August 8, 2025 • 41 mins
We interviewed Tim Bonner, Chief Executive at Countryside Alliance, and asked him about working in/around politics, upcoming policy and legislative changes which will affect shooting, what has changed in the last 20 years, the impacts of social media, and whether or not a cocker spaniel should be retrieving pink-footed geese. All bundled in with some light-hearted banter and chat.
This episode was recorded on the Countryside Alliance stand at The Game Fair with a backdrop of headache inducing orange carpet and background chatter.
CountrySlide is a podcast that looks at farming, conservation and life in the British countryside.
Send us photos of your interesting trinkets that your other half wants to burn or bin as submissions to the calendar or for fun at: contact@countryslide.co.uk
Links
- Countryside Alliance - on Instagram and X
- Subscribe on Patreon for extra content (you can cancel at any time)
- If you enjoy what we do, consider a one-off tip on Ko-fi
- CountrySlide website
- Negus' book tour dates can be found here
The Hosts
Richard Negus website
Callum McInerney-Riley website
Richard Prideaux website
Edited and Produced by Amy Green for Rural and Outdoor.
This episode was recorded on the Countryside Alliance stand at The Game Fair with a backdrop of headache inducing orange carpet and background chatter.
CountrySlide is a podcast that looks at farming, conservation and life in the British countryside.
Send us photos of your interesting trinkets that your other half wants to burn or bin as submissions to the calendar or for fun at: contact@countryslide.co.uk
Links
- Countryside Alliance - on Instagram and X
- Subscribe on Patreon for extra content (you can cancel at any time)
- If you enjoy what we do, consider a one-off tip on Ko-fi
- CountrySlide website
- Negus' book tour dates can be found here
The Hosts
Richard Negus website
Callum McInerney-Riley website
Richard Prideaux website
Edited and Produced by Amy Green for Rural and Outdoor.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's warm today.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
It is warm today, and you know I noticed the
beads of perspiration and appearing on.
Speaker 3 (00:07):
Your from Wales on the west coast. I shouldn't be
in the Midlands. It's too hot.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
It's beautiful here at the game. Affair, isn't it riche
it is?
Speaker 3 (00:18):
It's even better now that we have a very very
interesting and good person across the other side of the
table from us, a proper guest.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
I call it a.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Proper person who's actually better at this than we are. Yes, so,
Country Slide.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Loyal listeners do give at home a round of applause
to our guest, Tim Bonner from the countryside of Lands.
Welcome to Country Slide, Tim, good morning.
Speaker 4 (00:44):
And welcome to the countryside alants stand at the game.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
It's a very nicely laid out stand a part of
the carpet.
Speaker 5 (00:50):
They love this orange.
Speaker 4 (00:52):
I'm not sure it's I think it's very lucky you
I've listeners, not viewers. There might be eyeballs burnt up now.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
It reminds me of sort of a Trains North Wales
in about the mid nineties. It's that same sort of
hangover inducing color of orange.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
I've just had to put my sunglasses on because of
the it is. I look, you can be honest. What
you did was you got this is a job locked,
didn't you? You went to Luton said easy Jet got any
spare off cuts Jet Orange, easy Jet Orange.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
I thought we might be trying to match it to
some of our members. Trousers a weird visual thing where
it looks as though there was only half of them.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yes, yeah, do you know that's That's one of my
highlights of being here. And it's slightly downside of of
the weather we're enjoying, because all I'm seeing are pale
legs in shorts. Going by the number of puce Terra
Cotta or Countryside Alliance slash. Easy Jet Orange trousers is
(01:51):
actually quite missing today.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Perhaps we'll get that on Saturday. Who knows. No, there's
some interesting fashion choices. I mean there always are at
the game fair.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
You can just sit at any standing for ten minutes
and see things that you would never see normally.
Speaker 4 (02:04):
Yeah, I think probably if you want a guest to
talk about fashion, you might have the wrong one. Yeah,
I might say your presenters aren't spot on either.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
I'm dressed and most of it is clean. I don't know.
What else you want from Yeah, for.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
The viewers at home, Tim is wearing a rah raskirt,
which is interesting. But anyway, so we didn't get Tim
to talk about fashion. This is very, very true. So
let's think. So we've had a bit of a time
of trial just of late, and this isn't going to
be like I usually make countries slide into an assassination
(02:40):
of the current government. But let's think of some of
the successes. And I think most recently, Tim the debate
about grouse shooting now taught me through that because you
were in an absolute important and integral cog in getting
that success told me through it.
Speaker 4 (03:02):
I think there's probably three things that we need to
talk about in relation to that. The first is partnership,
and we have a constant debate in the shooting sector.
And the conside lance isn't a shooting organization. We obviously
have a very broad rural agenda, but we are absolutely
committed to shooting as an activity. But there's always talk
(03:22):
about how too many organizations, too many of there's too
many of that.
Speaker 5 (03:25):
Actually, what the point proved there.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
Is that we all have our role and actually we
coordinate extremely well together. I always say the alliance. We
just there's no way.
Speaker 5 (03:34):
We could do our job without the research.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
For instance that the Game Conservancy does.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
You know our briefs and literally reference Game Conservacy sides
from start to finish. And when we're talking to people
equally bask as a membership which it can motivate, which
and to lobby, to lobby MPs, so we all have
our role to play. The second thing, which I think
is critically important, and as I get older and even
more boring comes a central part of my work and
(04:02):
my life is that we have to understand as a community,
and talking about the shooting community here how people perceive us.
And ten fifteen years ago, the perception was that Upland
shooting was based around illegality and especially the persecution and
legal persecution of raptors. That was a commonly held position
(04:25):
and organizations like the RSPB were completely justified. Let's be
honest in pointing out that in twenty thirteen there was
not a single success. There was another single nesting hen
harrier in England, not one, and we know in part
why that was. We need to be very honest about that.
(04:46):
There were some tough conversations internally, there was a need
for culture change, and there was culture change. Ten years later,
in twenty twenty three, there were over fifty hen harry
Inness one hundred and forty one fledged hen Harriers that
gave us, gave us permission to speak for the uplands
in the upland community was able to make its case.
It was able to make its critical case around the
(05:09):
social it's social important of the uplands, it's economic importance
to the uplands.
Speaker 5 (05:14):
That would not have happened.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
They would not have had permission to do that if
they were still assumed that everyone was operating illegally. So
we need to understand that we need to look at ourselves.
The third bit, I'm afraid is slightly less good news
in that, Yes, the brilliant operation. We know how politics works,
we know how parliament works, we have the science, we
(05:35):
have the evidence, we work in the coordinated way. But
I'm afraid, yeah, and that debate was a you know,
it was a rollover, and the joy of mister Packham
with his head in his hands would have would have
spread across the country, well our bit of the country anyway.
But I'm afraid if we had a vote tomorrow, a
free vote on the floor of the House of Commons
on banning grouse shooting. There would be a ban on
(05:56):
ground shooting, and that's a political reality we need to understand, Okay.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
So in other words, the prejudice will win over the
because it wasn't just a sort of a load of
old Tories going and saying no, we want to keep this.
You had cross party support, didn't you for in the debate?
Speaker 4 (06:16):
Yeah, absolutely, but there are there were the vast majority
of labor and peace and there are a lot of
labor and ps. It's difficult to keep up because Kirstama
keeps sacking them. But there were four hundred and three.
I think we're down a three hundred ninety eight to
eight TOG. But the vast majority of them wouldn't even
know that debate was taking place. Urban constituencies, they've got
(06:37):
a basic prejudice against landownership, against against the field sports
of any kind, against killing for fun, which is the
vasers used.
Speaker 5 (06:45):
And they if you.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
Gave them a free vote and there wasn't a government policy,
they would go through and they would vote to back.
Speaker 5 (06:50):
They vote to eng grouse shooting, I can guarantee it.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
So leading on from that then and then I'm sorry
to stick on with shooting because, like you said, you
are not a shooting organization. But therefore we've got another
potential and worrying issue coming up is the proposed changes in.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Legislation to.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Shotgun certification, so that therefore they were roughly they want
to try and bring that in line with firearms, if
I understand it correctly.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
So can you tolll me through that?
Speaker 2 (07:20):
And with your observation that we've got a labor aggressive
we who don't like in inverting on was killing fun,
that surely could be really quite dark times for us.
So could you talk us through that a bit more?
Speaker 5 (07:35):
Yes, I think it's worth just going back to the
beginning of.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
This current cycle, which started with a horrific shooting in
Kisham in twenty twenty three, where an individual who should
never have had a shotgun sertificate in the first place,
but had been issued one by Deviden Cornel police. He
had that shotgun stificate taken away while he was investigated
for assault. He was cautioned and then unbelievably Nicole police
(08:00):
gave him that shotgun back again and he subsequently killed
five people and himself. And there is obviously a massive
public concern about that this and the local MP Loop
Pollard is now a minister in Ministry of Defense, but
he has been driving a campaign around around the certification
of shotgun and licensing of shotgun the ownership of shotguns
(08:23):
ever since.
Speaker 5 (08:25):
To us, it's.
Speaker 4 (08:26):
Absolutely obvious that the problem in that case and in
most others that come up, is not the fact that
it is possible to own the shotgun. It's the fact
that the licensing system is utterly unfit for the twenty
first century. We have forty three separate licensing authorities in
the UK.
Speaker 5 (08:43):
Is this madness.
