The Huntsman Blows His Bugle Horn

And so another Boxing Day comes round.

The hunting ban has never commanded popular support. Most people couldn’t care less. And among those who could (massively concentrated, on both sides, in rural communities), opinion is still overwhelmingly opposed to the ban, i.e., in favour of the safety of the sheep and poultry whom most anti-hunt types still want to eat, and in favour of killing far fewer foxes, by far more humane methods, than the ban compels.

This time last year, there was a Labour Government. Then as now, wealth inequality in Britain was greater than at any other time since records began. Then as now, social mobility had not only ceased, but gone dramatically into reverse. Then as now, the war in Afghanistan droned on. And so on, and on, and on. But never mind. At least the red-coated toffs had been knocked off their horses, so high a priority for Attlee, Bevin, Morrison, Bevan and Gaitskell. Except, of course, that it was not, and that they had not been, nor should they be.