Good Sports

When a hard-working representative for the natural party of government needs a bit of a rest from building an economy that works for everyone who matters, but can't find a wog to harass or a cripple to kick and doesn't exactly have tenants to burn, the traditional pastime of choice is a bit of Huntin', Shootin' and Fishin'. Thanks to the disinterested generosity of a charitable organisation, four fine upstanding chaps have been empowered to take up their natural birthright and give the pheasants and partridges a bit of the old what-for; though whether the birds had to be pre-plucked or nailed down in order to keep pace with the hunters' prowess has regrettably not been recorded. Among the dutiful quartet was the fragrant Jonathan Djanogly, who served Britain's late Head Boy as minister for denying legal representation and was at the time extremely rich; it is certainly disturbing to think that he may have fallen on such hard times as to be unable to pay for his own holidays. The party also included the parliamentary undersecretary for Wales and a former shadow secretary of state for that picturesque English province; the £953 bill for the affair, which topped off the day of cruelty to animals with a night in an eighteenth-century country house, was laid on by the amusingly-named British Association of Shooting and Conservation, which by pure coincidence is lobbying against a proposed ban on pheasant shooting on Welsh public land.