BBC - Radio 4 - Today - 20006 Vote The Hunting Act with 52.8%

Dangerous Dogs Act: 1.6% Serious Organised Crime and Police Act : 6.2% Human Rights Act: 6.1% European Communities Act : 29.7% The Act of Settlement: 3.6%

Radio 4 is listened to by British political and cultural elites and could be thought of as one of the main sources of negotiated cultural values in the UK. It was interesting to see its listeners to come down on the side of a hunting law as being the most detrimental to British society. Not entirely surprising was the unpopularity of the law that made the UK part of the European Union and its latest continuation the Human Rights Act. What all but one of these laws have in common is nationalistic freedom - freedom with a decidedly libertarian bias. Only one of the laws on offer is there because of more generalized ideals for freedom - Serious Organised Crime and Police Act : 6.2% - namely freedom of speech.

Why would the Brits have chosen these laws to express their dissatisfaction? Why not laws against immigrants or those limiting the rights of prisoners?  (Other than the fact that the pro-hunting lobby organized its supporters.) I suspect that it has to do with an essentially conservative bent of elites in general (no matter how liberal they may seem) and the nostalgic imagery behind some of these laws. You could almost attach picture postcards to some of these Acts judging by how they are represented in the media. And that’s why, the results seem to represent more the Daily Mail readership than the audience of the Today programme.