It’s been a while.
For regular blog readers you’ll remember ex-England cricketer Ian Botham as being the figurehead for the group ‘You Forgot the Birds’, an astroturfing PR outfit funded by the grouse shooting industry and whose main aim seemed to be slagging off the RSPB and Chris Packham.
[Intellectual heavyweight Ian Botham, photographer unknown]
Botham was an inspired choice for fronting this group: his profile always guaranteed press attention and his gaffes were legendary and helped pour derision all over the industry’s claims without anyone else having to work very hard.
As a classic example, this is still one of the funniest car-crash radio interviews ever, recorded in 2017 when Botham was interviewed on BBC Five Live talking about how the public spirited game shooting industry was planning to donate thousands of potentially lead-poisoned pheasants and partridges to the poor and needy:
Botham threw a massive wobbler after the interview and threatened to boycott the BBC who, he claimed, had “ambushed me with with their anti-shooting agenda” (see here).
‘You Forgot the Birds’ seems to have vanished in recent years, perhaps stepping aside for another astroturfing outfit set on attacking the RSPB and anyone else who might question the mighty grouse shooting industry (see here) but Botham’s not been fading in to obscurity.
Earlier in the summer it was announced that he’d been made a life peer by Boris Johnson, reportedly for his grand support of Brexit, and he’s now ensconced in the House of Lords.
[Not his official portrait, obvs. Someone must have hacked his Lords webpage]
Judging by a comment piece in today’s Telegraph, it looks like we can expect to hear more from Lord Botham over the coming months/years as he takes full advantage of this new platform.
This’ll be entertaining. Although he seems a bit rusty. It took him until the third paragraph in today’s piece for him to start slagging the RSPB and a staggering delay of seven paragraphs before he started on Chris Packham.
Raptor Persecution UK 
Wow, I didn’t reallise that lapwings survive on grain put out to feed pheasants during the winter (without which we’d never see them again), you learn something every day!!!!!!!!!
Yes, cornfed Lapwing used to be a delicacy served in the House of Lords canteen….
……..he’s a real countryman so it must be true….
Very good.
You would have known that Keith if you had just troubled yourself “to ask anyone in the country pub or down the post-office”!
In four letters ……..surprise us!
I suppose they left in all the illiteracies to prove that he wrote it all by himself. Though since it’s mostly recycled nonsense, it shouldn’t have been too much of a struggle. ‘Urban courts’ was a new one on me. He should make sure to include that if he is ever foolish enough to speak on this subject in the Lords.
Blimey! After five decades or so of membership, several years as a local group leader and years as a p/t field teacher for them I’ve just discovered – courtesy of Lord Beefy – that I’m not a ‘normal member of the RSPB’. I would never have guessed it so perhaps I ought to resign. Although, on reflection, perhaps his idea of what RSPB members are like is just as warped as his quasi-Victorian vision of country-folk (and townies) …..
Yes perhaps you should resign & leave countryside management to people who know what they are doing & if you haven’t learned in 5 decades…….You still haven’t got a clue!
What an arsehole.
And what was Boris thinking? His dad and his missus were keynote speakers at the Japanese anti-whaling rally in January 2019 so doesn’t Boris share their apparent conservation ethos? Why would he elevate this bell-end?
I would say that Botham fits right in with the disgraceful rabble that Johnson has surrounded himself with.
Well, that is a pathetic account of how our land should be managed, embarrassing to read. He’s going to make an even bigger fool of himself once he starts spouting that rubbish in the House of lords. Then again, most of those in The House will probably believe him. Botham was a good cricketer, and that’s about it.
Lord Botham of Footspa – you couldn’t make it up! It’d be funny if it wasn’t so pathetic.
What a prat
Sent from my iPhone
Just incompetent sadly.
Reckon he should be checked out for symptoms of lead poisoning.
I totally agree!
House of Lords will hear none of it. They will all be aslleep and getting paid for it.
