Execute the Lords - Independent Election Coverage

Execute the Lords – (reform that is).

By Kent Barker

            It’s a while since I sat in the Press Gallery looking down on the red leather benches of the House of Lords. But I doubt if much has changed. In fact, I doubt much has changed since Edward III--and he died in 1377. But it was in his reign that Parliament divided into two chambers--the Commons and the Lords.

            Today we are the only western industrialised country (other than Canada) with a wholly unelected upper chamber. And we call ourselves a democracy!

No wonder Russell Brand’s call to eschew voting found such a resonance. There’s precious little point if your vote has no effect on half your parliament. Actually it’s more than half because Britain’s upper chamber has 140 more members than the bloated Commons. Only two other countries have second chambers larger than their first - Kazakhstan and Burkina Faso. Which should tell you something.

Mind you it could be worse. And it was. Up until 1958, each member was there only by dint of being born into the aristocracy. Earlier in the century the Liberals didn’t like that much, since the inbuilt Conservative majority voted down their 1909 ‘People’s Budget’. So what did they do? Abolish the hereditary system? Create an elected chamber? Not a bit of it. They just curtailed their Lordships’ powers the following year, making it impossible for them to veto Commons legislation; just to delay it.

It was actually the Conservatives who made the most radical change by introducing life peers in the 1960s. Every Labour Government since has tried--and pretty much failed--to reform the Lords. Tony Blair had a go at getting rid of the hereditary peers and bottled it.  A rump of 92 was allowed to remain. (Why on earth 92?) Then, in 2008, a Commons vote amazingly backed a wholly elected upper chamber. A week later, the Lords responded by backing a wholly appointed one. And Labour simply dropped the hot potato.

Three years ago, Conservative backbenchers actually voted against their own Government’s reform Bill and so that was instantly abandoned.

What a shambles. Members of your 21^st century upper chamber are appointed by political patronage, cronyism or--it’s widely rumoured--hefty payments to party coffers. Everyone appears to agree that reform is required. Most seem to want an elected upper chamber. No-one seems to have the guts to push it through.

So when the parties’ manifestos are published here’s the commitment I believe you should look out for:

An upper chamber wholly elected by proportional representation on the popular vote/party list system.

            Critics of the ‘first past the post’ system have good arguments. Only 36% of people voted Conservative in 2010, yet we got a (largely) Conservative Government. Some 29% voted Labour and got nothing--except 258 opposition MPs. But nearly as great a proportion--23% of the electorate--voted Lib Dem and got just 57 members. That’s right: 29% gets you 258 seats; 23% can get you only 57.

            So let’s have our upper chamber of, say, a manageable 400 members, elected by popular vote. Concerned about regional representation? Well, have 100 elected from each of the regions, so Scottish, Northern Irish and Welsh parties would be properly represented.

OK, so how do you choose who is elected? Well, you take them from a party list. Labour proposes up to 400 names in descending order and, on the 2010 results, the first 116 (29% x 4) are elected. It means the party could choose old political hands, or experts in a particular field, or a trade unionist or two. The Tories could bung in a couple of bishops if they wanted along with their various city chums. The Greens would end up with four seats instead of their one in the Commons. Yes, you would get a few members of the far right in too. But, hey, that’s democracy.

There’s another reform I’d propose. Secret voting.  Abolish the whipping system for the upper chamber. Let your elected representatives decide issues according to their conscience. I know it a pretty radical idea, but it’s one we adhere to for OUR vote at the ballot box. Why not for our Parliamentarians?  Actually I’d advocate it for both chambers, but that might be a bit much to start with.

The argument usually made against an elected upper chamber is that it would give them too much legitimacy and they would demand increased powers.  Well, frankly, so what? For the moment, leave their powers exactly as they are: primarily a revising chamber that can delay, but not veto, bills from the Commons. 

