Law Report

I did not support the hunting ban at the time.

Tony Blair and my then MP, the then Government Chief Whip, Hilary Armstrong, used it to cajole disgraceful Labour MPs to vote in favour of the Iraq War.

Neither Blair nor Armstrong ended up voting for the hunting ban. But it did become the law.

And it remains so, supported by huge majorities both in the country at large and in the countryside in particular.

If the RSPCA is no longer prepared to bring private prosecutions, then it is over to the Police and the Crown Prosecution Service, whose non-enforcement of this law is now downright scandalous.

The Police routinely act as escorts to hunts, arresting, if anyone, the people who object to that organised crime.

The CPS almost never prosecutes anyone, and even then it allows the matter to be dealt with by a local magistracy that contains a wildly disproportionate number of participants in hunting. As does the judiciary in general.

That is also, we may note, drawn very heavily indeed from schools such as were also attended by David Cameron and Nicky Morgan, but by almost nobody else, from which there has never been the slightest doubt that parents were perfectly entitled to give their children the day off whenever they felt like it.

Why is that considered a problem in state schools, while strikes by teachers, or lately by pupils, are not? Bringing us to the matter of trade unions and industrial action.

The vindictive check-off ban has been ruled unlawful. But the vicious Trade Union Bill has just become the vicious Trade Union Act.

Until such time as the Hunting Act is enforced, then nor should be the Trade Union Act.

And nor should anyone be in any way sanctioned for non-payment of the television license fee.