So the RSPB was somehow responsible for the introduction of stoats to Orkney? As much as “NatureScot” (formerly Scottish Natural Heritage) might wish that was the case, nothing could be further from the truth and the noble lord spouts nonsense.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the Nasty Brigade had released them as they hate that Orkney is used as an example of biodiversity in the absence of grouse shooting and intensive moorland “management.”
I hadn’t thought of that – bloody good point, not far fetched, muntjac deer have started turning up in Ireland – almost certainly because there’s no close season for them so new opportunity for ‘sport’. There was a report years ago in New Scientist that in New Zealand there had been threats from the hunting fraternity to release non native predators such as stoats and rats on offshore islands which they’d previously been cleared from to provide safe homes for endangered birds like the kakapo. An incredibly callous, arrogant and selfish act if ever carried out all because hunters in NZ were resisting calls for their activities to be curtailed to help the land and native wildlife.
Should have exited from the public arena as soon as his cricketing days were over, even then he was unbearable.
He really should have stuck to cricket. Embarrassing diatribe against Chris Packham and the RSPB.
I used to think that Botham was the man! This last few years I’ve learn’t that he isn’t.
Ah, good old “ball-tamperer Botham” has been spouting his usual guff, I see. Where to start!? Let’s start with this part!
“I want to speak up for the ordinary folk like me who were born and raised in and around rural Britain”
Would that be the “ordinary people” that are able to claim £305 per day in expenses? And from what I believe, he was born in Heswall in 1955, but moved to Yeovil at the age of three. Yeovil’s population in the 1961 census was more than 23,000 – that’s more than twice the current population of the town I live in, and I would not class my town as rural. Yes, there is countryside very close by, but not many residents would consider it a rural location. At the age of 16, he joined the ground staff at Lord’s cricket ground, in that rural idyll, the City of Westminster!
“The RSPB relentlessly campaigns against against the people who do the real work of managing nature and looking after the well-being of many endangered birds – farmers and gamekeepers.”
Not quite. The RSPB campaigns against the widespread illegal practices that game shooting brings. As for his nonsensical belief that the farmers and gamekeepers are looking after endangered birds, then how does he square that with the fact that those two professions accounted for more than 75% of raptor persecution convictions in 2019? And for the usual suspects that tend to pollute the truth with their own ideas of “evidence”, those totals comprised of gamekeepers (67.4%), other game interests (6.6%), and farming interests (4.4%).
“Without that thinning, the light struggles to reach the ground. And so die the shrubs and bushes – the homes of our woodland birds and butterflies.”
Complete and utter drivel, straight out of the Braindead Association for Spectacular Cretins’ conservation handbook. Is this clown now trying to imply that without gamekeeping and farming, our birds and butterflies would die out? He’s certainly asserting that shrubs and bushes would die out (the homes of woodland birds and butterflies!), which Is quite strange, because I regularly see shrubs and bushes, well away from areas “managed” by gamekeepers or farmers. I also see birds and butterflies away from shooting and farming areas. Funnily enough, most farmland I have visited/do visit, has been/is intensive, and as a result is very poor for invertebrates and bird life. The same can be said for land managed for shooting, which tends to follow a monoculture approach, with a zero tolerance approach to predators, including many of the endangered bird species that are “looked after”.
“so they use the urban courts”
Would that be the same courts that Botham has tried to use in the past? You know, the High Court, the one in that urban place they call London. The one in which he lost the “ball-tampering” case against Imran Khan. So, “urban” courts are perfectly acceptable things to use when it suits him, but not if it goes against his beliefs. I think there’s a word for that type of belief and behaviour!
I could go on. He’s a bit like the Boris Johnson, the Tories and Donald Trump – treat everything they say as a lie!
With the substnces he smokes I suppose he was bound to end up in one funny farm or another.
