Dear Folks
This is our latest Team Badger Press Release.
The fact that, after all this effort from so many good people, and even though now there is demonstrably absolutely no justification, these unbelievably arrogant people, David Cameron and Owen Paterson, are, almost alone, pressing on in their foul plan to murder thousands of badgers. And this in spite of the fact that the matter is to be debated for the first time in Parliament this week. It’s almost unbelievable.
It could still happen any day. We could wake up Monday morning and there could be already hundreds of badgers in a heap, their beautiful bodies limp and without life, and their blood dripping on our green and pleasant land.
We have not won this war to save them yet. This is WRONG. How can we let it happen? How can these merciless butchers sleep in their beds?
Sorry … too graphic ? Today, I feel sick in the stomach. Here’s the Press release.
PRESS RELEASE: OWEN PATERSON HAS SHOWN CONTEMPT FOR PARLIAMENT
SAYS BADGER DEFENDER BRIAN MAY
Friday 19th October 2012
Queen guitarist and animal welfare campaigner, Brian May, who has been front-person in the hard-fought Team Badger campaign to prevent the implementation of the badger cull, has reacted angrily to Owen Paterson’s refusal to pause plans for the killing of badgers pending the policy being debated for the first time in Parliament next week.
May said, “Owen Paterson has shown breathtaking arrogance in continuing to insist that his ill-founded policy of slaughtering badgers will go ahead before Parliament has the opportunity to debate it next week. The Backbench Business Committee, responding to the overwhelming scientific evidence and weight of public opinion, have granted a debate on an issue of national importance; Paterson, in refusing to pause in his obsessive drive to kill badgers, has shown utter contempt or both the parliamentary democratic process and the will of the people of Britain. Perhaps, rather like at least one of his colleagues, he thinks we are all plebs.
“This is an ethically unjustifiable, economically unworkable and pointless policy, which has been condemned by the entire scientific community. Paterson’s decision to press ahead at the very moment when the matter is about to be debated is an indecent act, unworthy of a Government Minister. I will be surprised if Mr Paterson doesn’t follow in the footsteps of Andrew Mitchell in being forced to resign.”
Parliament will next week debate the policy, in a full day session on Thursday 25th October. The decision to grant a debate was made by the Back Bench Business Committee following a petition against the cull, which has been signed by more than 158,000 people.
Anne Brummer, Chief Executive of Brian May’s Save Me Campaign, said, “We are dismayed that Owen Paterson has chosen to ignore the wishes of the people and his fellow MPs to debate this issue properly before embarking on a pointless killing spree.
“Killing 5,000 badgers in this first pilot where more than 90% of them will be perfectly healthy and where there is no evidence that it will make a meaningful contribution to reducing Bovine TB anyway is bad enough; doing so before Parliament has a chance to consider the policy in detail defies belief. The fact is that TB in cattle is falling already. There is no justification for this cull at all.”
The cull is now opposed by all of the UK’s major animal welfare organisations, including the RSPCA, Save Me, Stroud 100, the Badger Trust, Gloucestershire Against Badger Shooting, Animal Aid, Network for Animals, International Fund for Animal Welfare, League Against Cruel Sports, Humane Society International/UK, The David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation, Blue Badger, Born Free, Peta, Care for the Wild, International Animal Rescue and the RSPB.
– FOR MORE INFORMATION –
Anne Brummer, Chief Executive, Save Me Campaign
anne@save-me.org.uk / 07955 080 901
Phil Symes, PR for Brian May
philsymes@theprcontact.com / + 55 (21) 93 61 11 97 or + 55 21 33 44 42 72
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