So the government sounds the horn for the start of the British general election campaign - by introducing a bill that could ban hunting with hounds. This might be a reasonable thing to do, if foxes had the legal status of voters rather than vermin. In the circumstances, however, it looks like a stunt primarily designed to persuade disappointed Labour activists that theirs is a radical party worth campaigning for between now and polling day in May.
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Many have questioned why the government is wasting valuable time and energy on such trivia as the hunting issue; after all, it is not as if society is short of real problems waiting to be tackled. Yet in a symbolic way, the hunting issue is of political significance. The enthusiasm for a ban among New Labour MPs reveals something telling about the mindset of the neo-puritans who are now in the Westminster saddle.
This issue is less about animals than about what we think of humanity. The anti-hunt lobby likes to say that hunting has 'no place in a civilised society'. That sounds compelling. But by civilised, they mean sanitised, a society cleaned up to suit their dry tastes.
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The New Britain they envision is a sterilised society, with dangerous passions cooled and pleasures shrink-wrapped; so they tell huntsmen to chase scented rags instead of foxes, as if it were possible to have 'safe' blood sports. If they get their way we will be left with an intolerant society, where prigs try to stigmatise and punish whatever makes them uncomfortable, be it smoking, hunting or recreational sex.
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When I spoke at a debate on hunting last year, a man from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals mounted his high horse to tell us that they had to stop people foxhunting because 'we are the guardians of morality'. And there I was thinking that they were the guardians of guinea pigs and puppies.
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Some of us have a different idea of a civilised society. It is one based on the recognition that individuals are responsible adults with moral autonomy, who should be able to make their own decisions (and their own mistakes) about what is right and wrong. The usual rider is 'so long as it does not harm others' - which is fine, so long as we don't start stretching the definition of 'others' to include furry animals (notice how those cold, scaly fish never get a look in), or the definition of 'harm' to mean offend or upset.
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The arguments used to support a ban on hunting undermine this basis of a civilised society. Those who equate hunting foxes with abusing children reduce humanity to the moral equivalent of mice. When foxes organise their own anti-hunting protest (or their own suffrage movement?) we can reasonably talk about giving them human rights. Until then, the price to be paid for giving in to the animal rights lobby is simply too high - it does not just mean a ban on hunting, but the kind of attacks on vital animal research that Helene Guldberg writes about elsewhere on spiked.
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I do not hunt; the only sportsmen in red I wish to follow play for Manchester United. I care relatively little for the countryside, inclining to Dr Johnson's view that when a man is tired of London, he's tired of life (no matter how bad the tube gets). But I oppose a ban on foxhunting as strongly as I would any other attempt to hound liberty underground.
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In the strange world of politics today, bans are the language of intolerant liberals, while the 'forces of conservatism' can find themselves on the side of freedom. This can mean those of us who want to stand up for liberty can find ourselves in some peculiar alliances. But nobody should worry too much about that, if it helps to challenge New Labour's authoritarian agenda.
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Not that I believe New Labour's heart is fully committed to the anti-hunting crusade. Several times now Tony Blair's government has charged towards a ban, only to rein back at the last. Blair's absence from Wednesday's hunting vote in the House of Commons suggests that he is still uncertain about forcing the issue through, and would be happy enough to see the Bill get bogged down in the House of Lords.
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New Labour leaders want to be seen to take a stand on the moral high ground. But since they do not really believe in this or any other cause, they don't have much stomach for the fight they have needlessly provoked. Before it can have the courage of its convictions, New Labour not only needs to find some courage. It also needs to invent some convictions.
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