Brian May Told To Back Off Badger Battle
National Farmers’ Union tell the Queen guitarist he's wrong about cull
May recently hit out at a badger cull that is due to happen in Somerset and Gloucester in September, calling it "disgraceful, tragic and pointless.”
He went on to say that "Prime Minister David Cameron, Agriculture Minister Jim Paice and Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman cling to this appalling policy. One can only assume they are pandering to a powerful farming leadership who helped elect them," adding that the National Farmers Union agreed with him that the cull would not solve the TB crisis that is affecting wildlife and livestock in the south west.
However, NFU spokesman Ian Johnson has hit out at May, telling This Is Cornwall: "I don’t know where he’s got that from. It’s rubbish.
"This is not political. It’s an animal welfare issue. He should not be politicising the problem. Brian May is a well-intentioned, very rich, misguided person. His comments do nothing to help a rational debate about the problem.”
Johnson also hit out at May's assertion that farmers backed the return of fox hunting. "These comments are not helpful. Brian May doesn’t realise that, before blood hunts were banned, there were lots of farmers who didn’t want the hunt going over their land because they didn’t agree with it.
"He’s obviously a very intelligent man – so I can’t understand why he’s involving himself with issues he doesn’t understand.”