SOME reflections on rural crime: first, in a spirit of genuine enquiry, a friend recently asked a local hunt what sort of scent it was using for the hounds to follow. ‘Do what?’, they said. No one seemed to have any idea whether or what scent was being laid.
Now, Remainers are told to get on with the future and generally toe the jolly old line because it is the law of the land, passed by a stonking majority in Parliament. Quite so. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

Then, the other morning, I stopped for a coffee in a pub. I overhead a conversation whose gist was: “Those unlovely police people won’t renew my firearms licence because of my trivial convictions for driving under the influence and a couple of otherwise harmless misdemeanours. I have to keep the rabbits, deer, foxes, buzzards and kites off my land. I shall have to use other methods.”
The danger of the Aussie and Kiwi trade deals is that they will not only cause people like this to take even more drastic measures but that they will have a much more widespread long-term impact. These deals and continuing excess power of a small number of giant retailers could well lead to land being farmed with exploited labour and poorer environmental and welfare practices, or returned to nature or be solarised. Our food insecurity will do nothing but rise.

We have dispensed with being a part of the continent-wide balancing act between the needs of consumers and the interests of producers. But, can our little island now attract the investment required to make us competitive and more self-reliant in food without detriment to standards? More cake-and-eat-it double-think seems to be in the air.
Talking of rural crime, water quality remains a major concern and is hampering efforts here to build the houses that are needed. The lobbying power of just a few powerful companies has been on show again. It is a disgrace that we are enacting potent legislation against filth on the internet but seem incapable of so doing where real sewage is concerned. There is a rottenness begotten of generations of short-term, opportunist, exploitative, visionless politics.

We are becoming increasingly like the United States. On the surface all seems normal but a peep under the covers shows a less civilised, hand-to-mouth existence for far too many. A & E becomes the GP surgery; there is no dentistry; a poor diet and its health consequences are the norm; control is the priority for teachers, the police and social services against a rising tide of violence and criminality.
With a different mindset and fairer values there could be better opportunity for all.