'There is a simmering anger out there'

LIKE buses, two earth tremors came in quick succession. The 407,791 marchers who left country mud for London town might have expected to awaken to leading the Ceefax headlines this morning.

Instead, a quake in middle earth - or Birmingham - had taken over top spot from the Countryside Alliance march for rural rights. Yet the thunder had not been stolen from the biggest rural uprising in 600 years.

The Minister for Rural Affairs, Alan Michael MP, had gone to ground all weekend, the wily old fox, but finally emerged to pat the countryside on the head in that familiarly patronising New Labour way. Ebullient Countryside Alliance chairman John Jackson went into Henry V overdrive as dusk and dust settled on this long day - up at 5am, into bed past 1am - and was not to be rebuffed. "If the Government makes the mistake of doing something unjust, I have no doubt the countryside will erupt in fury. There is a simmering anger out there."

Simmering? "If we've got to come again, we shall bring our tractors," read one banner with flint in its humour.

The countryside will come again, not least in the face of an RSPCA spokesman dismissing the Liberty & Livelihood march as a "stunt" that would not stop the death knell for fox hunting. Ah, hunting. Yes, that was part of yesterday, and yes, I was a guest on one of two York and Ainsty Hunt buses that formed part of the 25,000 phalanx from North Yorkshire and the North East. I am, however, equivocal about the act of fox hunting, but as a son of the land, not the right to go hunting. It forms part of the countryside equilibrium, the nurturing and management of nature, and it is no wonder the countryside feels hounded from all sides when the cost of milk production is a curdled joke, schools, post offices and shops are closing and buses are outnumbered by crop circles.

It comes down to perceptions of us and them: hound and fox, north and south, haves and have nots, rural rights and rural wrongs, country and town. When animal-loving countrymen find themselves at odds with the RSPCA, then that only confirms a blurring and Blairing of the margins.

North and South symbolically united at Whitehall en route to Westminster yesterday, a tide of whistles and horns and banners; of Clarissa Dickson-Wright and Vinnie Jones, and esteemed journalist Lord Deedes; of hunting packs and farmers, falconers and even a rural circus too.

Contrary to fears there was no BNP, no NF, but the NFU, the CA and only a token presence by the anti brigade, clustered on a corner opposite the Houses of Parliament.

The biggest misconception of all, is the haves and have nots. On my coach alone, there was a barrister, a school bursar, a JCB driver, a construction worker, farmers too. Country issues unite, defy north and south, in this new age of town v country. "Fight for tolerance and conservation," read one banner. And understanding too.

The Household Cavalry went riding by: a jolting reminder of military might of yore, and of Iraq ahead. Oh yes, President Blair's cabinet meets today. The agenda, far-off Iraq, and not country matters. Fight for another country - the USA - or fight for your countryside.

Updated: 11:43 Monday, September 23, 2002