Jill Grieve (London, The Countryside Alliance): Back in February 2005, when the Hunting Act came into force, anyone who predicted that hunting would be in its current state by late 2007 would have been labelled over optimistic. Yet here we are, beginning the third full season under the Act, and hunting has managed to confound the pessimists and doomsayers; it has adapted with determination and prospered in adversity.The only thing that is clear about the Hunting Act is that it is confusing. That you can hunt a rabbit but not a hare, a rat but not a mouse and use two hounds to flush a fox to a gun but not three are just three of the quirks of this masterpiece of contradiction. The only way that hunts are making things work - 30,000 hunting days since the Act came into force and three convictions for hunting - is by using the exemptions within the Act: trail hunting, rabbit hunting, flushing to a bird of prey, flushing to a waiting gun, hound exercise.
It has been written in such an absurd, contradictory manner because the hunting argument has always been about people, not animals. The vindictive attitude of many Labour MPs towards the hunting community shows the true motivation of the Act - not to improve the lot of British wildlife, but to "take revenge for the miners" (you can imagine what the miners' hunts think of this idea) and do the "toffs" down.
Our political culture is permissive of legislation made in such a manner. It shouldn't be. A phrase, of uncertain origin but often misattributed to Benjamin Franklin, that democracy can be "two wolves and a sheep discussing plans for lunch", springs to mind. We need safeguards to protect us from the tyranny of the majority: in this case a metropolitan majority dictating law to a countryside it seems to have little idea about.
The perception that hunting is a "toff" pursuit proves this point. Of course some toffs hunt, but in a fluid and ever changing countryside you are as likely to meet a professional, a plumber, a farmer, a nurse or a cab driver as you are a blue-blood. It is this diversity that is the cornerstone of hunting - it unites people, it brings them together and it keeps them together, regardless of background or career. The social cohesion of the countryside is one of the reasons the Countryside Alliance exists, and through fieldsports it thrives. That cohesion and determination will enable us to finally see off the Hunting Act - it's just a question of when.