Oh, and one other thing. Once you have a proper democratically elected Parliament, how much longer will you be able to justify a head of state who is there solely by dint of aristocratic birth?

ends

Our Madi Gras Costume

Independent News Story - Madi Gras Ball

Grande Mardi Gras Ball “bigger and better”

By Kent Barker

It may have been Hastings not Hollywood, and the welcome carpet grey not red, but those arriving at St Mary in the Castle for the 6^th annual Grande Mardi Gras Ball certainly felt like celebrities.  Photographers lined up to capture the imaginative and sometimes outlandish costumes while passers-by gawped.

The 530 tickets had sold out by mid afternoon delighting organisers but creating problems for anyone hoping for admission on the night.

Inside, the scale of the effort made by the revellers became apparent. Men in tutus and women in top hats vied with those in more traditional carnival masks sporting long beaks.  It seemed as if a Dr Who extras convention might have become mixed up with a Game of Thrones re-enactment.

Sometimes ordinary punters looked in danger of outdoing those vying for coveted title of Mardi Gras Monarch - the Green “new town” team from The Brass Monkey, the Purple ‘old towners’ from The Crown, and the Golden group from The St Leonard.

Votes were cast as The Congo Faith Healers took to the stage to provide a foot-stomping blend of ‘swamp infested gypsy blues’.

It was after midnight when the result was announced and Methuselah-like Brian McNeilly was crowned King.  His magnificent gold costume, like a Bishop’s chasuble smock with a small lighting grid attached, was set off by a ball and chain for a timely reminder that St Leonard is patron saint of political prisoners.

His first edict from the throne seemed appropriate for Valentine’s day: “Drink, Dance and Make Love”.  Gold was led by designer Maika Crampton, but dozens of volunteers had clearly worked tirelessly for them and the other two teams.

Ball co-organiser Adam Daly described the evening as an outstanding success and said it just seemed to get “bigger and better” each year.  He estimated it had rained more than £3000 for The Stinger Mentoring Fund which supports local musicians.

Ends.

Times - Not on my Green Field

Times Column for 11 March

NOMGF - Not on my green field!

By Kent Barker

Not long ago you had to go to the town hall or local council offices to see details of planning applications. Now it’s all online. Of course you have to be a bit of an anorak to spend time searching the database. But I justify it in my capacity as chair of my parish council planning committee.

This is a rather grand title for a not-very-influential role. Basically we have no power to decide applications. Although we can make recommendations to the planning officers or councillors at borough level, it’s they who make the final decisions.

Here endeth the lesson in local government. The point is that I get to see the applications for planning permission that come up in my village and, more importantly, to read the comments others make on them.

In a nutshell, no-one particularly welcomes new buildings near them. But some accept that, without new homes, the village will wither and die. And those are generally the people who have lived here the longest. It’s the most recent newcomers who seem to be the most vociferous in opposing new development.

One application that came before us was for a fairly sizeable house extension in a little lane on the edge of the village. The name of the applicant rang a bell and then I remembered he’d recently put in an objection to a small development of affordable houses that the parish council was promoting.

Now, the council considers affordable housing absolutely vital, and surveys repeatedly show there is a real local need. Villagers often find it impossible to compete with commuters to buy anything around here. Old farm workers’ cottages have been bought up and knocked together for incomers. Council house building stopped with Thatcher in the 1980s. Housing Associations have struggled to find enough land to build on. Young people who want to stay in the village near their parents (and possibly care for them in their old age) find they have to move to Maidstone or Hastings for any sort of home they can afford.

Anyway, the parish council effectively owned this field on the village periphery. Twenty years ago they sold off a segment for half a dozen affordable houses. Now they were proposing to lease another tranche to a Housing Association to build on. All six new affordable homes would have to be offered to people with direct connections to the village. And an allotment would be built for other residents. It seemed a no-brainer. Yes, it was regrettable that an attractive, if relatively small, green field complete with grazing sheep would be built on, but it is in the High Weald so there’s really no shortage of pretty countryside around here.

But the level of ire was something to behold. There was a public meeting packed with people making a broad range of objections.  One woman who had recently moved in was overheard saying of affordable tenants: “we really don’t want those sort of people living here do we?”