Just for the record – although truths never bother Beefy – here are some facts about stoats in Orkney. 1. “Under the grip of the RSPB”. RSPB does not own Orkney, nor the methods by which stoats probably arrived (ship-assisted most likely but no-one knows). 2. Soon after the first one was seen RSPB got on the case and the first ones were trapped (by me and another) not far from my house and released on mainland Scotland. 3. RSPB lobbied SNH hard for a proper eradication programme as soon as possible to eliminate them before they got established but SNH wouldn’t do it because they weren’t a problem yet! (you can print that, Ruth, because I was in the meeting!). RSPB continued to lobby SNH. It took them until 2014 to commission a report. Eventually The Orkney Native Wildlife Project was born – a partnership between RSPB Scotland, NatureScot and Orkney Islands Council with funding from the National Lottery and the EU’s LIFE Programme. Eradication trapping began in late 2019. 3. From more than 35,000 trap checks the traps have killed 111 starlings, 2 blackbirds and 2 water rails, none of which are “rare birds” and all three listed as “Least Concern” by BirdLife. Traps are continually adjusted to try to avoid such incidents.
He was a good cricketer. Shows a complete ignorance of the RSPB role. His K was as deserved as Johnson’s brother’s
I think Ian Botham was absolutely right, he was ambushed. The interviewer had an agenda that had nothing to do with what he was promoting. I thought the comment she made about a commercial enterprise along side a charitable effort was underhand
I’ll add here that I don’t think he should denigrate the RSPB or Chris packam and I don’t particularly like the shooting industry
He wasn’t ambushed. They were valid questions raised by the reporter. She exposed his disguised philanthropy for what it was – a total xxxx Why couldn’t he just donate the £40 K to the 14 million poor rather than kill non-native birds for fun?
She was ambushed – by her colleague, who totally sugar-coated the remainder of the interview allowing the buffoon to launch an attack on her.
I find this constant diatribe against our Beefy so utterly wrong. If any of you knew anything about nature at all, you would know that the very first life seen on this planet were gamekeepers. Once they started to breed, they introduced all other living things. Without them there would be no life on earth at all, no plants, insects, birds or indeed, us. It is only right that Beefy has been made a lord.
Throughout the natural world you can hear the cry of ‘Lord help us’. Now he can.
Woke: the go to word of right wing scumbags. The man’s an oxygen thief.
Love that! Excellent! :D
This tells me all I need to know about that Z-class celebrity has-been and about the interests and associates of our toffee-nosed government. It is so sad. Especially as I started to believe that our leaders really – with Carrie on the side is animals – might actually care for our environment. So very sad.😭
Hard not to get angry with this self opinionated and self important idiot, clearly with a typically fragile ego. His peerage is one of countless examples of why I consider our politics based on privilege and old boy networks are deeply anachronistic and broken. Wildlife and environmental issues will be a long way down the priorities while this continues and perhaps XR type actions are the only ones that can pierce the complacency and inertia.
Putting Botham in the House of Lords is a reason in itself for abolishing it. So undemocratic when someone like Botham can speak there when the rest of us cannot. The ‘urban courts’ comment caught my attention and I wondered if Botham wanted to go back to the dark ages when the Lord of the manor meted out justice. Wouldn’t he like that? Just think what he would do to Packham and the RSPB. No Botham, the courts do the job properly without fear or favour and deal with reality in terms of facts and substantiated evidence and where telling lies will get you into trouble.
The real work … farmers …
Does that include removing hedges or cutting them back to stunted, shattered branches and trunks only a meter or so high?
You forgot the spraying and polluting of waterways, the erosion of soil etc,etc, they can take credit for most in the so called natural environment.
Yes, Botham the xxxx, such good friends with the shooting industry and flamethrowers, lord of what I wonder. Has to slag somebody off, try writing about cricket, loudmouth.
Well, I for one won’t be taking part in his BOGOF scheme to help potentially poison folk with lead shot. He Can stick his imported for shooting birds where the sun doesn’t shine!
Awful man!
I agree that it looks as if the usual suspects are raising their heads above the parapet once again. However, your approach is almost completely ad hominem . I would suggest that a point by point rebuttal of Botham’s arguments in his article would be more productive. Thank you to those who have done so in their comments.