Speaker 4 (08:44):
It's absolutely imagine having to go to your local police
to get a license to drive the car. It just
this wouldn't happen. We know that the databases, the tech
is absolutely useless.
Speaker 5 (08:54):
You know, some.
Speaker 4 (08:57):
Individual licensing departments are better than others are appalling and
the obvious answer to us has been for some times,
we need a single licensing a proper single licensing body,
and that is where the government should be focusing. But unfortunately,
the pressure around shotguns in particular becoming out of caution
means that the government has committed to consulting on aligning
(09:21):
shotguns with Section one FIM. So we know that loads
of us who have a Section one farm know what
that means. The additional complication I mean, to make this
even madder, the forty three licensing bodies are currently struggling
to keep the head above water. If you ask them
to license every shotgun in the same way as a
far on, the whole system will just clap.
Speaker 5 (09:40):
So it is big stuff.
Speaker 4 (09:41):
And what worries me most about this coming from our position.
Speaker 5 (09:46):
We're a charity.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
We campaign for.
Speaker 4 (09:49):
Economic, environmental and social sustainability in the countryside. We know
how much money goes into the countryside from shooting, and
you would be by licensing shotguns section one, you would
be creating a huge barrier to entry to the entire sector,
to the tire industry. You know, people will go and
play golf instead if it becomes too complicated to get
a shotgun certificate a license. And that we think it's
(10:12):
a sort of it's a fundamental quite existential threat because
once that happens, shooting becomes more exclusive and so fewer
people do it, and it comes under more political pressure
and you get a cycle which leads towards potentially, you know,
a prohibition and that sort of thing.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
Yeah, this was a conversation I'm having quite often, and
it's a different corners that when you look at those statistics,
as we talked about in our most recent episode, the.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Numbers the age average age of a.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Shotgun certificate holder and fire a certificate holder in the
UK is above middle age and over sixty percent. I
think if shotgun certificate holders are over the age of fifty.
When you look at that and you look at the
difficulty of renewing and that all of the problems we
just described, there's the onward effect into the economy from
(11:03):
those things, because how many shotgun certificate holders do you
need an in an area to keep an RFD going,
to keep a firearms dealer going. So we have four
or five in North Wales where I am, and I
know that none of them are coining it in. They're
all not quite on the line, but they all have
to work hard to make sure this day above water.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
These are all of.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
The second order effects that don't seem to be noticed
when it comes to policy, and sort of the inverse
of that is when if you're a member of the public,
or if you're part of the rural community, the shooting
community or even in the anti community and you're on
the other side, campaigning on the other side. It's very
easy to look at social media and see what's going
(11:47):
on there and think that is the entire conversation. But
as the three of us sat around this table know,
from greater or lesser involvement, there's a whole parallel set
of conversations that happen away from the public eye, which
are often one on one where you are talking to policymakers,
You are talking to these government departments.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
You are talking to.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
People who have a real they have the final say
and a lot of these decisions or at least where
they go to next. And I know a lot of
the effort had went into that for Grouse from which
wasn't always apparent to the public. And I know there
are things that went on just nothing untowards We're just
meetings behind closed doors.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Of this is what happens.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
Take you to meet these people, take you to meet
people who work in these areas, and take you to
meet the ecologists. Is that one of the challenges of
running an organization like the Countryside Alliance you have to
have such a loud public presence, and also the social
media and the top line that everyone sees. But there's
a lot of work behind the scenes that you can't
talk about.
Speaker 5 (12:45):
Oh, a huge amount.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
And I have one rule about the Country Alliance's office
and it has to be in walking distance to Westminster.
We are our offices just across the river. You know,
it takes me ten minutes to walk to Westminster, and
I spend a lot of time there, as as do
many of my team talking to MPs, talking to ministers,
talking to researchers are working for MPs. Yeah, there's a
(13:08):
whole network, there's a whole infrastructure which you have to
be engaged with. You have to be enabled if you're
going to get that message across and yes, some of it,
some of it. Frankly, I have to ask people to
take on trust. You know that that's the job we do.
You know, our membership, our support or wider support bases.
You know, they're incredibly positive. I mean, I'm you know,
(13:29):
we are so lucky, and I hope that we're able
to in broad terms explain our work and how we
do that. But there is a level of trust. As
I say about the fact that there are lots of things,
lots of conversations we have that we can't discuss now.
I can tell you about when we turn the microphone off,
about about several pieces of legislation and the last government
which which never even made it over the line because
(13:52):
of the work we did, but I can't. You know,
that's not stuff that you can publicly boast about or
shout about.
Speaker 5 (13:57):
But that engagement is it's it's critical.
Speaker 4 (14:01):
And it goes back to this point about working together
and how different organisms. I think when I join the Alliance,
I'm very old, and I joined as a very little
press officer. I joined as a press officer in two
thousand and two. Some people will have been who are
very old as well, would have been on the Liberty
and Livelihood March in two thousand and two. Yeah yeah,
(14:24):
Now if we march, we do only have a zimmer
frame and all that sort of thing. I joined for
six weeks to help out in the press office.
Speaker 5 (14:30):
Before that.
Speaker 4 (14:31):
I'm still here, sadly, and in that time, you know,
we have gone for a place where too many organizations
we're trying to fight over the same territory and doing
far too much.
Speaker 5 (14:42):
To having a situation.
Speaker 4 (14:44):
Now we have an organization called m to Sustain where
we meet on a regular basis, all of us who
have been interesting in game shooting, in particularly is we
have other groups on far Arms or the Bridge Shooting
Sport Council on game shooting.
Speaker 5 (14:55):
We have that and we are you.
Speaker 4 (14:57):
Know, we fit like a jigsaw. We're doing different things
and we do them all well. We can't, you know,
we can't really operate without as effectively without each other.
Coming back to the lessons to the Grouse debate, but also,
and again I come back to be really boring again
about the message we send to our own community. We
are because we stand shoulder to shoulder and we're not
looking to take chunks out of each other on tough
(15:19):
stuff like, for instance, our approach to Laed ammunition, where
by the way, we were absolutely right to do what
we did five years ago, and we would be in
the sector, would be in real trouble if.
Speaker 5 (15:30):
We hadn't done that.
Speaker 4 (15:30):
Now we we will be able to face our own
community sometimes and say, actually, some of you might a
lot like this, but we've got to get real because
pr and the big the big game is about the
perception of you, as we said, and if you don't
do the right things in the right way, then the
perception of you will mean politicians are unwilling to listen
(15:52):
and unwilling to.
Speaker 5 (15:52):
Take your side.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
Do you think it's a case sort to continue that
point then that sometimes people don't like what they see
is the outcome, because if that's like lead, that's the
first thing they saw, the announcement what two weeks ago,
the full fire, the flan announcement. But that's not news
to anyone who's been paying attention. But if you saw
that and that was the first you had heard of it,
it might sound like this is all change and you
(16:16):
didn't want that without But I think it doesn't always
come across that that was actually the best outcome that
could have existed. There were lots of other worse outcomes
that were avoided, and a lot of work went into
avoiding them.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
Yeah, and change, change, especially in culturally conservative communities, Change
is a really difficult thing and people don't like it.
Speaker 5 (16:40):
I've been really interested in how little.
Speaker 4 (16:42):
Direct direct communication I've had from people as a result
of that announcement. When we five years ago, our years
ago said that we wanted everyone to move away in
five years, there was a section a noisy set, but
it was at new section.
Speaker 5 (17:01):
Of our community who thought this was the end of
the world.
Speaker 4 (17:04):
Everything's got a wholly different reaction now and even those,
even most of those who were critical back in the day,
have had to accept the reality. This is going to happen.
Let's accept reality, Let's move forward, Let's find a way through.
Whatever it is, whatever the activity, we need to save
the best. And you know, cutting your throat, dying in
(17:27):
a ditch over things that aren't frankly important to the end,
and the grand scheme of things is foolish politics.
Speaker 5 (17:33):
It's about strategy. Yeah, I couldn't agree more.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
We had quite early doors of the podcast, we had
Leon Challon Davison as a guest and he gave the
best piece of advocacy and if I ever.
Speaker 5 (17:44):
Hear anyone still these days saying oh yes.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
But you know, lead, we really need it, and the
various old trope, and he go and said, well do
you think we need to sell game? And they go, well, yes,
of course we do, and then I just lead them
to that interview that we did with Leon, and that
interview with Leon very clearly said that you know, he
took some of the biggest meat buyers in the UK
(18:07):
off and said, let's go and look at this, and
they went, yes.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
We'll buy all the pheasants you can shoot. Go on,
we'll do it.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
And he went boom, and then they said back and
they put them through their little machine and they couldn't
find the shot out and they said, we can't take them.
So therefore, the sustainability, and I'm big into sustainability, the
sustainability of game shooting in this country was just hole
beneath the waterline more or less immediately, because the machine
(18:34):
that can find steel can find alloy, couldn't find lead.
So therefore they couldn't take it, and they couldn't put
it into their pies. They couldn't put it into their
ready meals, so they didn't take it. And so therefore
that is as far as I'm concerned the end of
the day, because we shoot, because you know, you and
I have stood together in a high shooting pinks. Admittedly
(18:55):
you shot more than I did. Yeah, well, you know
I was just letting you because you were my guest.
I thought, you know, I'm just going to miss that time. No, no, no,
I was just waxing lyrical and looking up at the
rise of the sun and trying to think what metaphor
I could use for that?