And the people down the lane wrote a letter you can see on the planning website: “Any development on this rural countryside area will… have a very significant negative impact on the aesthetics of this area… and will significantly increase noise, light and traffic pollution. We seek to protect and conserve the rural nature of this area and are therefore strongly opposed to any further housing development within this area of (the village)”.

Yes, but hang about, you are applying for a sizeable house extension. Doesn’t that sort of constitute ‘further housing development’ which was the very thing you were objecting to? And what about when your house was built? If residents had taken the same view back then, you wouldn’t be here at all. 

And, talking of traffic pollution, I guess you drive to one of the towns five or ten miles from here to do your shopping. You can’t do it in the village anymore because everything’s closed. I remember when there were three shops and two pubs in your little hamlet alone. Now there’s just the one pub left. In the main village a mile away only the butcher’s shop seems secure. A hardware shop closed last year. The village grocer’s is up for sale and could close. The post office and toy shop shut years ago. One of the two pubs has just closed its doors.

That’s the point. Young people are forced out of the rural areas where their families have lived--often for generations. More affluent newcomers arrive and buy up homes and extend them, making them even less affordable to locals. And then…. then they object to any further development in case it has a detrimental effect on the ‘rural nature’ of the area. It does seem a bit of a case of pulling up the drawbridge!

Inaugural Times of TW column - shooting pheasants

Times Column for 4 March

They shoot pheasants don’t they?

By Kent Barker

My neighbour says he can always tell when the local shoot is on. Pheasants start to congregate in his garden as if to demand sanctuary. It’s not far from there to the spinney across the little valley where the birds are raised and fed and from where the beaters will drive them into the air to be blasted by a line of guns.

            Michael is quite glad to know when the shooters will be out as he has to keep his lively cocker spaniel in. Several times previously Charley has escaped from the garden and gone to play with the gun dogs. But, not knowing any better, his antics raise the birds too early which infuriates the gamekeeper and the shoot master, not to mention the ‘sportsmen’ who may easily have paid £500 for their day’s activity.

            So Charley has been warned that he himself may be shot if he continues to disrupt proceedings. It’s the sort of message guaranteed to alarm dogs and their owners.

            On a couple of occasions I’ve been confronted by men with guns as I walked my dog, Myrtle, along public footpaths. Once we turned a corner and not five metres in front was a youth with a shotgun. As we approached he let off both barrels. I was so surprised I screamed at him that this was a public right of way and he had no business to be shooting there. Instantly the tweed-suited farmer who was running the shoot appeared and told me, politely enough, that it was his private land and they were perfectly entitled to shoot there.      

The incident got me scurrying for the internet and I quickly discovered that – as I thought – they really shouldn’t have been anywhere near a public footpath. Even supporters such as the British Association for Shooting and Conservation say: “One should refrain from shooting when a right of way is being used as this could be construed as a common law nuisance, willful obstruction or a breach of Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.”  Their advice that ‘signs should be posted and watchers should sound horns or whistles to stop the drive when a person is seen approaching’ was certainly being roundly ignored.

            It’s also extremely doubtful whether they could legally shoot Charley just because he startled birds into the air – though that might not be much comfort if they didn’t know - or simply ignored - the law.

At the time I had no particular views on shooting. It seemed a traditional enough pastime. It brings money into the often hard-pressed rural economy. It’s perhaps a tad one sided – after all aiming an explosive charge and 400 lead pellets at a relatively stupid bird that’s been startled into taking flight is a bit of an unequal contest. But I do eat pheasant from time to time and it probably wouldn’t have had a life in the first place if the person who wanted to point a gun at it hadn’t paid handsomely for it to be reared.

The anti-hunting people estimate that up to 50 million pheasants and partridges are produced annually so they can be shot – but only about half get that far – the rest die of starvation or on the roads or are killed by predators. And it’s argued that the rearing process itself uses battery farming methods which would now be illegal for chickens.

