now owned in part by the National Trust, and hunt the Rothschild-owned Eythorpe Park adjacent to the house.  In addition to the personal donations by family members, in 2005 Lady Victoria de Rothschild loaned the Party over £1 million, through a specially created non-trading company, possibly to try to keep the loan’s real source anonymous. This was legal at the time. Kate Rothschild, who has donated £5000, is married to Benjamin Goldsmith, the brother of Zak, of whom more below.

 

¨       Lady Charlotte Townshend, another former JM of the Cattistock FH, and her husband James, appear to have given almost £50,000 between them.  Lady Townshend is one of Britain’s richest women, with a 15,000 acre Dorset estate and ownership of a large chunk of West London. The Dorset property includes Chesil Beach and, in 1999, she reportedly scuppered a proposed agreement that it should become a National Nature Reserve because the Government was threatening to ban hunting.

 

¨       Quentin Wallop, the Earl of Portsmouth, a self-avowed hunt supporter associated with the Hampshire FH, has stumped up nearly £70,000.

 

¨       The Duke of Buccleuch has a fox hunt bearing his name in Scotland. Buccleuch Estates have contributed over £40,000 since 2004.

 

¨       Ralph Percy, Duke of Northumberland,  has, according to current Electoral Commission records, donated just £2,500, but the Observer claimed in 2008 that he had given £50,000 in the third quarter [not included in totals above as I cannot find it in the Electoral Commission records]. The Percy FH was founded by the Duke’s family and Lady Victoria Percy is a current JM. It’s Chairman, Charles Bucknall, has donated £2,500. In 2005, 14 mounted hunters from the Percy FH were branded ‘reckless and dangerous’ by the police after they broke away from a procession through Alnwick and galloped through the town centre causing fear and alarm among residents and shoppers.

 

¨       Sir Reginald Sheffield, [Samantha Cameron’s father], is a Baronet who owns two huge country estates. A well known supporter of hunting, he has contributed over £14,000 to his local constituency party, Brigg & Goole, in recent years.

 

¨       Charles Pelham, the Earl of Yarborough is a Master of the Brocklesby FH in Lincolnshire, has given more than £4,000.

  

Three ‘celebrity’ hunt supporters have made substantial donations :- 

 

·         Frederick Forsyth, the novelist.  An outspoken supporter of hunting, he was a celebrity participant in the ‘Countryside March’ of 2002. His donations total nearly £65,000.

 ·         Sir Tim Rice, the lyricist, another hunting supporter and participant in the Countryside March, has donated over £35,000. He lambasted journalist Rod Liddle for attacking the Countryside marchers, saying, among other things ‘The real elitists in modern Britain are not rural hunting folk but the sophisticated metropolitan nexus… ‘ and also wrote ‘I believe the proposed ban is a serious threat to liberty’. 

·         Zak Goldsmith, currently Conservative PPC for Richmond Park. Although formerly a member of the Green Party, whose policy has always been strongly anti-hunt, Goldsmith has made his pro-hunt sentiments clear since switching to the Tories. One of the heirs to billionaire Sir Edward Goldsmith’s vast fortune, he has donated £330,000 in total. Goldsmith’s brother, Benjamin, who is married to Kate Rothschild, has made smaller, though substantial, donations also, but his attitude to hunting is not known for certain and thus they are not included.

   

CAVEAT:  the author has made reasonable endeavours to ensure the accuracy of the information above and drawn on sources believed by him to be reliable. He is as certain as he can be that the donations ascribed to the persons above are accurate in amounts and did come from the persons above identified. He cannot, however, be entirely certain that all of the personal details [relationships, etc] are completely correct and wholly contemporary. No wrongdoing by the persons identified above is imputed as regards the donations. Where public domain allegations made against any of them in the past are reported above, the author believes that, though some of these may have been denied, he is unaware of any of them having been refuted.

 _________________________________________________________

 

Alan Kirby M.Sc, Protect Our Wild Animals [POWA] associate  3-5-10

 

Contact details;  Telephone;-  07972257467     email:   alank24@tesco.net

 

POWA website:  www.powa.org.uk