Columnist I. M. Beck has, in the space of three days, written two blogs trying to convince readers that "(the elections) demonstrated that the hunting lobby is a spent force". The fact that he gives so much importance and space to attacking the hunters and their leaders clearly shows he is indulging in pure wishful thinking.
He interprets an "anti-PN slant to the way hunters were speaking publicly" as equivalent to hunters' being directed to vote for a particular party, which was certainly not the case. The hunters were not told which party to vote for. Even though the MLP may have expected a boost from the hunters, there is no saying whether this happened. It seems I. M. Beck is unaware of the pressure exerted on the FKNK council members by MLP sympathisers to direct the members of the federation to vote for the MLP. Although the statutory prohibition about political leanings had been removed and there was nothing to stop them from doing so, the FKNK council (to its credit) did not succumb to that temptation. But there is no telling what might happen next time round.
The PN were returned this time, but with only a wafer-thin "majority". Today we have a chastised PN that will need to talk things over with the hunters. Far from considering the hunters "a spent force", the Prime Minister himself has deemed it necessary to take over the control of hunting affairs from George Pullicino. This development is a clear indication that, in contrast to I.M. Beck's biased and unsubstantiated opinions, the Prime Minister recognises that the hunters have been hard done by, and their grievances need to be addressed, if justice must be done and be seen to be done.
The columnist keeps ranting on that "hunters and their demands are not a factor in the equation", "spring hunting should be banned once and for all", "I don't want my euro taxes to be used to pay a fine", "I don't want these people to be allowed to carry on slaughtering anything that flies" and so on. Instead of producing hot air, he could choose to answer some simple questions: If the hunters' representatives did not form part of the EU pre-accession negotiating team, why do they appear to him "incapable of looking after (their) interests professionally and properly"?
Was the recent election a referendum on hunting? Is it not plausible to say that hunters with PN sympathies voted PN in appreciation of the party's consistent stand on spring hunting of doves and quails, and should therefore these PN partisans now also be ignored?
Why was spring hunting not banned by the government if it is illegal? Why did the government declare its readiness to defend the spring-hunting case in the European Court of Justice?
Why does he persist in creating a false alarm about payment of fines? If everything that flies is slaughtered, is the EU Commission out of its mind to argue for autumn hunting, not to mention the Maltese government arguing for both spring and autumn?
Perhaps he will deign to illuminate readers with intelligent replies instead of harping ad nauseam on what happened to that virtuous paragon of newspaper photographers - his son.