Village Voices

Yesterday's defeat of the Government over pubs echoed the defeat of the Thatcher Government over Sunday trading. As in that case, Tory traditionalists lined up with Labour against their own party's market fundamentalists. (Traditionalism and fundamentalism are always very different things, whatever alliances they may form from time to time.)

A key figure in that case was Sir Roger Gale, as he has since become. He was on Newsnight last night to mark the tenth anniversary of the hunting ban. He was debating against Labour's Baroness Mallalieu, of the Countryside Alliance. Sir Roger is a stalwart of the League Against Cruel Sports.

It is a feature of anti-hunting Conservatives (of whom there used to be far more; only procedural devices prevented a ban in the Major years, when it had majority Commons support) that they are otherwise very right-wing indeed, whether Old Right, New Right, or a combination of aspects of each.

Think of Sir Roger. Think of Sir Teddy Taylor. Think of Ann Widdecombe. Think of the late Alan Clark and the late Sir Anthony Beaumont-Dark.

It is also noticeable that many staunch hunting areas elect very few Conservative MPs, and that some elected barely any for a good many years until 2010.

Think of Yorkshire, the Midlands, Devon, Cornwall and Wales.

The unenforceable hunting ban is bringing the law into disrepute in certain areas and among certain people as surely as the non-enforcement of the drug laws does in and among certain others.

Indeed, there are points of contact. From where do you think that, directly or indirectly, squires' children obtain their drugs? Especially among men, there has never been much of a line between the very top and the very bottom of British society.