This amounts to ‘hate speech’, says Gilruth

Moorland Association chief challenges Rod Liddle over grouse shooting claims

Andrew Gilruth, chief executive of the Moorland Association, went head-to-head with presenter Rod Liddle during a heated Times Radio debate on 9 August, after Liddle launched a sustained attack on grouse shooting.

Liddle repeatedly accused gamekeepers of illegally killing hen harriers, prompting Gilruth to challenge him: “Where’s your evidence for that?” When Liddle cited RSPB and wildlife council reports as “loads of evidence”, Gilruth dismissed them as “unproven, unverified smears from organisations with obvious fundraising agendas”.

When the accusations continued, Gilruth turned the focus onto Liddle’s own past, remarking: “Sometimes the BBC has to sack Today programme editors when they go off the rails” – a reference to Liddle’s 2002 departure from the BBC after breaching impartiality rules. A flustered Liddle insisted he “wasn’t sacked”. Gilruth’s point: “There are bad apples in every profession”, but that doesn’t justify condemning entire industries.

Debate highlights divide over conservation, moorland management and grouse shooting

Liddle described grouse moors as a “partially charred moonscape” that was “eerily devoid of life”. Gilruth countered that moorlands “have been burned regularly for the past 6,000 years, long before the invention of the shotgun”.

Speaking to Shooting Times after the broadcast, Gilruth said: “It was vital to call out the outrageous and unfounded slurs repeated from the RSPB about our keepers. What the RSPB is doing amounts to hate speech and the Moorland Association has raised its concerns with them.”

The programme also featured former RSPB boss Dr Mark Avery, who called for grouse shooting to “disappear completely”, and rewilding advocate Ben MacDonald, who claimed ecological restoration could generate £2,000 per acre annually.

Gilruth drew a key distinction: “Ben talked about what could happen. But let’s deal with where we are, and actually driven grouse moors are the moors that are delivering the results.” He cited official data showing only 3% of bird crime prosecutions involved gamekeepers, and Natural England figures showing hen harriers at a 200-year high, with 80% nesting on driven grouse moors.

When Liddle downplayed curlew conservation with “It’s not all about curlews, is it? You always wave curlews at us,” Gilruth stressed that curlews are red-listed species that thrive under gamekeeper management. The exchange ended abruptly when Liddle closed the discussion.

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