This Sunday hundreds of thousands of protestors are expected to take to the streets of London. How would you explain to the average Londoner, who may possibly be inconvenienced by the march, why is so important?

Richard Burge:Protests by minorities are a democratic right, a democratic tradition, and a democratic duty as well. These things are not done to make people's lives miserable, but if that is an unavoidable consequence we apologise. We have been working closely with the police and local authorities to cause as little inconvenience as possible. We are doing it on a Sunday for two reasons; firstly because it is easier for families and kids to get there - it is about their future - and secondly; because it is not designed to make misery for Londoners facing commutes to work.

What's your reaction to the reports that Ken may be closing off Parliament Square?

Richard Burge:Plonker. I do not think Ken even has the vaguest understanding of the issues and I just wish he would get on with governing London.

A lot of people in London will see the protest and assume it is all about hunting. Why has hunting become the most visible issue?

Richard Burge:Well you will have to ask MPs that because nobody in the countryside has asked for hunting to be an issue. In the period between the election in June and the decision to go for another parliamentary debate in March, there was virtually nothing about hunting on our website. There was a certain amount about hunting and FMD, but then it was alongside a whole host of other things. The fact is that hunting is not a rural priority. Rural people have very important issues that they want to raise which have distinct echoes in urban areas as well - like health, housing, social services provision and care of the elderly. The only time hunting comes up is when Parliament gets involved.

What is the message that those on the march will be sending to the government?

Richard Burge:There is no such thing as town and country, but there are country minded people and town minded people. There will be vast swathes of people living in urban areas on that march because they either get some sort of livelihood out of the countryside or it is their hope and salvation. So it is about country mindedness, and country minded people who feel disenfranchised by the system. They feel ignored and that their life and work is something that urban based politicians want to do things to, rather than things for. They feel like a colony in their own nation and do not feel like an equal participant. They have realised that economically they are insignificant but they are not prepared to accept that they are politically unimportant.

In terms of the basic demography, there are 659 seats in the Commons, of which 80 have more than 25 per cent of their constituents living in rural parishes. The protestors believe strongly that government is there for everyone. It is not just there for the people which elected it, or for the people who might elect it in the future. They feel disenfranchised, and have a great deal of anxiety. The march is about them demanding to be heard.

There are two basic points flowing perfectly out of a natural sense of justice, our history and the profound and important statements which came out of the Earth Summits at Johannesburg and Rio.

The first is tolerance of people who live their lives differently and accepting that tolerance has to be shown when someone is doing something you may not particularly like. You have to have overwhelming reasons of national importance to restrict diversity. The marchers want tolerance of the diversity of rural life and you will see rural diversity in all its glorious manifestations on the march.

The second thing is that they demand that government gets their consent for change. This goes back to Rio and Johannesburg and the commitment to sustainable development the need to make communities economically viable and sustainable. Local people must have the right to choose their way of life, their society and culture must be respected.

At present rural people do not think either of these things are happening and this will manifest itself in a whole range of issues. Different people will be there with different issues at the forefront of their mind. For people who hunt, hunting is the vital issue at the moment because it is most acutely under threat, but these are not people sitting in boxes. They are also farmers, they are also feed merchants, they are also the owner of the local pub - they have got other issues as well. What they are upset about is that Parliament has decided to faf on about hunting and is not addressing the issues which matter to them.

Do you think the lack of a government presence on the March is symptomatic of their attitude to rural issues?

Richard Burge:Well they have to make their own decisions and they have to be prepared to account for those decisions. The credo of the march is very clear and if politicians decide they cannot sign up to it then they have to be prepared to account for that. I think the credo of the march is perfectly legitimate and perfectly acceptable. They have just got to carry the can if they cannot sign up to it.

I think that the feeling of disenfranchisement would be there whichever party was in power. I am worried about that the political elite in this country is urban focused because of the needs to get votes. Remember there are large chunks of urban Britain they do not focus on either - particularly ethnic minorities - because they do not vote so they do not matter to politicians continued existence.

So we have ended up with a political elite and a political class who frankly are playing the game to win and not playing it for their constituents.

How concerned are you about the activities of the 'Real' Countryside Alliance?

Richard Burge:I think they are despicable. There is no place for them in a democracy. They are people who are egotistical, cowardly and conceited and I have nothing but contempt for them. The police will not let them participate at the March so they will not get inside the M25. They are very small in number and are a bizarre community who somehow think they can hold this nation to ransom. I do not think any politician or any organisation like ours should even start to consider that as acceptable.

There is a world of difference between them and people like Farmers for Action or the Countryside Action Network. I think some of their tactics are wrong because they have forgotten that in a democracy you get your way of life respected if you earn the respect of the majority. You do not get it by hacking off ordinary people. They are though open and honest people and they are prepared to take the consequences of their actions. This is completely different to the 'Real' Countryside Alliance who, frankly, there is no place for in a modern democracy.

What's is your assessment of the farming industry post FMD?

Foot and Mouth demonstrated two very important things in its own right. The first is that the agricultural industry is on its knees and the real economic consequences are only going to be felt in the long term. We are not going to see an increase in diversification and we're not going to see an increase in entrepreneurship. We are also now in a phase where we could see radical reform of the CAP.

In terms of the future of rural Europe the result of the French elections was not good news. It is going to make the battle to change CAP much harder. What happens in the German elections is going to be important as well - the last thing we need is another Bavarian farmer heading up German agriculture.

