The Badger Slaughter Continues...

It has been three days since the first 2014 bullet was fired at a British Badger. How many poor creatures have been murdered since then? Fifty? One Hundred? We will not know until the shooting ends in six weeks time. But we already know how many badgers should have been killed: None.

Since 2009 in Wales, where cattle control was chosen over badger culling, TB related cattle slaughter has fallen by more than half. In England, the government won't even hire back the independent experts that reviewed last years cull, after they so categorically described its failures.

Each time a bullet flies through the night, and a badger doesn't make it home, it isn't because our nation has failed badgers. It is because our government has failed us.

Badger cull expansion is abandoned

The government has abandoned its planned expansion of badger culling to reduce TB in cattle, according to a BBC report.

“The environment department’s original plan was to announce up to 10 new cull areas in South West England each year,” the report states.

Defra’s own independent assessment shows that culls in two pilot areas were not effective, and raised questions about their humaneness.

But it wasn’t all good news: “These pilot culls will continue, though there will be no independent oversight to assess their future performance".

In a Commons statement, the Environment Secretary Owen Paterson proposed a programme of vaccination around the edges of the most badly affected parts of the country. “This”, he said, “would create a buffer zone of immunity that would stop the disease from spreading.”

Wasn’t that what the experts wanted in the first place?

Hungry in Cameron's Cotswolds

In its drive for 'deficit reduction' at any cost Cameron's government has turned its back on the genuine cases of poverty, hardship and homelessness that blight our country. The number of persons depending on food banks has risen to staggering proportions, while this government stands idly by and cuts welfare payments, introduces the 'bedroom tax', tells individuals who are clearly unwell that they are fit for work and yet anticipates a 10% pay increase when other public sector workers are told to accept 1%.

This is supposed to be the season of goodwill to all men. I don't see much of that coming from Cameron and his cronies. This article from The Independent says it all:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/hungry-in-camerons-cotswolds-beyond-the-4x4s-and-classy-shops-of-the-pms-own-constituency-a-food-bank-is-alarmingly-busy-9020229.html