Government can't risk a badger cull

AFTER spending the last 12 months huffing and puffing and threatening to take the Government on with a judicial review over the proposed badger cull, the NFU has abandoned plans to pursue a High Court judgement.

Though the NFU still insists it remains committed to some form or other of legal challenge, the desire for an ultimate war with the Government has fizzled out.

I have argued for many years with my friends on the top table of the union that there was never going to be a likelihood of a badger cull, and I suppose to be honest to them the cost of court action taking on a government could be a far too expensive an exercise to win.

Badger Trust chairman David Williams said in the farming press this week that it was totally confident Minister Mr Hilary Benn had fully assessed the science and the range of options before he made his decision.

It looks as though the only way forward left for farmers ravaged by TB is to have even tighter controls on stock movements and more testing on cattle.

Let's be perfectly honest about badger culling; with an election looming in the next 12 to 18 months, and a Government trailing in the polls, then the likelihood of any minister taking on all the wildlife groups in the land is about as likely as me donning a pair of shorts, putting a bobble hat on and spending Christmas day hiking over the moors.

It's not going to happen now, and I very much doubt if we had a change in government whether they would be bold enough to alienate so many people. Badger culling, like fox hunting, will always be something that opposition parties will do a lot of talking about and there will often be promises of reform.

But when it comes to the crunch I don't honestly believe that they would act any differently than the Government of the day.