Speaker 5 (19:11):
And although Tim was very.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Rude about my dog, you know, he said, why haven't
you got a proper gun dog with you? And how
stunned he was as my little cocker spaniel kept coming
back with all these.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
Pinks his tell you what, she's got some struggled neck
muscles other day.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
But anyway, I think back back at the room, I
think it's something whereby you know, I've always thought when
you've got a large majority in front of you from labor,
where you're going to have however strong your advocacy is,
and say you, yeah, okay, we won the day with
grouse right, great, you had cross party support in there.
(19:52):
But you say, well, actually, if it came to a
free vote on something as probably the shotgun licensing changes
will come to a free vote, do you almost think, well,
what's the point of lobbying because these guys are just
going to vote with their vitriol and preconception rather than
(20:14):
however much great advocacy and science and facts that you've
put in front of them, all gleaned from the various
organizations will have around us today, do you almost go
and what's the point in this case when you've got
three hundred and whatever it is the majority from labor.
Speaker 4 (20:29):
Importantly, any fireums and legislation wouldn't be a free vote.
Free votes are incredibly rare, and not incredibly they're very rare.
They tend to be on conscience issues. So abortion, we've
had a recent vote, the right to life, the life
and for reasons that somewhere lost in the midst of time.
Speaker 5 (20:45):
Hunting always a free vale issue. But you know, so
what's crucially important at the moment, and.
Speaker 4 (20:52):
This is this is about understanding a political process and
the work we do day to day is that governments
go in to a legilative process knowing what they want
to do. In the first place, they have to have
a consultation for legal for legal reasons. If they don't
consult then you can take a judiciary review and have
a populum. But they know perfectly well what they want
to get out of that consultation and what they are
(21:14):
going to get out of it. So the policy development
happens before anything sort of hits the public. So the
pressure you need to apply. So the work we're doing
at the moment on far arms, for instance, we're talking
about that is to work up the case and through
using ex police officers who are expert in this field,
work up the case for an alternative single licensing system
(21:34):
to pressure the government into a place where it can't
not consult on that as part of its consultation. And
then we'll be encouraging people to respond positively to that.
And so we've got an answer on the table at
the moment. You haven't got that. You haven't got that
answer because you know, they're just they've got one policy
which they're pushing, which is alignment with Section one, which
would caused absolute carnage, be a nightmare for the shooting lot.
(21:56):
You've got to give an alternative. Again, just don't just
say no. Just saying no is a route to political disaster.
You've got to solve the politician's problems for them.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
And if you just say no and just stand off
from the subject, someone else on the other side will
come in and make a better argument for you. You
can't detach from the process.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
Yeah, and gun ownership is like you know, we were
talked about action the gunnership and I use this and
I use this discaching quite a lot when talking to
our people about practically everyone you know will have a
shotgun license, or someone in the household will have a
we'll have a shotgun certificate. Ninety five percent of labor
(22:41):
MPs will know nobody who.
Speaker 5 (22:44):
Has a shotgun sticker.
Speaker 4 (22:45):
That's the reality. It is just not part of their world.
And most of them aren't bad people. You know, I've
been meeting when we've got it's quite scary. We've got
on our database one hundred and thirty two new labor
nps with at least a rural element and their constituency.
And I'll working my way around as my team meeting
these people are.
Speaker 5 (23:03):
You're having initial discussions with.
Speaker 4 (23:05):
You know, some of it will be about shooting, but
you know, we obviously have a very broad agenda, which
is helpful when we're a lot of that aligned with
Labour's agenda, things like affordable housing in the countryside and
you know, making sure people can access public services. We'll
talk about the key key issues as well. And they're
not bad people, you know, they're they're perfectly reasonable people
and you might disagree with, you know, some of their
(23:26):
political views, but you know, fundamentally they don't want to
work anyone over their rest of it. There are some obviously,
but some of all parties, if we can make our
case sensibly reasonably, if we're decent people, and as I say,
you know, going back to other issues or the shots,
if we're if we have permission, if we're if the
perception of this isn't that we're all just breaking them
all or doing something that was really bad, then then
(23:46):
they will listen and the governments You're not going to
get itself into a massive mess over things it doesn't
have to if it's got another solution.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Now.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
I remember talking to one of the few Welsh Conservative
MPs in this basically that same conversation, and he was saying,
what you have to understand is that if you took
away every rural ward within his within his area and
just focus on the urban side, that would sway his
vote entirely basically in terms of him getting re elected.
(24:16):
The countryside does not matter because those towns are so
big now they've overlapped and brought in so many of
those little villages and now just a suburb of that
town effectively, and everyone there works in a town were
or works in something not related.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
To the countryside. The few people that do still work
in the.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
Countryside haven't got enough crystical mass now to actually sway
that vote. And it's absolutely all of this cultural change
and all of these changes in the last twenty years
have to be acknowledged in terms of sort of the
demographic of where people live.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
It was at two thousand and two you said, yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
I startedly like, what has changed then for you in
that twenty three year period.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Is there anything you've changed your mind on or is
anything that you've changed?
Speaker 4 (24:59):
Oh?
Speaker 5 (24:59):
Yes, I mean we all grow up eventually, don't taste.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
Tell me when I've got to do it.
Speaker 5 (25:07):
Honestly, it is the bit, and it's the bit.
Speaker 4 (25:08):
You know, I'm slightly repeating myself, but I think it's
worth it because I want to emphasize this is that
actually most of the outcomes, whether it's in the perception
of you and the political outcomes, come from what you
do yourself. You know, it's fundamentally about us. And you know,
I love nothing more than digging up on the juicy
(25:29):
stories and slapping them all over the newspapers and having
a real pop at our opponents or the.
Speaker 5 (25:33):
Rest of it.
Speaker 4 (25:33):
But in the end, you know, the big issue is
how you are perceived, and if you talk to any
big you know, I've been working with a couple of
quite hypowery are people who who just offered some help
around some of our issues and the big corporate boys
and they're doing the rest of it. And the message
is exactly that, you know, whether it's to the CEO
of a of a massive oil firm or whether it's us,
(25:56):
it's the same is you will be judged on what
you are and what you do.
Speaker 5 (26:01):
And that's that's where it starts.
Speaker 4 (26:03):
And of course you know when you when you, when you,
when you when you've sorted your issues out, when you
when you have something to sell, you've got to be
able to sell it and stick it in the newspapers
and communicate with politicians and the rest of it. But if
you haven't got that in the first place, if you
haven't got something to sell, then then you're in Yeah,
then you're in lots of trouble. And as culture changes,
(26:24):
and it does, the world is changing all the time.
It's not just it has changed the last twenty years.
It continues to we have to change with it. An
example I use which I think many people on the
listening will will understand, it's a grand national You know,
I'm my brother and you wouldn't believe this looking at me.
My brother was different shape to me, and it's quite
(26:45):
decent jockey he was. He was placed in a couple
of Grand Nationals. But you know he would say when
he when he rode in it. In the nineties, you know,
the you know, the Beaches Brook was a great lump
of spruce and there was a bloody great drop at
the end of it. That we went through a period
where and you know, we need to be honest about this,
horses were dying in front of massive national television audiences
(27:09):
for our pleasure and to many many people that was
becoming unacceptable.
Speaker 5 (27:17):
And the race has changed fundamentally now and some.
Speaker 4 (27:19):
People, you know, in racing can be an older element
think that it's not the same as it was, and
it isn't the same as it was. But by changing,
by keeping within the limits of what the public think
is acceptable, that race will will continue and it will
be able to continue, and we have to accept that
as well to certainly step you know that we I
think we'll be shooting I'm really positive. I'm a massive
(27:40):
optimist about the future. I think we'll be shooting pheasants
in twenty thirty every time for the last twenty years.
Every time I ever go to shoot, someone will tell
me we won't be doing this in twenty years, again
and again. Shoot lunch philosophy, I call it. There's a
lot of that, but that twenty years has never moved.
It was all going on twenty years. I think we'll
be shooting twenty years, thirty or forty. I think my
(28:01):
grandchildren will be.
Speaker 5 (28:03):
Will be duty for ages.
Speaker 4 (28:05):
But we probably will be doing it different. You know,
in a couple of years time, in twenty twenty nine,
we'll be doing it. I'll do it, We'll steal already,
but everyone will be doing it. We'll still instead of left.
Speaker 5 (28:12):
Is that the end of the world? No, of course
it isn't.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
So using that grand National metaphor, and I'm going to
steal Richard's brilliant question just because I like the sound
of my own voice.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Oh yeah, take it, take it. I don't need I
don't need it. You have it.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
So where's the hidden threat? So, like I say, the
obvious one was the Grand National grouse, We've got this one,
which is being overt now with the proposed changes to
firearms licensing shotguns. Sertifficates what's the hidden one. What's the
thing you're thinking, Oh my god, Actually this is something
(28:48):
that could rear its head. So let's say, okay, here's
a hypothetical question. Four years time labor those one hundred
and eighty two seats they've got in rural area, is
they've gone. We've suddenly got a completely different complexion of government.
It's not a reform majority. We've got a load of coalitions.
(29:09):
What's the thing that happens when you lose that establishment
figures in government? What's the big threats that you see
for the countryside, for our ways of life with what
is probably going to be the outcome and the next
election is a load of rather peculiar coalitions going off.
