The Glorious Twelfth: Boris Johnson & Grouse Shooting a four years on
In 2020 the Government was rightly ridiculed for exempting grouse shooting and other hunting parties from the ‘Rule of Six’ relating to the number of people who could gather in or out doors in England as part of COVID-19 restrictions.
The Morning Star (17th September 2020) revealed that a number of Tory MPs had been recipients of grouse shooting freebies in recent years.
There is a little more to this story of class prejudice.
In September 2015 the London Evening Standard reported that Johnson had been seen travelling southwards on a Newcastle train on 20th September:
It had been reported on social media that Johnson had been seen on a Northumberland grouse moor owned by a couple of Tory donors earlier in the day.
Unfortunately it appears the weather was too foggy for grouse shooting and Johnson had to settle for some clay pigeon shooting.
It is somewhat amazing that he didnt manage to shoot himself in the foot in the process
In 2021 a report from the University of Northampton that was actually produced in August 2020 received fresh coverage In the Times and the Telegraph. The drift is that with grouse shooting everyone is in it together (except the grouse obviously) although financially it is of course a case of the few not the many.
It rather summed up Johnson’s Britain
http://nectar.northampton.ac.uk/15039/1/Sustainable_Driven_Grouse_Shooting_Master_050821.pdf
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