Read my post below:
I said "I don't go fox hunting, I never have, and I don't really want it reintroduced."

I think that on balance I'm happier with a ban in place, but the way it came about made me feel uncomfortable. I don't think that any of the arguments against fox hunting are totally conclusive:

Cruel: maybe, but battery farming affects more animals.
Inefficient: yes, but so what, see above.
Unnecessary: so are golf, high heels, eating meat, Pokemon and Jedward.

If you want to pass a law that denies somebody a right that they currently have you'd better be pretty fucking sure that you're doing the right thing otherwise we risk turning into a horribly illiberal society. Given (what I see as) the holes in the argument against hunting and that most of the population don't really care (and certainly don't demonstrate a particular vehemence for animal rights), I can only conclude that it was done to get one over on the toffs, which is pathetic, illiberal and incorrect.
(flimflam_machine, Fri 28 May 2010, 15:47, 1 reply)

Sadly,
I think that the way the ban was introduced does make it seem that the purpose was to get at the Hoo-rays, regardless of all the Countryside Alliance protests about the "ordinary" working-class hunting folk, and even if it was introduced for all the right reasons (ie. to consign hunting with packs of dogs to history along with bear-baiting, cock-fighting etc etc in the interests of animal welfare and progressive civilised behaviour).

The fact that there are holes in the ban wide enough to drive a truck through, let alone a pack of hounds following quarry flushed out by a bird of prey, is the worst thing about the whole business. Had the ban been thought out properly, all the loopholes would be closed, it really would have been the end of the line for the Hunts, and by this time down the line, most of them would be quaint memories of a bygone age.

Instead, the Hunts have been treading water, trying to stay afloat till the Labour Govt croaked, their mates got back into power, and the ban lifted. As with any knee-jerk law introduced with undue haste by those who apparently used it to get one over on people they don't like, rather than to benefit society, it will never be watertight enough to see the Hunts dissolved permanently. I doubt David Cameron and Oddbod Jnr Clegg will have it high on their priority lists to revise it either, so it will continue to fester.

If the issues for banning were kept to basics, ie. the way that a fox, a useless, inedible, creature is killed after a protracted chase FOR PLEASURE, then that should be enough, a ban is absolutely justified and anyone associated would surely hang their head in shame.

Instead, the Countryside Alliance cunningly turned it into a "Town vs Countryside" issue, and that's why most Britons haven't really got an opinion on it, because most of us don't live in the Inner City nor on a country estate where we work for the Squire, we're sort of in the middle of it all. If anything, people dream of the rural idyll, the country cottage they will one day buy in which to enjoy the peace and quiet, so would be reluctant to be seen as destroying "traditional" country pursuits. The fact that this idyll is fantasy anyway is neither here nor there, but surely there's no place for pointless barbarism like foxhunting in the UK today?

I strongly believe that a large section of the anti-ban protesters are people who actually DON'T support foxhunting, but have been convinced, by the CA, that the ban is part of a concerted campaign by the evil townie to tarmac the Green Belt, put a disabled access ramp in every pleasant green field, turn cricket clubhouses into Multicultural Drop-in Centres or Mosques, basically change the British countryside to fit in with a New Labour dream, where "British traditions" are to be looked back at with shame. I must say cunts like Blair,Brown,Harman etc and their "diverse" quangoes did a pretty good job of making that seem like a credible theory.

Oh, and yes, battery farmed animals suffer in greater numbers, but not to provide anyone with amusement.
(Rsoles, Fri 28 May 2010, 17:36, closed)

Maybe
I was going to leave this, because I think most points have been made, but I'm not sure why you think that 'anyone associated [with hunting] would surely hang their head in shame' just because it got banned. I'm sure hunters knew what was happening in a hunt, that wouldn't change just because it was illegal and neither would the morality of it. If they didn't care before the ban, they wouldn't care after.

'battery farmed animals suffer in greater numbers, but not to provide anyone with amusement.'

No, just to provide them with terrible quality meat that they don't actually need. Although public opinion probably has gradually swung against hunting I suspect that the majority of people still don't really care and that the swing is due more to a reduction in deference to the upper class rather than a sudden surge in animal rights activism (as evidenced by our appalling treatment of animals for needless cheap food).
(flimflam_machine, Tue 1 Jun 2010, 15:14, closed)