Speaker 5 (29:27):
Are you're very brave making political predictions? Wellstic Rich.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
I gave off on that a long time ago. We
tend to prepare rather predict. But look, if we get
to that situation, if politics continues to become slightly chaotic,
we can get to where we went. And look, this
happened in the last government. And I have some spectacular
spats with the last government and those some will have
heard me on the Animal Welfare Sentience Act, which is
(29:55):
one of the worst and most pointleous pieces of legislation
you could ever imagine. It creates a statutory power for
a animal welf World Animal Welfare Committee, an animal welfare
committee which can call ministers to answer, and ministers from
any department to ensure that they have considered the welfare
of animals when they are giving permission for a bypass
(30:18):
on a road, or building a nuclear power station or
doing whatever it is.
Speaker 5 (30:22):
By the way, rural people.
Speaker 4 (30:24):
Don't have any committee with any powers at all. They'llane
statutory powers to which is worried about. Yeah, the impact
on us, but the animals do. It was pointless, it
was virtue signaling.
Speaker 5 (30:34):
It was nonsense.
Speaker 4 (30:35):
And when politics becomes about populism, that is the real
danger that just people will think that they're playing to
a crowd and you don't like grouse shooting, so you
can have it, you know, or whatever it is. And
we're not interested in evidence where they ender scientific basis.
And that's a real concern and it's not a left
right point. As I say, the last government was very
susceptible to it. The Zach Goldsmith carry Johnson and the
(31:00):
operation in Dethra causes considerable truckle and you know I
mentioned earlier some bills are never going forward, but there
was a it was a challenging time, franctly, a really
challenging time.
Speaker 5 (31:12):
So that is a threat.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
The other really big issue for shooting in particular, but
wildlife management more generally and how enangy country is the
Wildlife and Countryside Act nineteen eighty one, which essentially is
the foundation of all legislature for querry lists to your
general licenses, whatever you're doing, whatever you're shooting, trapping, however
(31:35):
you're doing it, whatever you're doing. That is that that
comes out of the eighty one Act. And by I
said nature the eighty one Act is now probably outdated.
There have been moves and the RSPCA is now pushing
very hard behind the scenes to have that review. It'll
be a long process, but once that process is started,
(31:55):
there's a thing called a law Commission which looks at it.
Then you produce a white paper. There'll be a comation
once that process is underway. Even if if if one
government falls and another one comes in, Yeah, there is
still a potential that that could go badly awry. So
that's the one we are watching in the long term
because that probably whilst as I say, I've remain massively
(32:16):
optimistic and will still be shooting.
Speaker 5 (32:17):
That's the one that's the biggest.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Threat to us. Well.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
Another thing that's changed over that twenty years as well
is or twenty plus years. It's social media and the
Internet and the ability to not just access information but
share information. I mean, we're this podcast is three and
a half idiots. We're not funded in by anyone other
than our patrons, and we aren't we aren't hitting a
party line anywhere, are we or anything like that, But
(32:42):
we've been able to become.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
Britain's most popular rural podcast.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
Yes, accidentally relevant. I think somebody called us.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
An in career accidentally relevant.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
So that must have an effect as well with that messaging.
Because the MPs read social media. They there because their
their advisors do, and their spans do and all and
their teams. They are on Twitter and they see all
they see all sorts of things and they see what
is shared by everyone. Now has that access to information,
(33:13):
both in sharing and receiving.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Has that changed the battlefield?
Speaker 5 (33:18):
Do you think? Oh? Yeah, fundamentally. And I know I've.
Speaker 4 (33:24):
Talked a lot in the past about the fact that
you know when when we was growing up, when we
were boys. You know, every pub had a couple of
village idiots in the corner and always.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
Have a podcast.
Speaker 4 (33:33):
Now I was just going to say present company. But
now those those idiots can come together, you know that
from every pub in the country, and you know they
can put pressure on they can they can sign petitions
like why were we why was there a debate in
parliament about grouse? You know we started talking about is
because mister pack And can persuade one hundred thousand people,
(33:55):
but click a button on the on the iPads or
whatever that that that's the reason.
Speaker 5 (33:59):
So yeah, it becomes hugely important.
Speaker 4 (34:01):
But even the way you use it has evolved and
is evolving so rapidly, the way we use it politically,
I mean, Twitter is still a useful tool in terms
of moving journalistic and political engagement. There was a time
when it was critically ten years ago. It was probably
the most if you were all over a story because
(34:23):
every journalist and every politician was on so you could
you could tis to it. It's now becoming much more diverse,
you know, you know, there's so many more sources. But
we talked about populism and the challenge of populism for minorities,
and that's you know, social media in the end is
the ultimate driver of populism. We have the sort of
populist politics we have at the moment because of social media.
(34:44):
You know that, you know, it is a it is
a result of that development, because you know, in thirty
years ago, a politician would perhaps on a focus group
or two, look at their mailbox and a few cranks
writing them letters, but they weren't really Now, you know,
first thing you do in the morning look at their phone,
and it's like a polling group every day. You know,
(35:05):
it's in their face, and so you know, to fight that,
to stand up against what is perceived to be the
majority of view, I'd say, no, I'm taking a different position.
It's a really really challenging thing for politicians now. Whereas
it was, you know, it was relatively easier, especially easier,
especially you have a logical argument behind you.
Speaker 5 (35:22):
Yeah, so, yeah, it is.
Speaker 4 (35:24):
And I suppose the bit that goes with that is
that even in the in the depths of the most
bitter political battles there were the politics and government twenty
years ago, they did feel they had to have an
evidential and logical basis for legislation. So many people forget this.
(35:47):
But in two thousand and two, when the Labor government
published their hunting Bill, which became the Hunting app was
binging a hunting band. It wasn't a bill to ban hunting.
It was about to license hunting because despite the fact
that the knew the vast majority of Labor MPs wanted
to ban it, they didn't feel they had the evidence
later do it.
Speaker 5 (36:03):
Now that just would have happened.
Speaker 4 (36:04):
They would have just brought forward the ban in the
first place and save four years of bitter parliamentary battles
because you don't feel you have the need to have
evidence because actually what's the evidence you need is what
you see in social media, what your groups are telling you,
and not the rest of it, because that's all you're
reacting to.
Speaker 5 (36:20):
So that's hugely dangerous territory for us.
Speaker 4 (36:23):
But only emphasizers for me that point about public public
acceptance and social license, This idea that whatever we do,
however we do it, we have to have social license.
I the public have got to accept that.
Speaker 5 (36:35):
It's a reasonable and justifiable action.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
That we're taking. It's a very interesting point, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
Governed off the strength of whether someone likes it or
not on social media is a very peculiar way of
running a country, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
I think we've been there for a little while now.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
Yeah, we've gone beyond the focus group to them.
Speaker 5 (36:56):
But the way that you put that across it does sort.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
Of actually go, oh my lam, this is tener.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
So that in mind then, I mean, we've all got
phones and between there's different social media accounts, and most
people listening to this will be what advice, then, could
you give to people about how they present this to
the world. What should people have in mind when it
puts off on social media about what they're doing?
Speaker 2 (37:22):
Or that's a very good question, and I'll tell you
mine because I reckon I was asked every year to
write that article. How will you use social media properly?
So you've actually done it right? Because Paka mad his
head in his hands the.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
Other day, you should have a pirate flag above you
from him out of Unick.
Speaker 5 (37:42):
How do you do it well?
Speaker 4 (37:45):
The most dangerous dangerous words they're ever said to me
are usually everyone I know thinks, because the parts of
the problem we have in our community is that everyone
I know is everyone. You were at school with everyone,
you shoot with everyone, you play cricket it and I yeah,
before I did this job, Yeah, before I worked for
the Alliance, I farmed in a small village in Devon,
(38:07):
you know, and everyone and I know thought exactly the
same as as I did. I suppose the best advice
is to do what I do most mornings is get
on the tube from Tottenham hail to to to Vauxhall
and look around you in the carriage and think about
how those people would view that post you put up,
how those people would take the message that you got across.
(38:31):
Coming back to this point about you know, the public
attitude and social media, and the fact is that most
people do share our values about so many things. People
love the countryside, you know, they're really positive about it.
They love dogs, they love wildlife.
Speaker 5 (38:44):
We do.
Speaker 4 (38:45):
They have struggle hugely and I understand this because I philosophically.
It's quite difficult ourselves, isn't it the fact that we
love to hunt the thing, to hunt the thing we love,
and it is you know, we've sat and watched those
pink foot of geese.
Speaker 5 (38:59):
Wee ar Tilliard all them. You know.
Speaker 4 (39:01):
I'm obsessive about my World Cup shooting. Absolutely love it.
But I'm obsessed with about woodcock and I love them
and how do you know? That is a really challenging
thing to explain. But there's so much of what we
do which isn't actually that challenging.
Speaker 5 (39:13):
Because because there's a shared.
Speaker 4 (39:16):
Love of the countryside, of working dogs, of animals, of
the wildlife and everything else. And so think it through
like that, think about the values we share, the stuff
we all agree on, and there is plenty of that.
We run a conference every we have done for the
last three years called Future Countryside And some people get
(39:36):
a bit up set because we don't discuss duty hunting,
wildlife management particularly. They might pop up from time to time,
but we have everyone in that building, from the RSPB,
the Wildlife Trusts all the way through the.
Speaker 5 (39:48):
NFU and the rest of it.
