The
Countryside Alliance is an organisation set up to
lobby parliament and spread
disinformation about 'rural issues' - primarily, to engineer and publicise mock grassroots support for anachronistic
bloodsports such as
fox hunting. The CA's selfish objectives are
euphemistically described as 'defending the rural way of life', or in other words, 'we've always killed animals for a
laugh and sponged off of the
taxpayer, why do you want to stop our fun now?'.
The Alliance tries to give the impression that it represents farmers (nope, that would be the unions) and conservationists (nope, that would be charities), seemingly to add a veneer of legitimacy to their indefensible core activities. To this end they organise events such as protest marches in London. The resultant minimal publicity and complete lack of sympathy that these marches are met with can then be put down to 'the terrible divide between rural and urban folk' as if it's some kind of irrational classist prejudice that causes people to dislike cynical bloodthirsty idiots. Thankfully these activities are on the wane as more and more people see through the Alliance's facade.
The eventual banning of fox hunting in the whole of the UK (currently expected to become law by 2005) will probably signal the end for this lobby group.
http://www.countryside-alliance.org/