Another country

While the scions of the nobility and gentry, along with the idle sons of multimillionaire pop musicians and the friends of princes of the realm have been invading the House of Commons and presuming to lecture the elected representatives of the people as to what they should or shouldn't do, a rather different countryside triumph has been celebrated.

Finally, the start of the right to roam legislation has been launched to a fanfare from the Ramblers' Association.

And what a contrast between the two issues there is.

As the gentry wax indignant over infringements of their right to put wild animals to death in the most archaic, inhumane, gory and expensive way that they can dream up, not to mention it being the least efficient, ordinary people are celebrating the commencement of a fifteen-month process of restoring their right of access to the wild parts of Britain, to walk and to enjoy.

The contradiction, to anyone who knows the history of the ramblers movement and the roots of the Countryside Alliance, is even sharper than it at first seems.

The ramblers have built on the foundation of the mass trespass on Kinder Scout in 1932. Its prime mover was 20-year-old Manchester communist and apprentice car worker Benny Rothman - Jewish by descent, tiny in stature and fiery in rhetoric.

The trespass grew out of his participation in the British Workers' Sports Federation, which ran weekend camps for Manchester's poor and unemployed - and his confrontation with a group of gamekeepers attempting to debar them from their employer's land.

This grew to a 500-strong organised trespass for which he served five months in prison, but, eventually, two years after his death at 90, the right to roam is now a fact which landowners have to recognise.

One would have thought that this was something that the Countryside Alliance would find common cause to celebrate along with the ramblers, but, apart from a sniffy and admonitory six-line note on its website reminding people that the right to roam hasn't yet been fully rolled out - nothing.

On the other hand, this is hardly surprising from a so-called popular movement which is, in fact, funded by massive contributions from big landlords.

The Duke of Westminster gave at least £380,000 in the past three years and provided a £500,000 overdraft guarantee. Owner of 50,000 acres of grouse moor Brigadier Tim Landon added £210,000.

The Duke of Buccleuch and Queensbury gave a cool £750,000, while the Duke of Bedford bunged £100,000 into the hat.

All this is obviously not just to ensure that little Henrietta gets a chance to follow the hunt on her pony.

Put bluntly, it is to try to make certain that the aristocracy and gentry retain the right to do as they damn well like on lands that their ancestors stole for them.

And for them, we have only one answer.

Take a hike.