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77 - Vol 20 - Issue 1 - Spring 2011
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Urban legislation is smothering the British countryside
The tentacles of urban Britain continue to smother the workings of the countryside. Now it’s a ban on docking dogs’ tails. Ignore all the intractable, unsolvable problems of our towns and cities - find an easy, popular target in the shrinking British countryside!
You don’t see too many working dogs in Whitehall, so not too many town folk have seen the effects of thorn damage on dogs’ tails, how they bleed for ages, the blood splashing everywhere. Dogs don’t like like it - that’s why people over the last 300 years or so have taken the tails off at birth.
In my view this issue shows the gulf between an urban legislature and the rural population even more clearly than the hunting debate. Tail docking to the urban majority is a painful cosmetic procedure (is it any more painful than circumcising boys at birth? A practice which could never be banned for religious and ethical reasons). It’s marked up as another cruel country practice that must be stopped. Powerful radical organisations get behind the issue, and government ministers, mindful of votes, allow themselves to be forced down the populous and emotional route, in total disregard of the facts and evidence from the country.
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