Off topic but did anyone see The Alan Tichmarsh show this morning? Had a chef on who recommended eating thrush amongst other things,could be good for a job in Bothams kitchen.
Good point obnoxious as he is it’s better to play the ball, not the man.
Botham was a great cricketer but a fool with a gun that the shooting keep wheeling out. A shamevthd lobby has no use for countless years of research and facts. You are wrong Mr Botham. Stick to cricket please. We will protect our environment even if you will not. It is now the 21st century not the 18th.
I think it is an excellent article. People just don’t understand the life of country folk and the work both farmers and gamekeepers do to manage the wonderful countryside everyone enjoys. If the fields were not grazed and managed our green and pleasant land would turn into a dull, dirty brown. I live on a farm and we also have gamekeepers in the family so I know first hand why the heather is burned, to promote regrowth which in turn will benefit the birds. We have just spent a considerable amount of time and effort thinning woodland to allow light in to let the ancient oak trees and silver birch to flourish and grow. Our garden birds which we feed and enjoy watching have declined considerable over the years due to a sparrow hawks and we have witnessed them catching and killing our garden birds. Chris Packham never mentions this. I have also seen baby lambs having their eyes pecked out and their tongues removed as they are in the process of being born. This is our livelihood but yet we can’t protect our animals from these crows. People need to think before they speak and consider the fact that grouse shooting brings in both jobs and much needed income to the countryside. Hotels, pubs and shops are benefit from the shoot season not to mention the beaters, flankers, loaders and gamekeepers. All my children when beating at 13 to earn money and we have as mentioned above a history of gamekeepers in the family and farmers which I am proud of. Even if Ian wasn’t born and bred in the countryside he certainly knows about the ways of country folk and I am pleased that we now have a voice in the House of Lords to defend our way of life and livelihood.
This is a spoof response isn’t it? Oh God, I hope it is!
So you’re blaming a Sparrowhawk for being a Sparrowhawk? Clues in the name. As for the wonder of imported game birds, they peck the eyes out of already rare adders and leave them to die. I also live in the country and have talked to plenty of gamekeepers who have boasted about shooting raptors and ‘putting em in the pig ole’. Rather have our native breeds than your lead poisoned imports and don’t whinge about it bringing employment to the countryside, plenty of urban industries destroyed in the past what makes you think you’re any different?
Hey Derek,
Ever wondered why Blackbirds haven’t gobbled up every single earthworm in the land? Or how flies have managed with all those Swallows and the like munching away at them?
Hope this isn’t too advanced for you…
Dear Derek, It would appear to me that you don’t regularly read the blogs on this website, because if you had read them then you would have gained knowledge of how the UK’s raptors are so poorly treated by those benefit-the-birds gamekeepers.
And do you not realise that by feeding birds in a concentrated area, as most people do, that Sparrowhawks find an easy target? If you think that garden birds are declining because of raptors then you have no idea; it’s the typical reaction of people who just say what they see.
There are ways of farming that don’t create situations where crows peck the eyes of lambs, but some would rather shoot every predator rather than change their ways of how they farm – “It’s how mi dad did it, so that’s gotta be the best way!”
The animals need protecting from died-in-the-wool country people who think they know best how the environment should be managed, because that attitude has lead to the situation we have now – a denuded-of-nature country that is crying out for change of mindset when it comes to agriculture and land use.
Derek, I think your post reads much like Botham’s article – utter rubbish!
Like Simon, I do hope that Derek’s post was a spoof, but there are many of these types, “educated” in the “country ways”, leading to a complete lack of knowledge and understanding in relation to the natural world.
So, in an attempt to tackle Derek’s belief that Sparrowhaks have been responsible for the “considerable decline” over the years, then it might be worth looking at other possibilities. Despite the repeated claims (usually from pro-shooting types), that Sparrowhawks have decimated songbird populations in the past few decades, it is interesting to note that during that time, this species has undergone a moderate decrease in population. In fact, looking at the BTO Bird Facts pages, the Sparrowhawk had moderate population decreases from 1800-1849, 1850-1899, 1900-1939, a slight decrease from 1940-1969, a moderate increase from 1969-1995, followed by another moderate decrease from 1996-2020.
