Hunting for Tory support!

Hunting has been one of the emotive political issues all my life. Mostly it was not about the fox, or even the hens, but there was always a lot of pious clucking from the so called League Against Cruel Sports. Mostly they were against the people behind the hunting. The toffs, as they called them. It was a back door attack on "privilege".

Once, in rural Yorkshire where my maternal family lived for a while, an uncle was walking along a road. A stiff-necked woman on a horse came by and asked, "Hev you seen hounds?" to which my uncle replied, "I saw some dogs running by."

He had a lofty disdain for hunting, but was quite prepared to let the nature of the countryside find its own way. Now the Conservative Party is considering a free vote in Parliament should they get elected at the next election. Edward Garnier, a shadow justice minister, says, "Most people at the moment are not interested in hunting, they're interested in the economy. But I'm finding there is a gathering sense of support for this repeal." Now that may well be. But he should heed his sense in the lack of interest.

I would caution against a precipitous course of action after the election. Minds must be focused on cleaning up the economic mess left by the New Labour whelk stallholders. A mess caused by anti-hunting demonstrators would be distraction indeed.

Far better to get on and accept certain things as they are. A High Court ruling has been made which basically makes it harder to prosecute huntsmen. Judges are interpreting the law in such a way as to make prosecutions meaningless. In fact, the Act is a Blairite piece of legal nonsense. "You can't hunt - it's banned! But you can ride horses, chase foxes, flush them out, and only despatch them if you have reasonable cause to think they might be about to attack livestock". It has all the hallmarks of Tony Blair's Alice in Wonderland approach to politics.

I really do hope the Tories have better sense than to ignite the passions of hotheads who can join forces with other hotheads to foment trouble.