Engel on Tuesday

Hunt the enemies of freedom

Let people chase foxes and smoke dope, though probably not at once

Matthew Engel
Guardian

Tuesday December 12, 2000

Living in the country, we get a card through our letterbox every so often: the local hunt will be meeting on such-and-such a date, it says. "If the hounds pass your way, we hope they will be welcome." There is a phone number to call.

The subtext of this message is as follows: "We are going through the motions of asking permission to hunt over your property. And, yes, you have the right to stop us. But we can't imagine that the kind of muesli-eating wretch who would do such a thing is living round here in the first place." We have never rung up, and thus far the hounds have never come our way. Someone else has, though. This time last year our broody hen hatched three fluffy yellow ducklings (it's an effective form of avian surrogacy). No mother of triplets was as preeningly proud and maternal as she was. They were a lovely sight.

It was on the 10th morning that I found the four of them, or what remained: two severed heads, and a pile of feathers. The fox had destroyed my blockade with the casual arrogance of the hunt sending a postcard. He came back for afters too, picking off several more chickens and our best layer of duck eggs. Our once-proud collection of poultry now consists of four wet hens, who have not laid an egg between them in months, one lame duck (recently renamed Clinton) and one lubricious drake, whose sexual voracity and adventurousness cannot possibly be satiated by his one official mate. (He might also be called Clinton.)

So in the matter of fox-hunting I am a militant agnostic. I do not ride to hounds, only partly because the last time I got on a horse I froze in terror when it broke into a trot. But the fox is no friend of mine. By not making that phone call, I suppose I give my implied consent to hunting, an offence punishable - under the most extreme of the government proposals published last week - by a fine of £5,000 or else.

I find both sides of the argument vacuous. The pros make absurd claims about the economic and cultural importance of hunting in the countryside, and are incoherent about whether they are controlling a pest or protecting a vulnerable species. The antis are wholly remote from the persistently cruel reality of nature: foxes murder poultry; hounds murder foxes; cats murder songbirds; the British allegedly love animals but will eat millions of factory-farmed Christmas turkeys without asking any questions at all.

I am also baffled by the government's position. I'm sure Tony Blair cares not a stuff whether hunting is banned. But he seems to perceive political advantage in keeping the issue alive until the election. In theory, the Commons can take on the Lords; an almost united Labour party can take on the divided Tories; the anti- hunting majority can overwhelm the minority. Closer to May, it might not seem that way. As happened early in the Blair government, the hunting issue will get bundled in with all manner of rural discontents, with Labour painted as a party of urban ignoramuses; this will play very badly in many of the seats won in 1997.

There is another aspect. It was raised in a letter to the Times last Thursday signed by Sir John Mortimer, General Sir Peter de la Billière, Jeremy Irons, Ivan Massow and Roger Scruton. The tactic was stupid: letters like this need to be signed by one person or 50; five just looks pathetic. But the argument was valid: "A fundamental question of civil liberty is at issue ... to criminalise an activity which has the support of so many law-abiding people would constitute a radical and undesirable break with the liberal tradition of law-making in this country." This is true. So far as I can discover, sports like cock fighting that so engaged the 18th century were suppressed in the 19th only when religious revivalism created a significant consensus in favour of change. There is no consensus on hunting.

Curiously, many of those keenest on a ban are most enthusiastic about lifting the restriction on cannabis. I think everyone should keep their traps shut about the pleasures of others which they do not understand. The Attlee government lost its huge majority in 1950 largely because it was perceived as bossy and interfering: find-out-what-everyone-is-doing-and-stop-them-from-doing-it. It's a piece of history of which Blair should be more aware.

The modern Conservative party has no credibility on personal liberty; after all, it tried to stop people attending football matches without identity cards. But, if it had an ounce of sense, it would strangle Ms Widdecombe and establish itself as the party of genuine freedom. Let people hunt if they insist; and let them smoke dope too (but not both at the same time on the public highway). Better still, this could be a Labour battle cry.

matthewengel@ndirect.co.uk