Would Derek care to explain that?
Yet, some of their main prey species, and presumably the same species that Derek regards as garden birds, have managed to increase their populations, or have remained stable, even with all that carnage being wreaked by those dastardly Sparrowhawks. Let’s have a look, shall we?
Blue Tit
1800-1849 – slight increase, 1850-1899 – slight increase, 1900-1939 – slight increase, 1940-1969 – no overall change, 1969-1995 – slight increase, 1996-2020 – no overall change.
Great Tit
1800-1849 – slight increase, 1850-1899 – slight increase, 1900-1939 – slight increase, 1940-1969 – no overall change, 1969-1995 – slight increase, 1996-2020 – moderate increase.
Robin
1800-1849 – no overall change, 1850-1899 – no overall change, 1900-1939 – no overall change, 1940-1969 – no overall change, 1969-1995 – slight increase, 1996-2020 – slight increase.
Wren
1800-1849 – no overall change, 1850-1899 – no overall change, 1900-1939 – no overall change, 1940-1969 – no overall change, 1969-1995 – moderate increase, 1996-2020 – slight increase.
Goldfinch
1800-1849 – large decrease, 1850-1899 – large decrease, 1900-1939 – moderate increase, 1940-1969 – slight increase, 1969-1995 – slight decrease, 1996-2020 – moderate increase.
Chaffinch
1800-1849 – slight increase, 1850-1899 – slight increase, 1900-1939 – slight increase, 1940-1969 – slight decrease, 1969-1995 – moderate increase, 1996-2020 – slight decrease.
Blackbird
1800-1849 – moderate increase, 1850-1899 – moderate increase, 1900-1939 – moderate increase, 1940-1969 – moderate increase, 1969-1995 – slight decrease, 1996-2020 – slight increase.
Song Thrush
1800-1849 – no overall change, 1850-1899 – no overall change, 1900-1939 – no overall change, 1940-1969 – moderate decrease, 1969-1995 – moderate decrease, 1996-2020 – slight increase.
Nuthatch
1800-1849 – moderate increase, 1850-1899 – moderate increase, 1900-1939 – moderate increase, 1940-1969 – slight increase, 1969-1995 – moderate increase, 1996-2020 – moderate increase.
With the exception of the Chaffinch, would Derek have an explanation for all of those increases since 1996?
So, perhaps, just perhaps, that the reason that Derek doesn’t have as many garden birds as he once had, might be down to other factors in the surrounding countryside? Perhaps some habitat has been lost in recent years, or perhaps some of it is in a somewhat degraded state? Perhaps some farming practices have led to a decline in invertebrate populations, limiting food supply for passerines, thus having a knock-on effect on breeding productivity?
Nice one, Marco. Of course, it could be that Derek’s just making it up, to suit his twisted little agenda.
It’s funny that every time I’ve dropped this data on the various idiots that infest anti-social media, they usually come out with the same old shit that the “figures are fake”, or they don’t apply where they live. Or, the feeble townie/countryman crap. I even came across one half-wit who, despite having the evidence in front of her, maintained that Peregrines aren’t native to the UK!
These nitwits will never back down from their addle-brained standpoint, it’s been bred into them for generations, but we should all expose their bullshit at every opportunity.
P.S. My local paper once published a letter from a Derekalike, who claimed to have witnessed a Buzzard bring down and kill an adult sheep, by landing on it’s back and “digging it’s talons in”. Incidentally, he also claimed that Buzzards had “killed every single Blackbird in his, and his neighbour’s, garden.”
Looks like he’ll be well placed with the other muppets in the house of lards. Another game of My Little Crony
Wow, with good old Beefy representing the ordinary folk who depend on the countryside in the Lords then we can rest easy in our beds. His old mate Farmer Palmer will continue to drain and reseed wetland areas that are so important for lapwings. But have no fear, as the local gamekeeper will be providing supplementary feeding in the form of grain in the neighbouring sitka spruce plantation so the lapwings won’t starve to death. I always wondered where all the lapwings, corn buntings and yellowhammers so common in my childhood went – they are in the woods at the pheasant feeders. Doh – how foolish of me.
