Blog: Derby Badger Demo

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Myself and The Badgers In My Sett were up early on Saturday morning to head up to Derby to take part in a demo against the Badger Cull. Rolling into St Pancras before 9am reminded me of all those occasions last year when we were doing the final mixes of Dinosaur Planet and this was COMPOUNDED by popping into Pret for Breakfast, as I had done every time back then. Whilst there we spotted Dominic Dyer of Care For The Wild, one of the main organisations campaigning against the horrifically corrupt, incompetent, and all round SHITE government policy of killing badgers. I would refer you to my earlier post about the Witney Badger Demo where I expressed my feelings on the matter thus: "AAAAARRGGHGGHH!!!!! " My feelings have not changed since then.

At Derby we strolled into town along a route I have traversed many times, past the Vic and the place where our practice rooms used to be, arriving in the market place to find our pals The Bates family amongst a hundred or so people, ready for the demo. Mrs Angie Bates had brought some CUDDLY TOY BADGERS with her, one of which I borrowed (he was lovely and warm!), and there were people in Badger Costumes/Onesies, lots of banners and a general feeling of happiness to be there on top of SEETHING ANGER at our government of witless shitheads using the poor old badger as a scapegoat for appalling mistreatment/mismanagement of cows and yet ANOTHER disease outbreak being spread by money grubbing NFU members who want to wipe out any aspect of the countryside that doesn't turn a profit.

Dominic Dyer got up and made a speech which ended with him reminding us that we CAN win this and hopefully WILL. You can see pictures of us listening in the Derby Telegraph report, see if you can spot ME!

We then went off for a march around town, with Miss Pippa Bates leading our group in shouting "Save the badgers!" and "Stop The Cull!" while waving her cuddly toy badger at passers by. Magically it ended up being mostly ladies doing the first part of the chant and gentlemen the second, which made for a rather nice NOISE as we stomped around town. I kept hearing someone doing it WRONG, completely out of time, and LOUDLY... I looked round to see who it was, and it was Mr D Dyer himself, his excitement at the SUCCESS of the event overtaking his adherence to rhythm!

We got back to our starting point after about half an hour, all very happy with how it'd gone. Passers by had smiled, applauded, taken leaflets and generally AGREED with us - everyone involved keeps expressing surprise/pleasure that this cause ISN'T just being taken up by traditional "nature lovers", it's making people ANGRY because it encapsulates this fucking awful government's lack of respect for EVIDENCE and blatant pandering to their own moneyed interests. Because they are SHITS.

With the meeting over we headed over to The Cube where we met with The Family Machine for a well earned beer and catch-up (and LEGO) before strolling back to the station and then home again. It had been a long day but very worthwhile. We felt we'd DONE something - it's easy to just get upset or feel impotent in the face of this sort of crap, but it does feel like the campaign against the cull is picking up, helped by people getting out and expressing their support. Dear reader, if you hear of a demo near you or know of a Hunt Sabs group that needs help (or CA$H) do try and pitch in, this is a clear example of EVIL being done by our government of twats that we can actually DO something to stop!

posted 28/10/2013 by MJ Hibbett

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