Speaker 4 (39:49):
And the purpose is to try to bring people together
around our shared love of the countryside and what it.
Speaker 5 (39:57):
Is we can we agree on and therefore ract together.
Speaker 4 (40:02):
And in its little way, my carriage on the tube
line in the morning is a version of that. And
so so yeah, make your arguments on the basis whether
it's all social media as well, make your arguments on
the basis that you're preaching to the widest possible choir,
not to everyone that you know.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
Right well, on that note, I think we ought to
let Tim go because I think there's a shadow Minister
of State who's desperately wanting to speak to him because
he's dead important. He may be wanting to speak to me.
I don't know our our next guest actually, so anyway, Tim,
thank you so much for joining us on Country Slide.
It made a lovely change to have a third person
who's coherent, knows what they're talking about. And Callum I
(40:45):
don't know where he is, but I'm I.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
Gave him the wrong direction.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
Anyway, Timon, thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
Thank you very much,
It's warm today.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
It is warm today, and you know I noticed the
beads of perspiration and appearing on.
Speaker 3 (00:07):
Your from Wales on the west coast. I shouldn't be
in the Midlands. It's too hot.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
It's beautiful here at the game. Affair, isn't it riche
it is?
Speaker 3 (00:18):
It's even better now that we have a very very
interesting and good person across the other side of the
table from us, a proper guest.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
I call it a.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Proper person who's actually better at this than we are. Yes, so,
Country Slide.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Loyal listeners do give at home a round of applause
to our guest, Tim Bonner from the countryside of Lands.
Welcome to Country Slide, Tim, good morning.
Speaker 4 (00:44):
And welcome to the countryside alants stand at the game.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
It's a very nicely laid out stand a part of
the carpet.
Speaker 5 (00:50):
They love this orange.
Speaker 4 (00:52):
I'm not sure it's I think it's very lucky you
I've listeners, not viewers. There might be eyeballs burnt up now.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
It reminds me of sort of a Trains North Wales
in about the mid nineties. It's that same sort of
hangover inducing color of orange.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
I've just had to put my sunglasses on because of
the it is. I look, you can be honest. What
you did was you got this is a job locked,
didn't you? You went to Luton said easy Jet got any
spare off cuts Jet Orange, easy Jet Orange.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
I thought we might be trying to match it to
some of our members. Trousers a weird visual thing where
it looks as though there was only half of them.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yes, yeah, do you know that's That's one of my
highlights of being here. And it's slightly downside of of
the weather we're enjoying, because all I'm seeing are pale
legs in shorts. Going by the number of puce Terra
Cotta or Countryside Alliance slash. Easy Jet Orange trousers is
(01:51):
actually quite missing today.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Perhaps we'll get that on Saturday. Who knows. No, there's
some interesting fashion choices. I mean there always are at
the game fair.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
You can just sit at any standing for ten minutes
and see things that you would never see normally.
Speaker 4 (02:04):
Yeah, I think probably if you want a guest to
talk about fashion, you might have the wrong one. Yeah,
I might say your presenters aren't spot on either.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
I'm dressed and most of it is clean. I don't know.
What else you want from Yeah, for.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
The viewers at home, Tim is wearing a rah raskirt,
which is interesting. But anyway, so we didn't get Tim
to talk about fashion. This is very, very true. So
let's think. So we've had a bit of a time
of trial just of late, and this isn't going to
be like I usually make countries slide into an assassination
(02:40):
of the current government. But let's think of some of
the successes. And I think most recently, Tim the debate
about grouse shooting now taught me through that because you
were in an absolute important and integral cog in getting
that success told me through it.
Speaker 4 (03:02):
I think there's probably three things that we need to
talk about in relation to that. The first is partnership,
and we have a constant debate in the shooting sector.
And the conside lance isn't a shooting organization. We obviously
have a very broad rural agenda, but we are absolutely
committed to shooting as an activity. But there's always talk
(03:22):
about how too many organizations, too many of there's too
many of that.
Speaker 5 (03:25):
Actually, what the point proved there.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
Is that we all have our role and actually we
coordinate extremely well together. I always say the alliance. We
just there's no way.
Speaker 5 (03:34):
We could do our job without the research.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
For instance that the Game Conservancy does.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
You know our briefs and literally reference Game Conservacy sides
from start to finish. And when we're talking to people
equally bask as a membership which it can motivate, which
and to lobby, to lobby MPs, so we all have
our role to play. The second thing, which I think
is critically important, and as I get older and even
more boring comes a central part of my work and
(04:02):
my life is that we have to understand as a community,
and talking about the shooting community here how people perceive us.
And ten fifteen years ago, the perception was that Upland
shooting was based around illegality and especially the persecution and
legal persecution of raptors. That was a commonly held position
(04:25):
and organizations like the RSPB were completely justified. Let's be
honest in pointing out that in twenty thirteen there was
not a single success. There was another single nesting hen
harrier in England, not one, and we know in part
why that was. We need to be very honest about that.
(04:46):
There were some tough conversations internally, there was a need
for culture change, and there was culture change. Ten years later,
in twenty twenty three, there were over fifty hen harry
Inness one hundred and forty one fledged hen Harriers that
gave us, gave us permission to speak for the uplands
in the upland community was able to make its case.
It was able to make its critical case around the
(05:09):
social it's social important of the uplands, it's economic importance
to the uplands.
Speaker 5 (05:14):
That would not have happened.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
They would not have had permission to do that if
they were still assumed that everyone was operating illegally. So
we need to understand that we need to look at ourselves.
The third bit, I'm afraid is slightly less good news
in that, Yes, the brilliant operation. We know how politics works,
we know how parliament works, we have the science, we
(05:35):
have the evidence, we work in the coordinated way. But
I'm afraid, yeah, and that debate was a you know,
it was a rollover, and the joy of mister Packham
with his head in his hands would have would have
spread across the country, well our bit of the country anyway.
But I'm afraid if we had a vote tomorrow, a
free vote on the floor of the House of Commons
on banning grouse shooting. There would be a ban on
(05:56):
ground shooting, and that's a political reality we need to understand, Okay.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
So in other words, the prejudice will win over the
because it wasn't just a sort of a load of
old Tories going and saying no, we want to keep this.
You had cross party support, didn't you for in the debate?
Speaker 4 (06:16):
Yeah, absolutely, but there are there were the vast majority
of labor and peace and there are a lot of
labor and ps. It's difficult to keep up because Kirstama
keeps sacking them. But there were four hundred and three.
I think we're down a three hundred ninety eight to
eight TOG. But the vast majority of them wouldn't even
know that debate was taking place. Urban constituencies, they've got
(06:37):
a basic prejudice against landownership, against against the field sports
of any kind, against killing for fun, which is the
vasers used.
Speaker 5 (06:45):
And they if you.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
Gave them a free vote and there wasn't a government policy,
they would go through and they would vote to back.
Speaker 5 (06:50):
They vote to eng grouse shooting, I can guarantee it.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
So leading on from that then and then I'm sorry
to stick on with shooting because, like you said, you
are not a shooting organization. But therefore we've got another
potential and worrying issue coming up is the proposed changes in.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Legislation to.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Shotgun certification, so that therefore they were roughly they want
to try and bring that in line with firearms, if
I understand it correctly.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
So can you tolll me through that?
Speaker 2 (07:20):
And with your observation that we've got a labor aggressive
we who don't like in inverting on was killing fun,
that surely could be really quite dark times for us.
So could you talk us through that a bit more?
Speaker 5 (07:35):
Yes, I think it's worth just going back to the
beginning of.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
This current cycle, which started with a horrific shooting in
Kisham in twenty twenty three, where an individual who should
never have had a shotgun sertificate in the first place,
but had been issued one by Deviden Cornel police. He
had that shotgun stificate taken away while he was investigated
for assault. He was cautioned and then unbelievably Nicole police
(08:00):
gave him that shotgun back again and he subsequently killed
five people and himself. And there is obviously a massive
public concern about that this and the local MP Loop
Pollard is now a minister in Ministry of Defense, but
he has been driving a campaign around around the certification
of shotgun and licensing of shotgun the ownership of shotguns
(08:23):
ever since.
Speaker 5 (08:25):
To us, it's.
Speaker 4 (08:26):
Absolutely obvious that the problem in that case and in
most others that come up, is not the fact that
it is possible to own the shotgun. It's the fact
that the licensing system is utterly unfit for the twenty
first century. We have forty three separate licensing authorities in
the UK.
Speaker 5 (08:43):
Is this madness.
Speaker 4 (08:44):
It's absolutely imagine having to go to your local police
to get a license to drive the car. It just
this wouldn't happen. We know that the databases, the tech
is absolutely useless.
Speaker 5 (08:54):
You know, some.
Speaker 4 (08:57):
Individual licensing departments are better than others are appalling and
the obvious answer to us has been for some times,
we need a single licensing a proper single licensing body,
and that is where the government should be focusing. But unfortunately,
the pressure around shotguns in particular becoming out of caution
means that the government has committed to consulting on aligning
(09:21):
shotguns with Section one FIM. So we know that loads
of us who have a Section one farm know what
that means. The additional complication I mean, to make this
even madder, the forty three licensing bodies are currently struggling
to keep the head above water. If you ask them
to license every shotgun in the same way as a
far on, the whole system will just clap.
Speaker 5 (09:40):
So it is big stuff.
Speaker 4 (09:41):
And what worries me most about this coming from our position.