And I must remember to ask for some sound conservation management advice the next time I am sending anything from a rural post office. Or a local pub….
And I didn’t realise how important grouse moors were for producing record numbers of fledged hen harrier chicks when the ones on RSPB reserves fail. That was useful information. But I think Beefy forgot to mention that the harrier chicks are more likely to die after fledging (if they ever get to that stage) due to persecution on managed grouse moors than to die of all other causes on RSPB reserves. And that even though they might fledge on a grouse moor, they might not ever leave their natal area, but succumb to the guns, the poisons, the traps – the evidence is here on the RPUK pages.
Botham is absolutely right. People who don’t live in, work on or understand the countryside should keep their misinformed, naive, uneducated and ignorant thoughts to themselves; the very least they can do is research the subject
You mean like Beefy has done, he must have spent literally minutes doing all that research for the in depth drivel presented in the Torygraph.
Here’s some research for you. I suggest that you educate yourself.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ibi.12356
Click to access grouse_moor_evidence_review_final.pdf
Click to access mason-et-al-2020-rspb-gamebird-review.pdf
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-09044-w
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S000632070300363X
https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1046/j.1365-2664.1999.00419.x
https://www.nature.scot/naturescot-commissioned-report-982-analyses-fates-satellite-tracked-golden-eagles-scotland
https://www.leeds.ac.uk/news/article/3597/grouse_moor_burning_causes_widespread_environmental_changes
https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1365-2664.13235
Sara,
Have you read the State of Nature 2019 report which is a proper study on the current state of British wildlife?
The report highlights that more than a quarter of UK wild mammals are facing extinction, and the prospect across all species including insects, birds and fish is not much better.
What the report clearly demonstrates is how the – and to quote your own words- “the misinformed, naïve, uneducated and ignorant” people who live and work in the countryside have caused so much environmental damage.
It is because of the consequences of bad farming practices, mismanagement of the land, thoughtless use agro- chemicals, all associated with modern industrial farming, that the government has been forced to shift its stance on farming subsidies to one of payment for public good.
There are many other properly researched scientific reports all highlighting how the mismanagement of uplands for shooting has degraded the moorlands, how the drainage of moors has led to lowland flooding, and how heather burning has degraded peat as a source of carbon capture- again all consequences of people who live and work and countryside showing a lack of foresight for the consequences of their actions.
Fortunately there is now a new generation of younger people, educated in agricultural colleges in the proper science of farming, with a greater understanding of environmental consequences starting to work in our countryside.
Hopefully this younger, better informed generation will dispel the “myth and folklore” approach which has been so prevalent in rural life, and which has led to such a catastrophic decline in British Wildlife, and the nations countryside.
Bothham isn’t right, he is simply xxxxxxx from the current trend which propels “populist politics” into the limelight.
One only has to look at what has happened in the USA with Donald Trump to see the consequences of a populist politician.
Giving Botham a platform on which to preach his nonsense is a grave mistake, as “the misinformed, naïve, uneducated and ignorant people” will lap up his every word thinking they have researched the subject, rather than broadening their minds by sourcing their knowledge from more credible people and organisations.
Hi John, on the whole I agree with you. But I wouldn’t put much faith in the Colleges. Many a greedy farmer who abuses both the land and the system, plenty of “over-zealous” gamekeepers (more than one convicted) and several well known scheming Agents have bag-fulls of College certificates.
So, if we follow your belief system, then rural people should have no say whatsoever on urban life? And as most taxpayers live in urban settings, are you also suggesting that their taxes shouldn’t be spent in rural areas? After all, if they have no say in rural matters, why should they pay for it!
Botham is the Poundshop version of Robin Page.
