Surprise.
I am stunned. As I logged on I was reading the news in case anything else had happened with the h-nting protest, (you remember that I live in the h-nting epicentre of the universe and the whole place was deserted yesterday as everyone had gone to demonstrate outside Parliament) and .... In passing, I voted on whether h-nting should be banned or not and out of 50,000 voters 50% said 'No' and 48% said 'Yes'. The government's big excuse for all this has always been that the 'vast majority' of people were strongly in favour of a ban and who am I to know that they are wrong? But, now I do know, and so they have lied about this as with everything else.

I am predicting here that this cynical, possibly illegal, action might eventually bring the government down. Many people don't particularly like the idea of h-nting but there is something so fanatical, extreme and just peculiar about the way this has been pushed through that I think it has stirred up the British tendency to side with the underdog.

Also, the thousands of protesters are mostly educated middle-class with spheres of influence and a confidence and arrogance that is not normally seen under these circumstances. I said to my son when we were watching the protesters running into the House of C0mm0ns chamb3r, 'It's a shame that you don't care more about this issue because I think lots of boys your age are going to have massive fun with it'. A couple of hours later the first H. of . C. invader was named and is a boy who went to prep. school and judo classes with my son. My husband is desperate to get out there. I think for many people it is a catalyst for feelings of fury at a government who are more like a dictatorship and, especially down here, their total lack of understanding of what life in the countryside means and the endless stupid, shortsighted 'townie' measures they have brought in; treating the country like some twee London suburb - which is all they know. As one protester said on television last night, 'The war has begun'.

- posted by Iris @ 9/16/2004 09:24:00 AM comment