LAG whitewash?

Secundum quid;

"BASC’s Council has been shocked and angered by the unattributed email released by Defra under Freedom of Information rules, which suggests that the Lead Ammunition Group (LAG) could support a ban on lead ammunition.To the best of our knowledge no report has been seen or approved by the Lead Ammunition Group as a whole. We do not believe it is in the gift of any one individual, or group of individuals, to overturn the group’s Terms of Reference which were set out by Government in 2010 and agreed to by a broad range of organisations. It is inconceivable that BASC or other organisations would permit any circumvention of those Terms of Reference." BASC. 10/02/2015

Scientific bias
Last December, the president of the Royal Society, Sir Paul Nurse, wrote to The Times, saying: “Scientists have a responsibility to work with and correct those who misuse and misrepresent science to support their particular politics or ideologies. We must remain vigilant to ensure that evidence comes before opinion.”
We all have opinions and beliefs. Scientists are not immune to being influenced by them, hence the warning from Sir Paul. This problem is known as “white-hat bias” — where a scientist deliberately or unintentionally selects evidence that supports their opinion. Opinion comes first and the evidence is flawed. Regulation must address real problems and not support prejudice and opinion. So what does this mean for the Lead Ammunition Group (LAG)? It was set up in 2010, when politicians invited relevant stakeholders to produce advice on the potential effects of lead ammunition on wildlife and human health.
The fact that the LAG was even established shows that the evidence for new regulation was not proven. Political theory calls this the “agenda-setting” phase. In the absence of concrete evidence in support of change, stakeholders promote their agendas. It can be the very definition of a grey area. The LAG is reviewing studies and publications and trying to agree what those studies might mean and if definitive advice can be produced.
I have no doubt that those politicians involved in LAG’s establishment believed it would follow a clearly defined, unbiased process, adhering to government guidelines and principles of modern risk assessment and review. The LAG drew criticism early on. At only its second meeting, it agreed to allow “grey evidence” into the process. If you mix the grey areas of opinion-driven agenda-setting with white-hat bias, we will end up with more than 50 shades of grey.
Risks must be defined using sound evidence. Thereafter proposals to address those risks must meet the principles of Better Regulation. Governments of all political colours now accept that over-regulation is a bad thing. To that end, processes have been put in place to protect against the overzealous, the holier-than-thou and the demonising.

Read more at Lead ammunition: wheres the science? - Shooting UK
 
So if we haven't got a Labour Government to give 'Lord' Swift of Marford Mill a peerage, for dis-services to the shooting community, he takes it out on the people that paid him for years.
 
So if we haven't got a Labour Government to give 'Lord' Swift of Marford Mill a peerage, for dis-services to the shooting community, he takes it out on the people that paid him for years.

It would seem that way, Swift was the reason that I left BASC some years ago due to him praising Alun Michael and his Hunting Act, since his departure however I have rejoined.

atb Tim
 
It would seem that way, Swift was the reason that I left BASC some years ago due to him praising Alun Michael and his Hunting Act, since his departure however I have rejoined.

atb Tim

When Dr John Harradine got up at a wildfowling conference and said he had shot with steel and lead, and couldn't tell the difference in performance, I lost faith in BASC. Perhaps he missed with everything.
 
When Dr John Harradine got up at a wildfowling conference and said he had shot with steel and lead, and couldn't tell the difference in performance, I lost faith in BASC. Perhaps he missed with everything.

Or worse still wounded.
 
I will have to jump in on the defence of steel. It is effective and it does the job. But it needs the right gun and the right load. Overall yes lead is better, as if holds more energy and for longer at extended ranges, but by then pattern is generally failing anyway and all the energy in the world ain't going to kill a bird if hit in the wrong place.
 
I'm only a token wildfowler but shoot Montrose basin ( local)
Seen a lot more wounded & die later carcasses , heard others more qualified than me say it too .
Sitting watching others on mud. Letting loose at stuff in stratosphere make your p1ss boil & happens all the time , right gun right load , but too many ****s pulling a trigger when shouldn't

Paul
 
CA Chairman resigns from LAG and slates John Swift

So much for the old CEO of BASC and his unbiased intentions?
Is this the 'voice of shootings' best hour, worst hour or typical ?