            Furthermore foxes, as well as protected species such as badgers, otters and birds of prey, are routinely poisoned, trapped and shot to safeguard the game birds. Tons of lead pellets and thousands of plastic shot-gun cartridges pollute the environment. And plenty of people are accidentally injured – shotgun deaths were averaging around 200 a year up to 2006.

            All of which seems a rather high price to pay for a day’s ‘entertainment’. But you have to acknowledge that a lot of people do derive a lot of pleasure from it. Thus the activity continues to divide the supporters of ‘country pursuits’ and a fair number of rural residents.

What does really does annoy me though, is the contention from the shooting fraternity that either I don’t ‘understand’ the countryside if I don’t shoot or, yet more arrogantly, that I can’t really be a country person if I don’t support field sports. Well yes I can. And I have many friends who’ve lived in the country all their lives who believe shooting a sentient creature such as a pheasant is cruel. 

Ultimately, perhaps, it’s not so much killing a defenceless bird that seems morally wrong, as actually taking pleasure from it. But that’s perhaps a more philosophical debate. In the meantime, those pheasants that survived the winter have a few months grace until the season starts again in October and my neighbour has, once again, to lock up his spaniel.

Russell Brand may have a point - Election Thoughts

Former Parliamentary and Political reporter Kent Barker considers whether our Westminster Parliament is in any way: Fit for Purpose?

 Hastings Independent  20.02.15

            In theory anyone can enter the “Palace” of Westminster in order to lobby their MP or sit in the “Strangers” Gallery and watch proceedings in the chamber below.

            In practice it’s extremely difficult to get through the layers of security.  But if you do, finally, manage to make it as far as the central lobby, you’d be forgiven for thinking you’d gone through a worm-hole into an alternate dimension.

            It’s not just Barry’s ornate building nor Pugin’s utterly over-the-top  ‘gothic revival’ interior design.  It’s not just the statues of long-dead monarchs, nor the mosaics of patron ‘saints’ of the four nations of the United Kingdom.  It’s the dozens of morning-coated functionaries scurrying about like Lewis Carroll’s White Rabbit.  It’s the Black Rods, Serjeants at Arms, Trainbearers, Principal Doorkeepers and all the other utterly anachronistic officials.

            To some this may be charming. British eccentricity, based on centuries of history and tradition as befits the “mother” of parliaments (not that mothers are especially welcome in this parliament).  But I think it has a corrosive effect on those that most matter – our elected representatives.

            When you go to the polls on May 7^th (assuming you do) I imagine you imagine you’ll be voting for a member of the human race who can think and behave independently and who will represent your views without fear or favour.  And how wrong you will be.  Your MP will be sucked into the extraordinary world of Westminster and will swiftly lose pretty much all touch with reality.

            To start with he or (just possibly, but pretty unlikely) she will seldom see daylight. From their office probably in Portcullis house they will use an underground passageway to traverse Bridge Street to the ‘palace’.  Once there they’ll get lost in the two miles of corridors and 1000 rooms. They’ll dine in one of the 28 different food outlets there and drink in one of the eight bars. They’ll leave sartorial individuality behind. Men can’t speak in the commons unless wearing a jacket and tie.  Jeans are verboten.  Women must dress in “smart business-like attire”.  Green Party MP Caroline Lucas was told to cover up her T-shirt emblazoned with the message “No More Page Three” during a debate on media sexism.

            When I was working in the press gallery MPs had to don a collapsible top ‘opera’ hat to make a point of order during a debate and the speaker habitually wore court dress and wig.

            But officials wearing anachronistic fancy dress and a ‘school-uniform’ for elected members is not the worst of it.  The real problem is the inward-looking bubble in which they are trapped.  It’s often referred to as the Westminster “Village”.  And just outside the main St Stephen’s Entrance is the village green. It’s actually called College Green and it’s a narrow strip of grass between Westminster Abbey and the various media offices in Milbank.  There television cameras congregate and ‘hon. members’ are drawn as if by a powerful magnet.

