The Spectator's Notes | 26 February 2005

Like thousands who met in the hunting field last Saturday, I was half-delighted, half-bewildered. Delighted because it was a gigantic show of defiance and the large number of foxes killed proved the absurdity of the ban. Bewildered because we seem to have moved into an era in which legislators happily pass laws which they know won’t work. Among our mounted field of 150 and the much larger crowd of foot supporters, two policemen wandered with a camera. Although one of them had the identification code ‘KGB’ on his back, both were thoroughly amiable but completely pointless. We presented them with the drag — a fox shot earlier — for them to snap, and that was that. One must ask the question, if the law is not made to be enforced, is it supposed to be obeyed? Although the enthusiasm against the ban was wonderful, there was something sad about the artificiality of the substitute sport. Hunts will not long survive if they are reduced to mere play. The next step must be to get serious in our mockery (if that is not a contradiction in terms) and test the law to extinction.

The Conservatives have a commitment to repealing the ban, making it, in Michael Howard’s word, ‘a government Bill in government time’. In the unlikely event of the Tories winning the election they will be tempted to push this measure aside to get on with more conventional political business. It is essential that hunting supporters make their presence felt in constituency associations to prevent any backsliding and any Widdecombe tendency — what Auberon Waugh used to call the Tory ‘stinkers’ — raising its head.