Letters | 3 January 2013

Caught in the ratchet

Sir: Melissa Kite (‘Hunting for Dave’, 29 December) wonders why the Prime Minister won’t reopen the question of hunting. Is it not just possible that the reason given is the real reason — he knows he could not win a vote on it? There is no point in leading the troops into a time-wasting and embarrassing defeat.

I suspect that the hunting ban is an example of ‘ratchet politics’ — once one side has done something, the other side finds it impossible to undo it. (The opposite is ‘ping-pong politics’, where the parties take it in turns to undo the other side’s changes.) The interesting thing is how often such a ratchet move, however divisive and resisted at the time, is eventually seen to be a major step forward which no sensible person would want to undo. Two examples from the past are extending the vote to women and the creation of the NHS. Both were resisted fiercely at the time, both are now part of the national consensus with their abolition totally unthinkable. That is the essence of ratchet politics.

Which does not, I fear, bode well for those who want to repeal the hunting ban.
John Nugée
New Malden

Catholic hierarchy

Sir: In response to J. Lafferty (Letters, 29 December), the Catholic church would be so ecstatic at the prospect of any future succession to the throne involving a Catholic that it would grant dispensation from the obligation of any potential heirs being brought up as Catholics.

One has only to look at their readiness to approve annulments for members of the royal family and their unceasing sycophancy towards the upper reaches of our society to realise that the Church of Rome has little regard for its foot soldiers, but fawns at the feet of what it perceives as the aristocracy or intelligentsia.