My own policy is that I pay no attention to anybody from the Lords, regardless of whether I agree with them or not. Buy what an inflated opinion of yourself you must have to accept a position to affect law-making across the land, qualified merely by way of some talent at the schoolboy game of tappy-bat.
He wasn’t made a lord because of his cricket accomplishments, it is because of the millions he’s raised for leukaemia research.
Re: Bothams charity:- https://www.civilsociety.co.uk/news/charity-commission-looking-into-ian-botham-charity-over-financial-irregularities.html
Ignorant fool
Good on him. Packham and you lot are so out of touch about what actually happens in the countryside its almost laughable
We know exactly what happens in “the countryside”. Indeed, many of us actually live there, and we’re not fooled by lies from the likes of you and the rest of the tweed-clad degenerates who abuse our natural heritage.
I don’t approve of pheasant or grouse shooting because it is obscene to be seen to kill anything for pleasure, even worse paying for it. However, as someone who has always lived in the sticks, I have to say that Chris Packhams views on country life and what we should / shouldn’t do are wrong and he should be told this.
In case you hadn’t noticed, Chris Packham lives in “the sticks” himself. Not that it’s at all relevant where anyone lives. Judging from the segregationist logic of the self-appointed “countryside lobby” (many of whom actually live in places like Kensington), those who live outside of towns/cities don’t deserve to have any say on anything that occurs there! It’s our country, our countryside, and our natural heritage, wherever we live, or where born. And decent people will no longer stand by and watch it destroyed by lying, criminal scum who think that a tattershall shirt and flat hat are badges of authority.
I notice that whoever wrote this rubbish didn’t have the guts to put their name to it. Totally bised, lazy journalism about a man who is a national sporting hero who has raised millions of pounds for charity, in particular leukemia research. His views on the countryside, the hypocrisy of the RSPB and the frankly extremist views of Chris Packham are valid and accurate.
And another plastic “countryman” supporting the xxxxx xxxxx Botham.
xxxxx xxxxx prick
Botham is I callous tosser simple as….
And when thinking about those lovely free-living pheasants, it’s worth remembering this video showing how pheasants were being reared at Sawley Hall in 2015:
Shame rap perc cannot accept opposition to its self righteous and self absorbed doctrine
You do see that your comment has been posted don’t you?! It would be lovely if you came up with some evidence to back up Botham’s claims as well, as he was, how can I put this, a little light on that front…
Wow, the tweed disease are here in force; all half-dozen of ’em. Scum.
There is a special place in hell for these people
Faceless cowardly ill mannered jobs replying to this post . All that is wrong with the internet . Packham seems to have ill informed and unpleasant bedfellows. This is class warfare . Nothing more or less.
Said the faceless, ill-mannered person, using an ill-informed argument!
I hunt with whippets but, last year I put 3 barn owl nest boxes up on my permission due to tree loss via storms, these trees were used annually by the same pairs.
You folk just don’t get the way’s of proper country folk. Leave the countryside to the people who have looked after it for centuries without a problem. Overprotection causes problem eventually, look at the Badger situation,where are all the hedgehogs, ground nesting birds.? You haven’t got a clue. Bunch of milksops as we say up north.
Aye up Charles thas cheered me up no end to hear from a member of tut long lost “tribe of country folk”*…av a grand day lad and dinnat thee forget thy flat cap when out w thee wippets its right cowld out the day.
Oh, and ‘shite’ (as we also say up north).
*this long lost tribe (for those townies that narr nowt) managed to subsist entirely from the land in several undiscovered hidden valleys around the UK. Despite the continuing developement of all civilisation since the Stone Age occurring everywhere about them…they remained living in splendid isolation (at least in their own minds and only when it suited them), until an an assassin named Packham one day arrived from the future to terminate them all. Fortunately the tribes progeny (luckily for them now living in the same technologically advanced future) managed to find a protector to save them…and they sent him back through time as well – with his battered cricket racket in hand and foot massager at the ready. But he can only do his best considering he is not from the tribe at all! The tribal elders reverently call this purely totemistic figure simply…’Beef’.