Labour is shooting itself in the foot

The Glorious Twelfth this year, signalling the start of the grouse-shooting season, was overshadowed by a Labour party press release demanding a ‘review’ into driven shooting. Labour’s shadow environment secretary Sue Hayman left people in little doubt as to what she expected this review to conclude. ‘The costs of grouse shooting on our environment and wildlife need to be properly weighed up against the benefit of landowners profiting from shooting parties,’ she said. ‘For too long the Tories have bent the knee to landowners, and it’s our environment and our people who pay the price.’

Needless to say, this is all virtue-signalling nonsense. For a start, the shooting industry imposes no ‘costs’ on the environment. On the contrary, grouse moors cover about 550,000 acres of land in England and Scotland — an area larger than greater London — and are maintained by an army of gamekeepers. Heather moorland is the natural habitat of several species of ground-nesting birds, including black grouse, lapwing, curlew and golden plover, all of which benefit from the control of pests like foxes, crows, stoats and weasels.