Speaker 5 (09:46):
We're a charity.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
We campaign for.
Speaker 4 (09:49):
Economic, environmental and social sustainability in the countryside. We know
how much money goes into the countryside from shooting, and
you would be by licensing shotguns section one, you would
be creating a huge barrier to entry to the entire sector,
to the tire industry. You know, people will go and
play golf instead if it becomes too complicated to get
a shotgun certificate a license. And that we think it's
(10:12):
a sort of it's a fundamental quite existential threat because
once that happens, shooting becomes more exclusive and so fewer
people do it, and it comes under more political pressure
and you get a cycle which leads towards potentially, you know,
a prohibition and that sort of thing.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
Yeah, this was a conversation I'm having quite often, and
it's a different corners that when you look at those statistics,
as we talked about in our most recent episode, the.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Numbers the age average age of a.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Shotgun certificate holder and fire a certificate holder in the
UK is above middle age and over sixty percent. I
think if shotgun certificate holders are over the age of fifty.
When you look at that and you look at the
difficulty of renewing and that all of the problems we
just described, there's the onward effect into the economy from
(11:03):
those things, because how many shotgun certificate holders do you
need an in an area to keep an RFD going,
to keep a firearms dealer going. So we have four
or five in North Wales where I am, and I
know that none of them are coining it in. They're
all not quite on the line, but they all have
to work hard to make sure this day above water.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
These are all of.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
The second order effects that don't seem to be noticed
when it comes to policy, and sort of the inverse
of that is when if you're a member of the public,
or if you're part of the rural community, the shooting
community or even in the anti community and you're on
the other side, campaigning on the other side. It's very
easy to look at social media and see what's going
(11:47):
on there and think that is the entire conversation. But
as the three of us sat around this table know,
from greater or lesser involvement, there's a whole parallel set
of conversations that happen away from the public eye, which
are often one on one where you are talking to policymakers,
You are talking to these government departments.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
You are talking to.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
People who have a real they have the final say
and a lot of these decisions or at least where
they go to next. And I know a lot of
the effort had went into that for Grouse from which
wasn't always apparent to the public. And I know there
are things that went on just nothing untowards We're just
meetings behind closed doors.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Of this is what happens.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
Take you to meet these people, take you to meet
people who work in these areas, and take you to
meet the ecologists. Is that one of the challenges of
running an organization like the Countryside Alliance you have to
have such a loud public presence, and also the social
media and the top line that everyone sees. But there's
a lot of work behind the scenes that you can't
talk about.
Speaker 5 (12:45):
Oh, a huge amount.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
And I have one rule about the Country Alliance's office
and it has to be in walking distance to Westminster.
We are our offices just across the river. You know,
it takes me ten minutes to walk to Westminster, and
I spend a lot of time there, as as do
many of my team talking to MPs, talking to ministers,
talking to researchers are working for MPs. Yeah, there's a
(13:08):
whole network, there's a whole infrastructure which you have to
be engaged with. You have to be enabled if you're
going to get that message across and yes, some of it,
some of it. Frankly, I have to ask people to
take on trust. You know that that's the job we do.
You know, our membership, our support or wider support bases.
You know, they're incredibly positive. I mean, I'm you know,
(13:29):
we are so lucky, and I hope that we're able
to in broad terms explain our work and how we
do that. But there is a level of trust. As
I say about the fact that there are lots of things,
lots of conversations we have that we can't discuss now.
I can tell you about when we turn the microphone off,
about about several pieces of legislation and the last government
which which never even made it over the line because
(13:52):
of the work we did, but I can't. You know,
that's not stuff that you can publicly boast about or
shout about.
Speaker 5 (13:57):
But that engagement is it's it's critical.
Speaker 4 (14:01):
And it goes back to this point about working together
and how different organisms. I think when I join the Alliance,
I'm very old, and I joined as a very little
press officer. I joined as a press officer in two
thousand and two. Some people will have been who are
very old as well, would have been on the Liberty
and Livelihood March in two thousand and two. Yeah yeah,
(14:24):
Now if we march, we do only have a zimmer
frame and all that sort of thing. I joined for
six weeks to help out in the press office.
Speaker 5 (14:30):
Before that.
Speaker 4 (14:31):
I'm still here, sadly, and in that time, you know,
we have gone for a place where too many organizations
we're trying to fight over the same territory and doing
far too much.
Speaker 5 (14:42):
To having a situation.
Speaker 4 (14:44):
Now we have an organization called m to Sustain where
we meet on a regular basis, all of us who
have been interesting in game shooting, in particularly is we
have other groups on far Arms or the Bridge Shooting
Sport Council on game shooting.
Speaker 5 (14:55):
We have that and we are you.
Speaker 4 (14:57):
Know, we fit like a jigsaw. We're doing different things
and we do them all well. We can't, you know,
we can't really operate without as effectively without each other.
Coming back to the lessons to the Grouse debate, but also,
and again I come back to be really boring again
about the message we send to our own community. We
are because we stand shoulder to shoulder and we're not
looking to take chunks out of each other on tough
(15:19):
stuff like, for instance, our approach to Laed ammunition, where
by the way, we were absolutely right to do what
we did five years ago, and we would be in
the sector, would be in real trouble if.
Speaker 5 (15:30):
We hadn't done that.
Speaker 4 (15:30):
Now we we will be able to face our own
community sometimes and say, actually, some of you might a
lot like this, but we've got to get real because
pr and the big the big game is about the
perception of you, as we said, and if you don't
do the right things in the right way, then the
perception of you will mean politicians are unwilling to listen
(15:52):
and unwilling to.
Speaker 5 (15:52):
Take your side.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
Do you think it's a case sort to continue that
point then that sometimes people don't like what they see
is the outcome, because if that's like lead, that's the
first thing they saw, the announcement what two weeks ago,
the full fire, the flan announcement. But that's not news
to anyone who's been paying attention. But if you saw
that and that was the first you had heard of it,
it might sound like this is all change and you
(16:16):
didn't want that without But I think it doesn't always
come across that that was actually the best outcome that
could have existed. There were lots of other worse outcomes
that were avoided, and a lot of work went into
avoiding them.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
Yeah, and change, change, especially in culturally conservative communities, Change
is a really difficult thing and people don't like it.
Speaker 5 (16:40):
I've been really interested in how little.
Speaker 4 (16:42):
Direct direct communication I've had from people as a result
of that announcement. When we five years ago, our years
ago said that we wanted everyone to move away in
five years, there was a section a noisy set, but
it was at new section.
Speaker 5 (17:01):
Of our community who thought this was the end of
the world.
Speaker 4 (17:04):
Everything's got a wholly different reaction now and even those,
even most of those who were critical back in the day,
have had to accept the reality. This is going to happen.
Let's accept reality, Let's move forward, Let's find a way through.
Whatever it is, whatever the activity, we need to save
the best. And you know, cutting your throat, dying in
(17:27):
a ditch over things that aren't frankly important to the end,
and the grand scheme of things is foolish politics.
Speaker 5 (17:33):
It's about strategy. Yeah, I couldn't agree more.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
We had quite early doors of the podcast, we had
Leon Challon Davison as a guest and he gave the
best piece of advocacy and if I ever.
Speaker 5 (17:44):
Hear anyone still these days saying oh yes.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
But you know, lead, we really need it, and the
various old trope, and he go and said, well do
you think we need to sell game? And they go, well, yes,
of course we do, and then I just lead them
to that interview that we did with Leon, and that
interview with Leon very clearly said that you know, he
took some of the biggest meat buyers in the UK
(18:07):
off and said, let's go and look at this, and
they went, yes.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
We'll buy all the pheasants you can shoot. Go on,
we'll do it.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
And he went boom, and then they said back and
they put them through their little machine and they couldn't
find the shot out and they said, we can't take them.
So therefore, the sustainability, and I'm big into sustainability, the
sustainability of game shooting in this country was just hole
beneath the waterline more or less immediately, because the machine
(18:34):
that can find steel can find alloy, couldn't find lead.
So therefore they couldn't take it, and they couldn't put
it into their pies. They couldn't put it into their
ready meals, so they didn't take it. And so therefore
that is as far as I'm concerned the end of
the day, because we shoot, because you know, you and
I have stood together in a high shooting pinks. Admittedly
(18:55):
you shot more than I did. Yeah, well, you know
I was just letting you because you were my guest.
I thought, you know, I'm just going to miss that time. No, no, no,
I was just waxing lyrical and looking up at the
rise of the sun and trying to think what metaphor
I could use for that?
Speaker 5 (19:11):
And although Tim was very.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Rude about my dog, you know, he said, why haven't
you got a proper gun dog with you? And how
stunned he was as my little cocker spaniel kept coming
back with all these.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
Pinks his tell you what, she's got some struggled neck
muscles other day.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
But anyway, I think back back at the room, I
think it's something whereby you know, I've always thought when
you've got a large majority in front of you from labor,
where you're going to have however strong your advocacy is,
and say you, yeah, okay, we won the day with
grouse right, great, you had cross party support in there.
(19:52):
But you say, well, actually, if it came to a
free vote on something as probably the shotgun licensing changes
will come to a free vote, do you almost think, well,
what's the point of lobbying because these guys are just
going to vote with their vitriol and preconception rather than
(20:14):
however much great advocacy and science and facts that you've
put in front of them, all gleaned from the various
organizations will have around us today, do you almost go
and what's the point in this case when you've got
three hundred and whatever it is the majority from labor.