I’ve often seen uninvited politicians, desperate for exposure, sidling up to producers or reporters claiming to have been booked for an interview but not able to remember by which channel!  We used to expend a few minutes of video tape on them just in case they’d stick the knife into their party or leader.  Usually they were just appallingly sycophantic. (Though the late Tory MP Sir Julian Crichley gave me a memorably excoriating interview on the downfall of Thatcher).

But generally it’s a cosy old-boy arrangement with ministers whispering bile to political correspondents on ‘lobby’ (anonymous) terms in the hope of climbing another foot up Disraeli’s ‘greasy pole’.  And because they exist in such close proximity, occasionally mass hysteria takes over and they rush around like demented chickens looking for journalists to hand them a knife for self-decapitation.  Hacks usually refer to it as a ‘febrile’ atmosphere and it’s something to behold. Great for selling newspapers or gaining TV viewers, but pretty poor for the democratic process.

So why not make some radical changes?  Build a proper parliament, designed and fit for the purpose (preferably out of London).  Reform the hours MPs sit  (say 9-5 Tuesday to Thursday), provide proper child care facilities. Give them proper offices and efficient paid-for secretarial support.  Abolish the confrontational two-sided chamber and substitute a modern circular assembly room with seats for everyone who’s elected.  They managed it in Scotland.  They do it in Brussels and Strasbourg.  Return some dignity to British politics. And if you want a really radical idea – make voting secret and abolish whipping! Then, and only then, might it actually be worth turning out to vote. Oh, and you can pay for it all by opening the old palace up to tourists.

Morning Murmurings or to Sea or not to See

Save our Sea Views

Hastings Independent Press

The following conversation, or something like it, may or may not have taken place over a cup of tea in bed one morning recently:

He:  You know, I’m sure that tree has grown.  You used to have a clear view of the sea the sea from this side of the bed.

She: When I bought the house you could see the sea not just from the top floor here, but also from the middle AND the ground floors!

He:  We need to open up views of the coastline  - direct action!

She:  Sort of SOSV – Save Our Sea View.  According to Grand Designs they add a lot to house values. Trouble is tree owners probably wouldn’t pay to have them lopped, and anyway they might be protected by tree orders.

He:  I said DIRECT action.  We’ll gather a guerilla group armed with chainsaws and go round at night felling arboreal offenders.

She:  This is Hastings.  People like trees.  You’ll have an opposing group going round with banners saying S.O.T. - Save Our Trees. In fact they’ll probably chain themselves to trunks or build tree houses and occupy them.

He: (sipping tea):  Hmm.   You’re right, we don’t want a pitched battle between the SOSVs and the SOTs.  Sort of like the mods and the rockers.  It could lead to the great Hastings chainsaw massacre.  Perhaps we’d better promise to plant two new trees for every one we cut down.

She:  Yes, but where?  Almost any location is likely to block someone’s view of the sea eventually.

He:  Well, we could plant them up on the East Hill I suppose.  There’s no one there to object.

She:  Except for the residents of the new building at the Rocklands Caravan Park – you know the one they stuck the second floor and huge balcony on that caused all the fuss last summer.

He:  Excellent.  The perfect place to plant some trees.  In fact extremely tall and fast growing tress which would completely block their view, making the new building completely pointless. 

She:  You mean Laylandii?

He:  Yes.  That’s the idea, lots of them.  Right in front of the building.

She:  Erm …. I thought the whole point of your SOSV guerilla group was to open up views of the sea, not deliberately obstruct them?

He:  Ah,  you may have a point.  Perhaps a slight rethink is in order.  Is there another cup of tea going?

Logging off - from the Courier

This is my last Courier Column after more than 2 years.  

Thanks for having me guys ... but now for pastures new.

February 20 2015

The cost of going green

Oh dear, deadlines again! It seems I’ve only a month to claim the Renewable Heat Incentive grant, but first there are a myriad of hoops to jump through.