Sir Barney White-Spunner has resigned from the Lead Ammunition Group (LAG), citing a “lost confidence” in the group chairman John Swift.
The LAG was set up under in April 2010 at the behest of the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust and the RSPB, to advise Defra on any risks to wildlife, human health and livestock from the use of lead ammunition, and how to mitigate them, with their findings expected to be published in a paper later this year.
For the full report, pick up this week’s edition (May 27) of Shooting Times.
Below is the full text of Sir Barney’s resignation letter:

I have, further to submitting my 172 detailed comments of evidence and process on your draft Lead Ammunition Group (LAG) Report, been reflecting on how you came to write a draft that is so very far from reflecting the LAG’s discussions. I find that your draft is subjective and draws incorrect conclusions from what evidence the LAG has agreed. More seriously, many of those conclusions are based on evidence that the LAG has simply not agreed and which you are now presenting to us as a fait accompli.
You have my detailed points but I object in particular to your drawing conclusions from the Sub Group paper “Evaluation of the Risks to Human Health”. I and three other members of the LAG have pointed out repeatedly that we cannot accept a paper on such a potentially serious issue unless it is written by professionally medically qualified experts; neither of the authors is a medical professional let alone a human toxicologist. One works for the RSPB and the other for the Wetlands and Wildlife Trust. Whilst both are eminent in their chosen fields, and whilst I accept Professor Levy’s oversight role, the fact remains that for such an important paper not to be authored by fully qualified medical professionals questions the whole basis of your process. The LAG has never accepted this paper and nor can it.
Secondly, I have consistently pointed out that I agreed with the first “Evaluation of the Risks to Wildlife” paper, written by Dr Alastair Leake and Dr John Harradine, as did four other members of the group. I did not agree with commissioning a second paper which was also, like the Human Health paper, written by Dr Debbie Pain and Professor Rhys Green. Neither did I agree with the preparation of a so called consensus paper which relied disproportionately on this second paper and which, again, has never actually been agreed by the full group. Your draft is therefore based almost entirely on the opinions of two people, both of whom have previously stated their intention to have lead shot banned.
I also object strongly to the way you have misrepresented the conclusions of the Risk Mitigation Sub Group which I chaired. My view was that, given the lack of any agreed evidence to the contrary, the most the LAG should be recommending to DEFRA and the FSA was a series of measures based on improved advice and possibly labelling and stricter implementation of the existing ban on the use of lead on wildfowl in England and Wales and over wetlands in Scotland and N Ireland. I pointed out that this concurred with the current reversal of a previously imposed ban in Norway and with the current view in Brussels.
I am also disappointed that you have not chosen to disclose to the whole group those to whom you shared an early draft of your paper (your e mail of 18th December refers). Maybe if you had then we could have started to sort out some of this. I find it strange that we have been copied comments on your draft from some members of the LAG but not others. Subsequently I regard your intention to hold the final LAG meeting on a date when three key members of the group are unable to attend as hardly conducive to genuinely addressing their concerns.
Taken together, these abuses of process mean that your draft is so flawed that I cannot agree to it forming the basis of any final report. It is based on papers that have not been accepted and with which I and other LAG colleagues profoundly disagree. Consequently I have no confidence that any final report you produce will reflect my misgivings; in the two years I have served on the group my views and interventions have not been accepted. I regret that I have lost confidence in your chairmanship and must therefore resign.
I would be grateful if you would record on your final report that I could no longer serve as the representative of the shooting community on the LAG because of my profound disagreement with the way process has been conducted. I will also write to The Secretary of State in similar terms. Neither I nor the Countryside Alliance will be walking away from this issue. Given the failure of the LAG process we will be consulting with the shooting community, other representative shooting groups and public bodies as to the best way to proceed.
 
Forgive my unworldliness but wasnt John Swift Chairman of an organisation which existed solely to support shooting sports ? For 30 years. With significant sums contributed by shooters. With the message 'no justification, no change'. Is it the CA's first remit to look out for shooters when BASC doesnt?

Dracula ?
 
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Forgive my unworldliness but wasnt John Swift Chairman of an organisation which existed solely to support shooting sports ? For 30 years. With significant sums contributed by shooters. With the message 'no justification, no change'. Is it the CA's first remit to look out for shooters when BASC doesnt?

Dracula ?

I read the r.s.p.b. & others like them have been doing all the report writing?, who was keeping our end up?
 
It is a very sad day that the representatives from BASC and the CA felt that they had no option but to resign. I am sure that this was not done without a great deal of soul searching first. It appears to be a last resort attempt to persuade the chairman that sensible, common sense, values are not being applied to their task. In my opinion, a good chairman would listen, due to the extremeness of the actions, persuade them to return and ensure that steps are taken such that no discrimination takes place.

***************************

Now that I have returned to the real world ...............................................
 
Overall yes lead is better, as if holds more energy and for longer at extended ranges, but by then pattern is generally failing anyway and all the energy in the world ain't going to kill a bird if hit in the wrong place.

Unless it is fired from a 28-bore.
 
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I have heard that the LAG report to DEFRA has attracted some criticism by that body and suggestions on another forum that it has been 'buried' with an explicit statement that it will not affect current ammunition.
There is a ref on another forum which I am unable to access - anyone any relevant info? Some suggestion that Sir Barney W S may have had a hand in this ????? Info requested.
 
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