As readers of this column will know I very  rarely write angry political comments but this month I feel moved to do so by the monstrous way in which the Government has behaved on the Hunting Bill now, alas, an Act of Parliament. 

Now is not the time to rehearse, yet again, the arguments for and against hunting.  I have steadfastly supported the right of those who wish to carry on their traditional country pursuits, first of all because I believe they do no harm to anyone.  Secondly because I believe that among their number are many of those who care most passionately for, and have contributed most to, our countryside as we know it and love it.  But most important of all I do not believe any convincing argument has been produced that culling the fox population by hunting is any crueller than gassing, poisoning, shooting, or any other alternative that has been mentioned. I believe too that the rights of minorities must, in any civilised society, be properly respected.  I would no more have sought to ban the way in which Jews and Muslims have the animals they eat slaughtered, than I would have sought to ban hunting. 

I respect those who take a different view but I do not believe that this is an issue of enormous national importance.   

The Prime Minister, having given very weak and uncertain leadership on this issue, came out, very late in the day, as a staunch supporter of regulated, registered, and controlled hunting.  I honour him for that.  When we voted last week he, and a majority of his Cabinet, took that line.  That is what makes what they did afterwards well nigh unforgivable. Having seen their view defeated in the lobbies they then sought to invoke the Parliament Act to force through the very  Measure that they, themselves, had opposed – a total ban on hunting. 

The Parliament Act of 1911 was passed because the House of Lords of the day was threatening to obstruct the Chancellor’s Budget.  So the House of Lords power of veto was curtailed to two years.  In 1949 the Parliament Act was updated and the veto cut down to one year.  These Parliament Acts were created as a constitutional safeguard against an Upper House seeking to frustrate the will of the House of Commons in matters of high national importance.  It was not used until Mrs Thatcher’s Government employed it to force through the War Crimes Act.  That, in my view, was an ill judged use of the Act. The present Government’s use of it to force through the lowering of the age of consent for homosexuals, and later to force through the European Elections Bill was equally ill-judged.  But if it could be argued that all of these matters were of some national importance, how can anyone argue the same in respect of its use to force through the Fox Hunting Act, and especially to force it through in a form of which the Prime Minister himself so thoroughly disapproves. 

February will be a bleak month for all those who love country sports but more particularly for those whose livelihoods depend upon hunting – and there are many of them in Staffordshire.  But Thursday November 18th was a black day for Parliament, for on that day a tool devised for national emergency was used in a way that made mockery of the whole parliamentary process.

I only hope that those who will suffer as a result of last Thursday’s use of the Parliament Act will use every legitimate device to work for the election of a less bigoted parliament.  But I hope too that they will not resort to breaking the law in order to do so, however, sorely tempted they may feel.