BASC urges shooters to push the election button.

Thursday, 18 March 2010 12:00 AM

Everyone involved in shooting sports is being urged to take part in a groundbreaking online election campaign being run by the UK's largest shooting organisation, the British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC).

BASC has set up a web-based canvassing system which allows users to quickly contact every candidate declared for their home constituency and to gather their views on shooting. So far more than 2600 candidates have been contacted. BASC director of communications Christopher Graffius said "The response rate is running at around 25% of all candidates, each one giving us their stance on shooting issues. This is easily the most comprehensive pre-election survey in our history but we need as many people as possible to take part by using the BASC election website before polling day."

More than a third of Conservative candidates in the top 100 Tory target seats have responded to say they support shooting conducted according to accepted codes of practice. Overall 96% of all Conservatives who responded said they support shooting. Of the other two main parties, 48% of Labour and 56% of Lib Dems said they support shooting.

Of those who are supportive or neutral, the figures currently stand at 96% of all Conservative candidates who responded, 81% for Labour and 85% for the Lib Dems. Christopher Graffius said "We are looking at probably the most interesting and closely fought election for thirty years, and we will have more new MPs coming in to the next parliament than we have seen for sixty years. The more information we can gather from our pre-election campaign, the better prepared we will be to represent shooting after the election."

The BASC election website can be found at www.basc.org.uk

ENDS.

For more information call the BASC press office on 01244 573030

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