The problem we have got is that farmers increasingly see changes, such as modulation, taking money away from them when at the same time they are being asked to change the pattern to meet environmental regulations. Most farmers realise that subsidy is a disaster and has to be got rid of, but what they have to have is access to funds for investment in regeneration and productivity. At the moment every change that is being proposed takes money away from them, rather than putting money into investing in change.

I think this is being driven by an environmental lobby - Clare Short at Johannesburg called them "eco-imperialists" - and they want a small farmer who is basically a micro enterprise, unable to employ anyone in the community, earning two thirds of the minimum wage and having to deal with between 12 and 15 regulatory authorities looking over their shoulder.

When change does take place it is in the form of "Let me give you access to a management consultant; let me give you access to advice". What we want is cash investment. If you ask a sugar beet farmer to move away from sugar beet production - which is a subsidised activity - to move into a form of production which might involve more on site processing, they are going to need investment in terms of equipment and staff. At the moment they can see all their money being taken off them in modulation to be lost in management consultancy fees.

I get deeply depressed whenever I hear from environment organisations that for a third of the price of the CAP you could conserve the whole of Britain. Well yes you probably could, but what about the human beings?

So in terms of practical steps, what more can the government do?

Richard Burge:I do not think this is a quick step issue. On Saturday we will be publishing a list of between 8 and 10 things we want the prime minister to sign up to on Monday. We do not want them to be simplistic, it is about commitment. The government still does not understand the complexity of the situation and that is symptomatic of the problem generally. It is not a party political problem - politicians are generally out of touch. Most of the people on the march will not be Conservative voters. Most will actually be people who do not vote.

I personally get very angry about boxing. I think it's abhorrent, but I would go on a march tomorrow to stop it being banned. People should instead be persuaded.

Every other decent democracy on this planet has a parliamentary system with two chambers, strong checks and balances and a written constitution and a bill of rights. We are nowhere near that. We have MP's shouting about the sovereignty of Parliament. Well I believe in the sovereignty of Parliament but I do not believe in the supremacy of people who are elected to it, particularly as we make sure we have to re-elect them. Just because an MP has a personnel prejudice before they are elected, it does not become a god-given truth simply because they are elected.

Among the government's main priorities are the public services, eliminating poverty and social exclusion, yet you believe that people living in rural areas feel ignored. What should the government be doing to engage with the countryside on these issues?

Richard Burge:Well there are basic things they can do. For instance the decision to hold an urban summit and not a rural one just fuels the countryside's feeling of abandonment - particularly when most of the themes discussed at an urban summit are relevant to people living in the countryside. For example, we have got problems with housing and the homeless. The average price of a house in the countryside is 15 per cent more than a house in urban areas. The Standard Spending Assessment in rural areas is 20 per cent lower than in urban areas. In terms of rural transport - 0.016 per cent of the transport investment plan for the next 10 years is going to rural areas - this is just not bloody fair!

Going back to the housing issue. In the South West you have the bizarre situation where young people are moving into towns in order to commute into the countryside to work, yet villages are half empty because the houses there have become holiday homes occupied only at weekends by people who pay only half their council tax.

We also have the strange situation where greenfield building is VAT free, yet brownfield building carries VAT. We do not have local authority control in house construction so in rural areas new houses are largely executive homes because it matches the planning officers impression of what that area needs. We have not set up schemes to allow parish councils to go into partnership with local land owners who can let their land and get tax concessions on it. Yet parish councillors have to declare their interests to the same level as an MP does! What's the point of being on a parish council when they have no power? Again, it is just a lack of understanding.

What do you think about the government appointing Ewan Cameron, the chairman of the Countryside Agency, as rural advocate?

Richard Burge:Well I like Ewan a lot and I think that he is a splendid man but he cannot do both jobs. Being rural advocate and chairman of the Countryside Agency is a bit like asking the chief inspector of schools to run five comprehensives and then inspect them. It just does not work.

I would like someone else to be made chairman of the Countryside Agency and I would like Ewan to be the rural advocate. I would like him to be given the office and power that the chief inspector of prisons and the chief inspector of schools have. These are very good posts and we just want the same for the countryside.

Rural proofing is a checklist which government departments can apply, but we want it published. The rural advocate's annual report on rural proofing should be debated by select committees and the Commons as a whole. It should be one of their most important activities. To unlock all this the government has to have a greater understanding and engage more with people who disagree with them. I think they are trying to do that, and some things are going right. After all we have some heavyweight politicians in DEFRA who we never would have had under MAFF. The calibre of the civil servants at the top of DEFRA is improving as well. These are useful tools but unless they all applied and work together, they are meaningless.

Are you going to be protesting at the Labour party conference in Blackpool?

Richard Burge:We are going to be in Blackpool but not to protest. We have a big stand there which will be focusing on sustainable development in the countryside. We are also going to be working very hard on CAP reform and a whole host of other things.

If you had one area which you would like Tony Blair to focus on in order to help rural people, what would it be?

Richard Burge:There are two. First: Stop the hunting debate. Stop wasting rural people's time. Second: set up something which demonstrates unequivocally and without fear of any contradiction that the changes that the countryside has to undergo will only be undertaken with the consent and active support of local communities. The Countryside Alliance will do whatever it takes to make sure that this happens.