About 5.30 last night I was driving home and switched on the radio to listen to Radio 5 Live and found I was listening to the Drive programme presented by Peter Allen and Jane Garvey. I caught the tail-end of them saying that fox hunting is close to being banned and that the hunt saboteurs will target angling next.
The attitude of the presenters then came across quite clearly and blatantly in that they were as anti-angling as any of the general public who don’t know anything about fish and fishing. There was the usual crop of rash and ill informed statements about angling being cruel, how can we justify sticking hooks in fish, etc, etc.
They then introduced well known fly angler Charles Jardine, who, along with Bob James of the ACA, fronts the Countryside Alliance ‘Go Fishing’ initiative that aims to fight for angling. Charles tried to defend the sport but was hardly ever allowed to finish any point he tried to make. He was continually interrupted with inane comments, giggles, and blatant mickey-taking by the presenters who came across as seeing it all as a huge joke, rather than a threat to the enjoyment of at least two million people. And, if they would only allow themselves to listen, a greater threat to the fish themselves if there were no anglers to care for their welfare. One of the points Charles wasn’t allowed to finish was that he had hooked and returned the same fish two or three times some days and….
I couldn’t take any more and went into my office to dash off a quick e-mail before the programme closed.
The presenters then had great pleasure in reading out a mail from some halfwit who said he would stand on a motorway bridge with a grappling iron and rope, and hook up a car for sport, being as they don’t feel pain either.
Peter Allen read out my e-mail, and it went something like this:
‘Graham Marsden says that the point Charles Jardine was trying to make was that any creature that feels even a modicum of pain would not feed following being hooked more than once in the same day.
‘Oh, I don’t know about that.’ (Peter Allen comment).
‘Graham also says that it is a fact that any creature that feels pain could not pull against the hook and line, the pain would be too great. And fish always fight before being landed.
‘Oh, I don’t know about that. If I had a hook in my lip I think it would be my natural reaction to resist it. (Peter Allen comment, interspersed with sniggers).
‘Graham says there is no evidence whatsoever that fish feel pain.
Peter Garvey, laughing, ‘I don’t think I believe that either, it’s all right for Graham to say that sat in his armchair on the river bank.’
This is a typical example of the biased, ill-informed, puerile rubbish that is being spouted to the general public by a media that is supposed to give everyone a fair hearing.
It seems to me that the first thing we have to do in order to beat the hunt saboteurs and the rest of the anti-angling brigade is fight for a fair hearing on such programmes as Radio 5, and then to educate the presenters so that if they have to interject with their own comments it will at least be informed comment rather than the witless drivel they spout now.
To start with, get on those keyboards and tell the BBC that you don’t like the biased attitude of their Radio 5 Live Drive presenters when they are reporting angling news. The address to write to is drive@bbc.co.uk.
