After the conviction of the joint master and two staff of the Crawley and Horsham Hunt this May on five counts of illegal fox hunting, can the pro-hunt minority claim that the Hunting Act is ‘bad law’.
Since then the master and a terrier man of the Meynell and South Staffordshire Hunt have been found guilt of illegal cub hunting, and two Heythorp hunt staff have pleaded guilty to illegal fox hunting on extensive video evidence (including horrific footage of a fox savaged to death).
The act self-evidently is fully workable, and the sentiment focused on alleged social prejudice is clearly unsustainable when a new Mori poll shows three in four members of the public want fox hunting to remain illegal.
If it is ‘more popular than ever’, as the Countryside Alliance claim every Boxing Day, why is there so little support in parliament for repealing the ban on it?
The Boxing Day Meet may be traditional, but it is a tradition better consigned to history.
Katherine Watson
Stockport
Cheshire
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