These people may be bloodthirsty, but at least they understand democracy
Rod Liddle does not greatly care for the Countryside Alliance, but says a lot of pious nonsense was spoken about how it rigged the Today poll Do you remember the Conservative MP Teresa Gorman? An image of this terrifying woman swam up in front of me over the festive season, when I'd had a bit too much drink and was distractedly watching the television news. At least I assume she was a figment of my saturated imagination, rather than actually right there with me in my living-room. But it was a very realistic vision; I could almost smell her — unrefined essence of Essex. There she was, an ectoplasmic phenomenon, with her famous tattooed eyebrows, her bottles of hormone replacement therapy and brandishing a large carving knife in case she bumped into any rapists, or indeed Europhiles (she was one of the original Maastricht Rebels). She hovered in the air for a moment, cackled and then disappeared with the sound of a coffin lid being slammed shut. Now that's good brandy, I thought to myself regarding the bottle by my hand with admiration.
The story on the news was about my old stamping ground, the BBC Today programme, and how a poll they'd run over the Christmas period had been 'rigged' somehow. That's why Teresa invaded my consciousness; the news story was, as Freud puts it, the precursor. When I was deputy editor of Today, back in the midto late 1990s, we were in the habit of running a Personality of the Year competition, where our listeners voted for the most outstanding person of the past year — and that, too, was always 'rigged'. In 1996, the Labour party got everybody to vote for Tony Blair; some monkey in Walworth Road, as it was then (I think) sent instructions out to every branch in the country to tune in and vote for the boss — and, sure enough, Mr Blair won the poll. At Today, we were publicly distraught at this gerrymandering. But privately, of course, we were quite delighted. Imagine a potential prime minister being worried about something that appears on the Today programme! This is what we chuckled to ourselves in a rather self-congratulatory manner. And then, as we found out a few years later, he really did worry, and worry an awful lot.
In another year the poll was won by an obscure right-wing Hindu politician from India, God only knows why, or how. Once again the poll became a front-page story and once again the BBC found itself in a quandary. This time, the Indian chap was officially disqualified — although no satisfactory reason for his disqualification was ever given. 'Tell the press only whites are allowed to win,' I suggested at the time but, predictably, was ignored.
It was the following year that the Gorman postcards arrived. Loads of them. Supposedly hundreds of people — decentminded, liberal Today programme listeners — were convinced that in this busy 12 months, the MP for Billericay was the personality of the year. But many of the nominations appeared to be in identical handwriting on identical postcards and franked with the legend 'House of Commons'. I don't know where they came from, they probably had nothing to do with Teresa Gorman, but I adored the thought of her staying up all night writing 'Teresa Gorman' on postcard after postcard and then sending them in the next day. That's why the news story conjured up that frightening image.
Later, when I became editor and was forbidden to have a personality of the year poll in case someone 'rigged' it, I instituted a vote for the greatest Briton in history. Nice and uncontroversial — too uncontroversial, really. I remember asking friends to nominate Oswald Mosley, so we could get in the papers again. But Churchill won nonetheless.
This time, Today ran a poll for listeners to choose the legislation they would most like to repeal. Nominations were solicited and a shortlist of half a dozen was selected by a panel of famous personages. And of course, the thing was 'rigged'.
An overwhelming majority voted to repeal the 2004 Hunting Act (Hunting Wild Mammals with Dogs) and it was shortly discovered that the Countryside Alliance had instigated a campaign, via its website, to swing the vote. An entirely successful campaign, as it happened.
Now, I yield to nobody in my dislike for the Countryside Alliance, an organisation which has been utterly silent on the real problems which this government (and previous governments) have inflicted upon our rural areas. You will hear nothing from its spokespeople about the criminally low wage rates of agricultural labourers, the high cost of housing in the countryside, the lack of jobs (except those which involve looking after beagles) or the lack of decent schools and accessible hospitals. They care only about the rights of a tiny minority of rural residents to dress up as idiots and go about maiming foxes. Further, there is not the slightest evidence that a single job has been destroyed by the abolition of fox-hunting, nor has there been a calamitous increase in the number of little lambs ripped from the wombs of their mothers by ravenous, uncontrollable, vulpine hordes. The Alliance's campaign against the legislation was arrogant, sensationalist and incorrect on almost every count. What's more, record numbers turned out for the Boxing Day hunts, which suggests that when foxes are offered the opportunity not to take part in this grand old British tradition and, having conferred among themselves, decide to abstain (the CA, remember, even suggested the foxes thoroughly enjoyed the whole business), there is no diminution of satisfaction for the hunters. They had a lovely day out anyway.
But still. It seems to me a bit rich to complain that a campaigning organisation has had the temerity to, er, launch a campaign. And those who have complained seem to misunderstand the point both of these sorts of polls and indeed the nature of democracy. The Independent suggested that 'what was supposed to be a bit of yuletide fun with a serious edge' had been wilfully subverted by the Alliance. But, as the present editor of Today, Ceri Thomas, put it to me: 'It was a bit of yuletide fun with a serious edge! How does the result change that?' The fox-hunting legislation is not about to be repealed; the poll made no claims to be drawn from a representative sample and it has no impact other than being indicative of a certain strength of feeling.
Ceri Thomas, then, is absolutely right — and the Countryside Alliance was absolutely within its rights to ask its supporters to vote in the poll. There is not much doubt in my mind that the Hunting Act would have topped the poll even without that little message posted on the Countryside Alliance website; there is enormous anger among a minority of the population at what was seen as a vindictive piece of legislation, even if that minority is comprised almost entirely of braying, bloodthirsty, arrogant simpletons (as I would see it).
I suppose it is a symptom of our confused and somnolent democracy that we should become outraged that a campaigning organisation should seek to 'subvert' an opinion poll; that there are still one or two causes left where people feel sufficiently strongly to do the unthinkable — i.e., impose themselves upon a Radio Four opinion poll. Even for someone like me, who loathes fox-hunting and doesn't have much time for the people who wish to do it, that's a welcome development. The Countryside Alliance's mobilisation of its members was not undermining democracy, but was in fact the very essence of it. And the Today programme has rightly acknowledged that fact.
So, next Christmas, let's mobilise the vote to repeal the Smoking in Public Places Act. Or get rid of the Firearms Act. Or nominate Teresa Gorman as personality of the year — whatever takes your fancy. Only connect.
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