Speaker 4 (20:29):
Importantly, any fireums and legislation wouldn't be a free vote.
Free votes are incredibly rare, and not incredibly they're very rare.
They tend to be on conscience issues. So abortion, we've
had a recent vote, the right to life, the life
and for reasons that somewhere lost in the midst of time.
Speaker 5 (20:45):
Hunting always a free vale issue. But you know, so
what's crucially important at the moment, and.
Speaker 4 (20:52):
This is this is about understanding a political process and
the work we do day to day is that governments
go in to a legilative process knowing what they want
to do. In the first place, they have to have
a consultation for legal for legal reasons. If they don't
consult then you can take a judiciary review and have
a populum. But they know perfectly well what they want
to get out of that consultation and what they are
(21:14):
going to get out of it. So the policy development
happens before anything sort of hits the public. So the
pressure you need to apply. So the work we're doing
at the moment on far arms, for instance, we're talking
about that is to work up the case and through
using ex police officers who are expert in this field,
work up the case for an alternative single licensing system
(21:34):
to pressure the government into a place where it can't
not consult on that as part of its consultation. And
then we'll be encouraging people to respond positively to that.
And so we've got an answer on the table at
the moment. You haven't got that. You haven't got that
answer because you know, they're just they've got one policy
which they're pushing, which is alignment with Section one, which
would caused absolute carnage, be a nightmare for the shooting lot.
(21:56):
You've got to give an alternative. Again, just don't just
say no. Just saying no is a route to political disaster.
You've got to solve the politician's problems for them.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
And if you just say no and just stand off
from the subject, someone else on the other side will
come in and make a better argument for you. You
can't detach from the process.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
Yeah, and gun ownership is like you know, we were
talked about action the gunnership and I use this and
I use this discaching quite a lot when talking to
our people about practically everyone you know will have a
shotgun license, or someone in the household will have a
we'll have a shotgun certificate. Ninety five percent of labor
(22:41):
MPs will know nobody who.
Speaker 5 (22:44):
Has a shotgun sticker.
Speaker 4 (22:45):
That's the reality. It is just not part of their world.
And most of them aren't bad people. You know, I've
been meeting when we've got it's quite scary. We've got
on our database one hundred and thirty two new labor
nps with at least a rural element and their constituency.
And I'll working my way around as my team meeting
these people are.
Speaker 5 (23:03):
You're having initial discussions with.
Speaker 4 (23:05):
You know, some of it will be about shooting, but
you know, we obviously have a very broad agenda, which
is helpful when we're a lot of that aligned with
Labour's agenda, things like affordable housing in the countryside and
you know, making sure people can access public services. We'll
talk about the key key issues as well. And they're
not bad people, you know, they're they're perfectly reasonable people
and you might disagree with, you know, some of their
(23:26):
political views, but you know, fundamentally they don't want to
work anyone over their rest of it. There are some obviously,
but some of all parties, if we can make our
case sensibly reasonably, if we're decent people, and as I say,
you know, going back to other issues or the shots,
if we're if we have permission, if we're if the
perception of this isn't that we're all just breaking them
all or doing something that was really bad, then then
(23:46):
they will listen and the governments You're not going to
get itself into a massive mess over things it doesn't
have to if it's got another solution.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Now.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
I remember talking to one of the few Welsh Conservative
MPs in this basically that same conversation, and he was saying,
what you have to understand is that if you took
away every rural ward within his within his area and
just focus on the urban side, that would sway his
vote entirely basically in terms of him getting re elected.
(24:16):
The countryside does not matter because those towns are so
big now they've overlapped and brought in so many of
those little villages and now just a suburb of that
town effectively, and everyone there works in a town were
or works in something not related.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
To the countryside. The few people that do still work
in the.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
Countryside haven't got enough crystical mass now to actually sway
that vote. And it's absolutely all of this cultural change
and all of these changes in the last twenty years
have to be acknowledged in terms of sort of the
demographic of where people live.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
It was at two thousand and two you said, yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
I startedly like, what has changed then for you in
that twenty three year period.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Is there anything you've changed your mind on or is
anything that you've changed?
Speaker 4 (24:59):
Oh?
Speaker 5 (24:59):
Yes, I mean we all grow up eventually, don't taste.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
Tell me when I've got to do it.
Speaker 5 (25:07):
Honestly, it is the bit, and it's the bit.
Speaker 4 (25:08):
You know, I'm slightly repeating myself, but I think it's
worth it because I want to emphasize this is that
actually most of the outcomes, whether it's in the perception
of you and the political outcomes, come from what you
do yourself. You know, it's fundamentally about us. And you know,
I love nothing more than digging up on the juicy
(25:29):
stories and slapping them all over the newspapers and having
a real pop at our opponents or the.
Speaker 5 (25:33):
Rest of it.
Speaker 4 (25:33):
But in the end, you know, the big issue is
how you are perceived, and if you talk to any
big you know, I've been working with a couple of
quite hypowery are people who who just offered some help
around some of our issues and the big corporate boys
and they're doing the rest of it. And the message
is exactly that, you know, whether it's to the CEO
of a of a massive oil firm or whether it's us,
(25:56):
it's the same is you will be judged on what
you are and what you do.
Speaker 5 (26:01):
And that's that's where it starts.
Speaker 4 (26:03):
And of course you know when you when you, when you,
when you when you've sorted your issues out, when you
when you have something to sell, you've got to be
able to sell it and stick it in the newspapers
and communicate with politicians and the rest of it. But if
you haven't got that in the first place, if you
haven't got something to sell, then then you're in Yeah,
then you're in lots of trouble. And as culture changes,
(26:24):
and it does, the world is changing all the time.
It's not just it has changed the last twenty years.
It continues to we have to change with it. An
example I use which I think many people on the
listening will will understand, it's a grand national You know,
I'm my brother and you wouldn't believe this looking at me.
My brother was different shape to me, and it's quite
(26:45):
decent jockey he was. He was placed in a couple
of Grand Nationals. But you know he would say when
he when he rode in it. In the nineties, you know,
the you know, the Beaches Brook was a great lump
of spruce and there was a bloody great drop at
the end of it. That we went through a period
where and you know, we need to be honest about this,
horses were dying in front of massive national television audiences
(27:09):
for our pleasure and to many many people that was
becoming unacceptable.
Speaker 5 (27:17):
And the race has changed fundamentally now and some.
Speaker 4 (27:19):
People, you know, in racing can be an older element
think that it's not the same as it was, and
it isn't the same as it was. But by changing,
by keeping within the limits of what the public think
is acceptable, that race will will continue and it will
be able to continue, and we have to accept that
as well to certainly step you know that we I
think we'll be shooting I'm really positive. I'm a massive
(27:40):
optimist about the future. I think we'll be shooting pheasants
in twenty thirty every time for the last twenty years.
Every time I ever go to shoot, someone will tell
me we won't be doing this in twenty years, again
and again. Shoot lunch philosophy, I call it. There's a
lot of that, but that twenty years has never moved.
It was all going on twenty years. I think we'll
be shooting twenty years, thirty or forty. I think my
(28:01):
grandchildren will be.
Speaker 5 (28:03):
Will be duty for ages.
Speaker 4 (28:05):
But we probably will be doing it different. You know,
in a couple of years time, in twenty twenty nine,
we'll be doing it. I'll do it, We'll steal already,
but everyone will be doing it. We'll still instead of left.
Speaker 5 (28:12):
Is that the end of the world? No, of course
it isn't.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
So using that grand National metaphor, and I'm going to
steal Richard's brilliant question just because I like the sound
of my own voice.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Oh yeah, take it, take it. I don't need I
don't need it. You have it.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
So where's the hidden threat? So, like I say, the
obvious one was the Grand National grouse, We've got this one,
which is being overt now with the proposed changes to
firearms licensing shotguns. Sertifficates what's the hidden one. What's the
thing you're thinking, Oh my god, Actually this is something
(28:48):
that could rear its head. So let's say, okay, here's
a hypothetical question. Four years time labor those one hundred
and eighty two seats they've got in rural area, is
they've gone. We've suddenly got a completely different complexion of government.
It's not a reform majority. We've got a load of coalitions.
(29:09):
What's the thing that happens when you lose that establishment
figures in government? What's the big threats that you see
for the countryside, for our ways of life with what
is probably going to be the outcome and the next
election is a load of rather peculiar coalitions going off.
Speaker 5 (29:27):
Are you're very brave making political predictions? Wellstic Rich.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
I gave off on that a long time ago. We
tend to prepare rather predict. But look, if we get
to that situation, if politics continues to become slightly chaotic,
we can get to where we went. And look, this
happened in the last government. And I have some spectacular
spats with the last government and those some will have
heard me on the Animal Welfare Sentience Act, which is
(29:55):
one of the worst and most pointleous pieces of legislation
you could ever imagine. It creates a statutory power for
a animal welf World Animal Welfare Committee, an animal welfare
committee which can call ministers to answer, and ministers from
any department to ensure that they have considered the welfare
of animals when they are giving permission for a bypass
(30:18):
on a road, or building a nuclear power station or
doing whatever it is.
Speaker 5 (30:22):
By the way, rural people.
Speaker 4 (30:24):
Don't have any committee with any powers at all. They'llane
statutory powers to which is worried about. Yeah, the impact
on us, but the animals do. It was pointless, it
was virtue signaling.