To start at the beginning.  A few years ago, when oil prices were sky high, I decided to invest in renewable home heating.  The basic choices were a heat pump or a biomass boiler.

Heat pumps are like alchemy.  They transform a small difference in outside temperatures into enough heat for you house.  You can get air source pumps but the best are ground source.  However this means either digging up a huge expanse of garden and laying a network of pipes, or drilling a borehole around 100 meters deep.

But heat pumps use a lot of electricity and, I was advised, were probably not best suited to my ancient draughty house.  So a biomass boiler then?  They’re considered green because the wood is renewable and has, in its life as a tree, sucked in more carbon dioxide that is released when you burn it.

  There are three types.  Pellet, wood-chip and log. Pellets cost money and are mainly imported.  Chips need a very large area of bone-dry storage.  But logs in the countryside round here are plentiful and, effectively, free.

The saga of installing the huge log boiler and a 2,500 litre accumulator tank is one for another day. Suffice it to say that my workshop now looks like the engine room of the Titanic and my bank balance remains in free fall.  But it’s there.  And works.  Sort of.  If your wood is dense and dry you can do a three hour burn which, as long as it’s not too cold, heats a fair portion of the house for up to 24 hours. It requires prodigious quantities of logs, but I quite enjoy chain sawing and splitting and moving them to the wood-store that’s taken over the remainder of the workshop.

My investment wasn’t dependent on government grants, but they would have helped.  The old scheme ended about a day before the boiler was installed. I’ve only just found out about the new Renewable Heat Incentive grant. Which runs out in April.  And you need a Green Deal Energy certificate.  And a heat monitor on your boiler.  Which could cost ANOTHER thousand pounds.  And no one can tell me how much the grant will be worth.  It’s not easy going green!

A bit cold for Madi Gras?

Courier Column for 13 February

No business like snowbusiness

            There’s a fine display of snowdrops in the churchyard on one of our walks.  They’re spread out under an ancient oak tree which overlooks the wide Rother Valley.

            I feel it’s somehow wrong for snowdrops to be out before there’s been any snow.  And Myrtle just feels its wrong that there hasn’t been any snow.  She loves the stuff.  As a puppy I remember her bounding through her first winter whiteness, unable to understand what these extraordinary cold, wet crystals were doing covering her normally grassy field. 

            Snowless it may be, but it’s certainly seasonably chilly.  The log boiler is working overtime and I’m beginning to regret not having split more wood before the winter and stored it in the dry.  Apart from the fact that damp wood doesn’t burn well or provide much heat, it tars up the system necessitating expensive servicing.

            And it’s the cold that’s providing the biggest headache in planning for Mardi Gras.  I’ve got a ticket for the Fat Tuesday Ball which – a tad confusingly – isn’t on Tuesday but instead is this Saturday.

            The whole thing is billed as the largest Mardi Gras festival in the UK of which, until this year I’m ashamed to say, I was blissfully unaware.  On the Tuesday itself, twenty-one Hastings venues host sixty-seven separate gigs. There’s the umbrella parade with floats, and marching bands and then Preservation Sunday sees a trad jazz and beer festival.

            But the problem is the costume for the ball.  In Rio or New Orleans it’s generally warm enough not to need to worry about exposed skin or skimpy clothing.  But the south coast in mid-February? This is a different matter.    So I’ve sent off for a set of thermals - in black, naturally.  I’ve a gold waistcoat and am searching for something suitable to go round the waist.  And the ensemble will be enlivened with a lace mask and feathered headdress which arrived from eBay last week. 

In the hall itself I’m confident the body heat of other revelers should stave off insipient frost bite, but it’s the journey to and from the venue I’m more concerned about.  And what bothers me is that worrying about body temperature really doesn’t seem to be in the spirit of Carnival.  But I’m still wondering why couldn’t they have waited until the weather was warmer – or even transferred the whole thing to the south coast of Louisiana.

