Content area
Full Text
Petronella Wyatt talks to Richard Burge, head of the Countryside Alliance, and finds that he has never been on a horse
I AM waiting in the lobby of Claridge's for Richard Burge, head of the Countryside Alliance. Claridge's, with its pictures of an England past, seems an appropriate place to meet the man who stands between this country and the abolition of hunting for the first time in its history.
Burge the Bold. The last bastion of tradition in our green and pleasant land. The doughty fighter for civil liberties. The countryside's noble champion. Will he charge in, attired in hunting pink, blowing a horn? Will he be followed by a pack of hounds, uttering what might be their last bays?
But then this youngish man walks through the door. He looks like John Birt's younger brother. He has greyish hair, flopping over his forehead, and is sporting one of those slippery-shiny Armaniesque suits. And, oh my God, he is wearing jewellery. On Burge's left wrist dangles a delicate silver bracelet.
I am taken aback by this New Labour apparition, who, so the Guardian hinted, has contemplated making a deal with Blair to sacrifice hunting in return for assistance on other countryside matters, such as the retention of shooting.
When I put this to Burge, he turns hunting pink with indignation. `Any indication that I made a deal over hunting is rubbish, absolutely untrue. I would never do that,' he splutters over a glass of Dom Perignon. `My supporters would lynch me.'
But what of his meeting with senior Labour figures, including a dinner he recently attended at which sources said he appeared to 'capitulate'?
`What's wrong with meeting Labour people?' Burge protests. 'I meet Tories, too. But I have not sacrificed one jot of my position on hunting.'
Burge keeps insisting that hunting will not go, in spite of Wednesday's vote. When I point out that this is incredibly unrealistic, he replies that the Duke of Wellington never contemplated defeat. I say that the Duke of Wellington never came up against Tony Blair and his fanatical band. In any case, I never heard of Wellington making such...