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Just over a year ago, it looked as if it was all over for hunting. The Government had used the Parliament Act to ban hunting foxes with hounds; many hunts were gloomily considering disbanding themselves and getting rid of their hounds. Yet, since the new hunting season began, it is becoming evident that many hunts are thriving, in fact prospering as never before in living memory. This year's Hunt Ball in my part of the south-east (I shan't be more specific) was the best-attended for years.
Of course, nobody ever speaks of fox hunting: this is trail hunting, where the hounds follow the scent of fox's urine dragged in a bag across the fields and through the copses. The hounds respond in much the same way that they used to do, and if it should happen - lamentably and quite by chance - that the hounds catch the scent
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| This year’s Hunt Ball in my part of the south-east was the best attended for years |
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of a real fox, there is nothing the huntsmen can do to stop them chasing it.
Meanwhile, hunts are getting more help from farmers and landowners who didn't allow hunting over their fields before but have changed their minds in the belief that governments should not legislate against traditional liberties.
The EU has inadvertently aided the hunting cause too. Now that it remunerates farmers for not sowing crops on the perimeters, or "headlands" of their fields, farmers are permitting hunts to ride over these swathes of fallow land. The police don't interfere because it is private land and nobody is breaking the law.
I don't hunt myself but I do think that hunts across the country should join in sending Gerald Kaufman, and his fellow Labour backbenchers who raged against this toffs' pastime, a letter of thanks for promoting it so successfully. The only losers are the foxes, who are now shot in great numbers by farmers, and often die a more lingering death than they ever did from hounds. 
FIRST POSTED JANUARY 10
 Archive: A cunning wheeze
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