From: "John Hurst.", [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Sun TUESDAY, 23 JANUARY, 2001 Who do you think you are kidding, Little Hitler? Get a life ... hunt protesters should mind their own business THERE'S a brilliant wartime propaganda film called Went The Day Well, based on a Graham Greene short story, which turns up on television about once a year. Channel 4 trotted it out again last week. It is set in an English village playing host to a British army platoon. Gradually the villagers notice that the troops are not all they seem. They look British, they sound British but something isn't quite right about them. Eventually the soldiers are revealed to be German infiltrators, aided and abetted by a local fifth columnist. The movie was designed to encourage vigilance on the home front. At the time it was considered shocking, especially the idea that any British citizen would collaborate with a hostile foreign power. For years, we British have reflected on what happened in mainland Europe during World War Two and consoled ourselves that It Could Never Happen Here. Don't you believe it. Increasingly, I have begun to feel like one of the villagers in Went The Day Well. All around there are people who look like us and sound like us. But the more you think about them they're not like us at all. There's everyday Britain, in which most of us are quite happy to rub along, pay the mortgage, raise a family, go to the pub, get on with the neighbours and generally mind our own business. And then there's official Britain, populated by politicians and prodnoses. They worship rules, regulations, control and prohibition. Exercising their authority is an end in itself. They love nothing more than creating new crimes and dishing out exciting punishments. They behave like an army of occupation. They live to make other people's lives miserable and they have turned our traditional concept of freedom, truth and justice upside down. They are humourless, self-important and utterly convinced of their own righteousness. Their idea of freedom is what they are prepared to tolerate. For centuries, country folk have been hunting foxes with dogs. It is not something which impinges on the way of life of the vast majority of people. It is not necessary for us to approve or disapprove. It is none of our damn business. There are plenty of things which people would find cruel and distasteful if they bothered to give them a moment's thought. For instance, many would consider the ritual slaughter of halal meat to be barbaric. But no one is suggesting that it should be banned. It is the mark of a civilised society that we tolerate minority pursuits which don't interfere with anyone else. Yet outlawing foxhunting has been elevated to the pinnacle of the political agenda. The Government intends to make criminals of hundreds of thousands of decent, taxpaying, law-abiding people in order to appease a bunch of sentimental, metropolitan lunatics who will never come across a foxhunt in their sad, empty lives. Every day we read of petty prosecutions of drivers for eating biscuits or leaving the engine running while they kiss their wives goodbye. The coppers responsible look like normal policemen, sound like normal policemen but are quite clearly from another planet. No doubt the Sunderland council officials who thought it would be a good idea to drag a greengrocer before a court for having the temerity to ignore an instruction to stop selling his bananas in pounds and ounces are also superficially human. But they are not like us. [] Fruitcakes' victim ... grocer Steve Thoburn's plight is typical The idea of an undercover sting operation in a greengrocer's is beyond parody. As far as most of us are concerned, this man can sell his fruit and veg in fahrenheit, if that's what he and his customers prefer. Why turn him into a martyr? This prosecution is not about weights and measures any more than nicking a driver for eating a Kit-Kat is about road safety. This is all about power and control, reminding us who's in charge, keeping the plebs in their place. In isolation, you may think none of this really matters. But there's a broader picture here. For me, it is summed up by a character in my friend Mitchell Symons' splendid first novel, All In, about an inveterate gambler. One of the characters in the book has a pathological hatred of speed cameras, which I share. It's not so much the cameras themselves but the way in which they're painted grey and hidden behind bushes and walls. The character remarks that it's all so "un-British". And that's exactly how I feel about the anti-hunt fanatics, the officious traffic cops, the spiteful jobsworths pursuing a petty prosecution against a harmless shopkeeper. They're all so un-British. Which is why I think we can still learn from Went The Day Well. Who says it could never happen here? There are thousands of potential quislings and willing collaborators, who appear to hate their own country and their fellow citizens. It's just a short step from arresting greengrocers to loading the trains to Belsen. Who are these people? Where did they all come from? What goes on in their heads? They are all around us and they are multiplying like rabbits. It could never happen here? It already is. mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ____________________________________________________________ T O P I C A -- Learn More. Surf Less. 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