But the snag is that hunting is not morally right.

John Stuart Mill addressed this issue 150 years ago. His “harm principle” is one of the underlying principles of modern western government. Basically, Mill said that we should have the freedom to do anything provided it does not harm or hurt others. And Mill, like Jeremy Bentham before him, went out of his way to emphasise that the definition of “others” included animals. Indeed, Mill drew the parallel with children. Animals and children, he said, are in the same moral position. They may be weaker than us but they are both capable of suffering pain and fear. We should not hurt them. Furthermore, said Mill, governments not only can intervene to stop minorities inflicting suffering upon animals and children, they actually have a moral duty to do so.

So this is the problem with hunting: it causes suffering to animals just for sport. That cannot be morally right. Jim Barrington mounts what might have been, in another context, a persuasive argument for a compromise. But one cannot have a “middle way” on animal abuse. I’m afraid that no compromise on cruelty is possible.

What is so sad about the current hunting debate in Britain is the mythology on both sides. Some anti-hunters are convinced that hunting is only a toffs’ sport but the evidence is to the contrary. Indeed, until as late as the 1950s, most of the aristocracy and gentry actually looked down upon hunting as a nouveau riche activity (I can remember this very well – the overwhelming majority of the established gentry did not hunt). In the 18th century it was regarded – as can be seen in Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones – as an uncouth barbarism indulged in only by a few country ruffians; the exact opposite of the country-house enlightenment of the period.

The trouble is that fox-hunting has had a lot of excellent spin-doctors from the days of Robert Smith Surtees and the Druid until today. They have rewritten history and have now convinced not only themselves but even the gentry itself that fox-hunting is an ancient and genteel pastime. It is not. Some other sports (equally cruel) are another matter.

Sadly, as a historian and social scientist and as one who has lived in the English countryside for over fifty years, I know very well that one of the strongest motives for fox-hunting is this romantic view of it as a traditional aristocratic sport. I do not say it is always snobbery. I say it is a romantic view. And I am a great romantic myself.

More solid aspects of the mythology include the mistaken view, held on both sides, that foxes are pests or vermin. These words, like the word “weed” when applied to plants, indicate only that the animals or plants concerned tend to do things that we find inconvenient. Certainly, in the days when everyone had poultry and geese wandering around their yards, it was upsetting to see the foxes helping themselves. But today this is no longer the case, or should not be. Poultry, even free range, are nowadays properly fenced in.

Indeed, when I was working for the International Fund for Animal Welfare (Ifaw) I commissioned some of the best scientists at Oxford to research into this. They found that foxes eat a huge number of rabbits. This was calculated to save British arable farmers around £100 million each year! Yet we still hear both sides saying: “of course, foxes have to be controlled somehow.” What nonsense! Foxes are a tremendous agricultural asset.

The mythology is compounded by the use of questionable statistics. A certain Countryside Alliance banner quotes 59% approving of hunting while RSPCA and many other polls indicate 70% or even nearly 80% disapproving. They cannot all be right!

It is often claimed that the anti-hunting campaign is “townies” versus the countryside. Again, the scientific research does not bear this out. Many of the people who hunt are, basically, urban people who are pursuing the traditional English ideal of rurality, and opposition to hunting is almost as strong in the countryside (where irritation caused by the hunts invading private property, roads, railways, or crops is quite high) as in the towns.

Most sad of all is the Countryside Alliance’s failure to see the writing on the wall and to plan for the future by developing humane alternative sports such as drag-hunting and bloodhounds. Outrageously, some on the pro-hunt side have gone out of their way actually to suppress such sports, probably recognising this to be their Achilles’ heel.

Several experienced fox-hunters have told me over the years that their best days hunting have been after a drag. An intelligent human runner can be just as “cunning” as a fox in laying a difficult trail if that is what is wanted. On the other hand, crops, motorways, livestock, pets and people’s back gardens can be avoided. Farmers and landowners could charge for it.

More than this, television people tell me that such a sport could have tremendous televisual appeal – the pink coats, the fine landscapes and the horses. It could be developed into a valuable countryside enterprise providing far more jobs than are currently supported by fox-hunting. This is the way forward for hunting in the modern world. Such alternative sports are the real “middle way”!

I myself was a member of the Windsor Forest Draghounds years ago. I have to say that I derived a great deal of pleasure from it. Bloodhounds have such good noses they can follow a runner’s trail without the use of a drag. They not only look good; they sound even better!