Sheepishly Failng the Fitness Test

Courier Column for 6 February

Dog walkers hardly do it in stile

Wherever you look the message seems the same: we’re dreadfully unfit. A recent study found that one in 12 adults hadn’t walked continuously for five minutes - except when shopping! And, over the same period of a month, nearly half of us had not once walked for 30 minutes for leisure. In fact nearly 80% fail to hit the government’s target – moderate exercise for 30 minutes at least 12 times a month.

            So we need to get out more! And what better way to do it than by rambling along country footpaths? Many are accessible and welcoming.  Some are not. A favourite walk of ours is now completely impassable. Cattle have turned the first part into a welly-sucking quagmire. Then a thorn hedge has been allowed to grow right across the narrow path. It’s the landowner’s responsibility to keep it clear. She lives abroad and is uncontactable.

            So, to get to the woods, Myrtle and I trudge across the cattle field and negotiate a barbed wire fence. At the other end of the path is a high stile. Myrtle is lithe enough to leap this in one bound and I am still just fit enough to climb over it. But my friend with the overweight labrador came a cropper the other day. She couldn’t lift him over and so had to trudge all the way back home the long way round. And, anyway, what about those who can’t clamber over stiles - the elderly, the disabled, or the very unfit who most need the exercise. Let’s replace stiles with gates. Everywhere!

I recommend getting a dog. Then you HAVE to walk daily. But even this can be problematic. We were confronted with a sign last week: “This is PRIVATE land not a public park. DOGS loose amongst livestock will be shot.” Pretty intimidating and legally wrong. But not everyone knows the law. Even this newspaper went a bit far the other week, suggesting: (dog) “owners can be prosecuted if their pets are let off their leads in a field with sheep present.”

Actually it’s only illegal if the dog is not under ‘close control’ or is worrying (chasing or attacking) sheep. But, as the law fails to define ‘close control’, and with irate farmers threatening to shoot first and ask questions later,  you might be forgiven for deciding to stay safely indoors. That won’t get you fit though.  

Cats or Buzzards?

Courier column for 30 January

Survival seemed as likely as a flying Moggie

I was out in the field splitting logs the other day when I heard a distinctive ‘meow’. Which was curious because I don’t have a cat. And Myrtle was with me.  Although she has nothing particularly against felines, they tend to give her a wide berth. Which may be down to her rather distinctive doggy smell. (I’ve spoken to her before about personal grooming but it doesn’t seem to have much effect.)

So I looked up and there, sure enough, was the buzzard I was half expecting. Just overhead. But not simply one; FIVE of the magnificent birds.  Swirling round and round and up and down and meowing merrily.  Never before had I seen so many so close. In fact, up until a few years ago, we didn’t see them at all. Buzzards had been all but wiped out over large swathes of the UK--by a combination of myxomatosis. organochlorine and predatory game keepers.

For non-ornithologists, the buzzard is a raptor, that’s to say a bird of prey of the accipitridae family that includes hawks, eagles, harriers and kites (but not falcons or ospreys).  They hunt animals ranging from rabbits to earthworms. In the early 1800s they were common throughout Britain, but decades of decline followed. Gamekeepers, mistakenly thinking they were a threat to shoots, killed them off in all but Scotland, Wales and a few areas of western England. Then in the mid 1950s the rabbit population, their main food source, was devastated by disease while widespread use of agricultural pesticides destroyed their ability to reproduce.

Since 2000, however, their numbers have recovered and they are now back as the most common bird of prey in Britain. I certainly remember seeing them for the first time in Kent around that date, a solitary pair, circling over the woodland at our community orchard. Since then, year by year, I’ve spotted more and more soaring over spinneys and fields. 

Yet they are still under threat from some quarters. Only last year a gamekeeper in Norfolk was prosecuted for poisoning ten buzzards and a sparrowhawk. They were found in a sack near two types of banned pesticides.  He was given a suspended sentence.

So next time you hear a meow in the sky, look up. It’s probably not a flying moggie, but one of our most magnificent birds that’s beaten off all efforts by man to exterminate it.