Speaker 5 (30:34):
It was nonsense.
Speaker 4 (30:35):
And when politics becomes about populism, that is the real
danger that just people will think that they're playing to
a crowd and you don't like grouse shooting, so you
can have it, you know, or whatever it is. And
we're not interested in evidence where they ender scientific basis.
And that's a real concern and it's not a left
right point. As I say, the last government was very
susceptible to it. The Zach Goldsmith carry Johnson and the
(31:00):
operation in Dethra causes considerable truckle and you know I
mentioned earlier some bills are never going forward, but there
was a it was a challenging time, franctly, a really
challenging time.
Speaker 5 (31:12):
So that is a threat.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
The other really big issue for shooting in particular, but
wildlife management more generally and how enangy country is the
Wildlife and Countryside Act nineteen eighty one, which essentially is
the foundation of all legislature for querry lists to your
general licenses, whatever you're doing, whatever you're shooting, trapping, however
(31:35):
you're doing it, whatever you're doing. That is that that
comes out of the eighty one Act. And by I
said nature the eighty one Act is now probably outdated.
There have been moves and the RSPCA is now pushing
very hard behind the scenes to have that review. It'll
be a long process, but once that process is started,
(31:55):
there's a thing called a law Commission which looks at it.
Then you produce a white paper. There'll be a comation
once that process is underway. Even if if if one
government falls and another one comes in, Yeah, there is
still a potential that that could go badly awry. So
that's the one we are watching in the long term
because that probably whilst as I say, I've remain massively
(32:16):
optimistic and will still be shooting.
Speaker 5 (32:17):
That's the one that's the biggest.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Threat to us. Well.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
Another thing that's changed over that twenty years as well
is or twenty plus years. It's social media and the
Internet and the ability to not just access information but
share information. I mean, we're this podcast is three and
a half idiots. We're not funded in by anyone other
than our patrons, and we aren't we aren't hitting a
party line anywhere, are we or anything like that, But
(32:42):
we've been able to become.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
Britain's most popular rural podcast.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
Yes, accidentally relevant. I think somebody called us.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
An in career accidentally relevant.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
So that must have an effect as well with that messaging.
Because the MPs read social media. They there because their
their advisors do, and their spans do and all and
their teams. They are on Twitter and they see all
they see all sorts of things and they see what
is shared by everyone. Now has that access to information,
(33:13):
both in sharing and receiving.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Has that changed the battlefield?
Speaker 5 (33:18):
Do you think? Oh? Yeah, fundamentally. And I know I've.
Speaker 4 (33:24):
Talked a lot in the past about the fact that
you know when when we was growing up, when we
were boys. You know, every pub had a couple of
village idiots in the corner and always.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
Have a podcast.
Speaker 4 (33:33):
Now I was just going to say present company. But
now those those idiots can come together, you know that
from every pub in the country, and you know they
can put pressure on they can they can sign petitions
like why were we why was there a debate in
parliament about grouse? You know we started talking about is
because mister pack And can persuade one hundred thousand people,
(33:55):
but click a button on the on the iPads or
whatever that that that's the reason.
Speaker 5 (33:59):
So yeah, it becomes hugely important.
Speaker 4 (34:01):
But even the way you use it has evolved and
is evolving so rapidly, the way we use it politically,
I mean, Twitter is still a useful tool in terms
of moving journalistic and political engagement. There was a time
when it was critically ten years ago. It was probably
the most if you were all over a story because
(34:23):
every journalist and every politician was on so you could
you could tis to it. It's now becoming much more diverse,
you know, you know, there's so many more sources. But
we talked about populism and the challenge of populism for minorities,
and that's you know, social media in the end is
the ultimate driver of populism. We have the sort of
populist politics we have at the moment because of social media.
(34:44):
You know that, you know, it is a it is
a result of that development, because you know, in thirty
years ago, a politician would perhaps on a focus group
or two, look at their mailbox and a few cranks
writing them letters, but they weren't really Now, you know,
first thing you do in the morning look at their phone,
and it's like a polling group every day. You know,
(35:05):
it's in their face, and so you know, to fight that,
to stand up against what is perceived to be the
majority of view, I'd say, no, I'm taking a different position.
It's a really really challenging thing for politicians now. Whereas
it was, you know, it was relatively easier, especially easier,
especially you have a logical argument behind you.
Speaker 5 (35:22):
Yeah, so, yeah, it is.
Speaker 4 (35:24):
And I suppose the bit that goes with that is
that even in the in the depths of the most
bitter political battles there were the politics and government twenty
years ago, they did feel they had to have an
evidential and logical basis for legislation. So many people forget this.
(35:47):
But in two thousand and two, when the Labor government
published their hunting Bill, which became the Hunting app was
binging a hunting band. It wasn't a bill to ban hunting.
It was about to license hunting because despite the fact
that the knew the vast majority of Labor MPs wanted
to ban it, they didn't feel they had the evidence
later do it.
Speaker 5 (36:03):
Now that just would have happened.
Speaker 4 (36:04):
They would have just brought forward the ban in the
first place and save four years of bitter parliamentary battles
because you don't feel you have the need to have
evidence because actually what's the evidence you need is what
you see in social media, what your groups are telling you,
and not the rest of it, because that's all you're
reacting to.
Speaker 5 (36:20):
So that's hugely dangerous territory for us.
Speaker 4 (36:23):
But only emphasizers for me that point about public public
acceptance and social license, This idea that whatever we do,
however we do it, we have to have social license.
I the public have got to accept that.
Speaker 5 (36:35):
It's a reasonable and justifiable action.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
That we're taking. It's a very interesting point, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
Governed off the strength of whether someone likes it or
not on social media is a very peculiar way of
running a country, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
I think we've been there for a little while now.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
Yeah, we've gone beyond the focus group to them.
Speaker 5 (36:56):
But the way that you put that across it does sort.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
Of actually go, oh my lam, this is tener.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
So that in mind then, I mean, we've all got
phones and between there's different social media accounts, and most
people listening to this will be what advice, then, could
you give to people about how they present this to
the world. What should people have in mind when it
puts off on social media about what they're doing?
Speaker 2 (37:22):
Or that's a very good question, and I'll tell you
mine because I reckon I was asked every year to
write that article. How will you use social media properly?
So you've actually done it right? Because Paka mad his
head in his hands the.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
Other day, you should have a pirate flag above you
from him out of Unick.
Speaker 5 (37:42):
How do you do it well?
Speaker 4 (37:45):
The most dangerous dangerous words they're ever said to me
are usually everyone I know thinks, because the parts of
the problem we have in our community is that everyone
I know is everyone. You were at school with everyone,
you shoot with everyone, you play cricket it and I yeah,
before I did this job, Yeah, before I worked for
the Alliance, I farmed in a small village in Devon,
(38:07):
you know, and everyone and I know thought exactly the
same as as I did. I suppose the best advice
is to do what I do most mornings is get
on the tube from Tottenham hail to to to Vauxhall
and look around you in the carriage and think about
how those people would view that post you put up,
how those people would take the message that you got across.
(38:31):
Coming back to this point about you know, the public
attitude and social media, and the fact is that most
people do share our values about so many things. People
love the countryside, you know, they're really positive about it.
They love dogs, they love wildlife.
Speaker 5 (38:44):
We do.
Speaker 4 (38:45):
They have struggle hugely and I understand this because I philosophically.
It's quite difficult ourselves, isn't it the fact that we
love to hunt the thing, to hunt the thing we love,
and it is you know, we've sat and watched those
pink foot of geese.
Speaker 5 (38:59):
Wee ar Tilliard all them. You know.
Speaker 4 (39:01):
I'm obsessive about my World Cup shooting. Absolutely love it.
But I'm obsessed with about woodcock and I love them
and how do you know? That is a really challenging
thing to explain. But there's so much of what we
do which isn't actually that challenging.
Speaker 5 (39:13):
Because because there's a shared.
Speaker 4 (39:16):
Love of the countryside, of working dogs, of animals, of
the wildlife and everything else. And so think it through
like that, think about the values we share, the stuff
we all agree on, and there is plenty of that.
We run a conference every we have done for the
last three years called Future Countryside And some people get
(39:36):
a bit up set because we don't discuss duty hunting,
wildlife management particularly. They might pop up from time to time,
but we have everyone in that building, from the RSPB,
the Wildlife Trusts all the way through the.
Speaker 5 (39:48):
NFU and the rest of it.
Speaker 4 (39:49):
And the purpose is to try to bring people together
around our shared love of the countryside and what it.
Speaker 5 (39:57):
Is we can we agree on and therefore ract together.
Speaker 4 (40:02):
And in its little way, my carriage on the tube
line in the morning is a version of that. And
so so yeah, make your arguments on the basis whether
it's all social media as well, make your arguments on
the basis that you're preaching to the widest possible choir,
not to everyone that you know.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
Right well, on that note, I think we ought to
let Tim go because I think there's a shadow Minister
of State who's desperately wanting to speak to him because
he's dead important. He may be wanting to speak to me.
I don't know our our next guest actually, so anyway, Tim,
thank you so much for joining us on Country Slide.
It made a lovely change to have a third person
who's coherent, knows what they're talking about. And Callum I
(40:45):
don't know where he is, but I'm I.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
Gave him the wrong direction.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
Anyway, Timon, thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
Thank you very much,
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