h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yeah! Bloody sadistic bloodsport, causing terrific trauma for all those poor cute little fishies. Fishermen have no respect for the countryside either; leaving bait, lead weights, hook-loaded fish and (most disgustingly of all) their own excrement in plastic bags for children as well as domestic pets and other wildlife to discover.

Hang on... this is one ban that will never happen. Why not? Because, as well as there being no class war element here, angling is not perceived as elitist or restricted to a 'privileged' few. The majority is always right, especially in this age of the "Peoples' Party" and their desperate need for working-class hero status.

Am I one of the posh minority types who rail against this perceived injustice? Perhaps you might label me so. I must add that I do indeed find much of the whole hunting thing foul, but what I do find absolutely abhorrent is that the government is so desperate to curry favour with the electorate that it falls over itself in its haste to be seen to be following public opinion blindly and without pause to consider any ramifications of its actions.

Are stable boys posh? Are the people who keep the hounds posh? Does anyone realise that foxhounds are not a domesticable breed of dog? Their sole raison d'etre is to be used in hunts. Banning hunting would be an effective act of genocide for these hounds, who would have to be culled. The ALF and other frankly deluded groups believe that these hounds can be found 'loving homes'. Sure they can. How loving will they continue to be, though, when you need to take 3 or 4 (for they are pack animals, and do not adjust well to isolation) fully-grown hounds who have not been bred with any regard for temperament or docility into one's house? Or after having to explain to the neighbours that these dogs who have just shredded their cat are actually cuddly pets and shouldn't be blamed for their genetic instincts? Or after having just spent several thousand pounds on building the hounds a suitable enclosure to live in?

I would like to say that I realise an outright ban is unlikely, despite public opinion. I realise that drag hunting provides a potentially fine substitute. I realise that the influence of an external moderator on hunting would almost certainly be a good thing, and above all I realise that either side of the debate being condescending or aggresive towards the other is unproductive. The whole 'town vs country' thing is deeply artificial, I know, but it is symptomatic of (a) the fact that there are divisions amongst the people of the UK, however unclear their fault-lines may be, and (b) how dreadful the political handling of this issue has been by both sides.

I think what I am trying to say here is that this is an issue that shows up much of what is awful about British society today. Neither side has done itself any favours; the pro-hunting lot come across as arrogant, whining, barbaric and utterly pigheaded and stubborn. The anti-hunting faction come across as meddling, dictating what others can and can't do from a position of 'moral-majority' ignorance, over-zealous to the point of thoroughly distasteful aggression and utterly pigheaded and stubborn.

Hunting is a pretty horrid business, true. Oscar Wilde was apparently right in his oft-quoted assessment of those who indulge in hunts, but it is my opinion that those who whip themselves into such a morally outraged and righteously indignant frenzy have done themselves no favours either. I find it difficult to believe that the British are prepared to get thmselves into such a lather about a few toffs pissing about on horses and killing the odd fox in about the most inefficient means possible, when our nation lies only a few dozen miles from our nearest neighbour, a country in which it is possible to eat horse and to hunt boar. If the French copped as much flak as the Countryside Alliance, it would be construed as xenophobia. At the same time, though, we don't bait bears anymore (or at least not legally), so why do we hunt?