From barbarism to bathos. The centrepiece of the British government's legislative programme in the run-up to the election, the issue that is going to define its priorities and dominate public debate, is... the banning of fox-hunting. And for the fourth time, yet. It is truly astounding that, with international terror still at the top of any sane agenda (an issue, however, that was not mentioned at all in Tony Blair's to-do list for the new parliamentary term), with every public service in the country sliding into disrepair or outright chaos, with violent crime rising and disorder out of control, the Prime Minister's big issue is the revival of the attempt to ban hunting.

The reasons he is doing so are entirely, shamelessly, breathtakingly cynical. As outlined in the Telegraph, it is a move designed solely to appeal to voters on the left who have been turned off big-time by the Iraq war, and knock the Tories off balance. To do so, he is prepared to dump bills that are actually of some importance to people's lives and destroy what's left of parliamentary integrity:

'They say he is even prepared to see important legislation such as the Children Bill or the Pensions Bill dumped to make time to get a hunting Bill through the Lords and on to the statute book. Under the plan, a Bill would be rushed through the Commons in a single day next week and sent to the Lords, which has repeatedly blocked legislation. Peers will be given two days to debate the measure, which has to be passed before the parliamentary session finishes next month.

'Business managers have mapped out a strategy that will depend on whether the Lords uses its delaying powers to let the clock run out on the Bill. If peers allow the legislation through, it will become law before the election, which is expected next spring, but the ban would not come into force until after polling day. Government sources said that by postponing implementation, Labour could challenge the Tories during the campaign to say if they would repeal the measure."We hope they will, because we would then campaign to remind people that if they want the ban to stay, they will have to vote Labour," one ministerial source said.'

There are various astonishing assumptions in all this. The first is that the hunting ban is a radical cause of such momentousness that it will indeed galvanise voters. Down in the Pig and Whistle, people will apparently stop watching the football or downloading porn on their mobiles to say to each other, 'Hey, forget Iraq and the rubbish train service and the filthy hospitals and the fact that kids have kicked my windows in for the fifth time this month -- that Blair is okay after all cos he's going to ban hunting!' Somehow, I can't see this. Apparently, the killer move is to put off implementation of the ban until after the election, so any inconvenient, er, violence won't mar the election campaign.

Oh, and the Tories will be put on the spot when asked if they would repeal a ban. Excuse me? If Labour make the hunting ban an election issue, what a gift this would be to a serious-minded opposition party (I know, I know) who could go to town on its irrelevance, undemocratic nature and class spitefulness. As for Blair's mutinous colleagues in Parliament, who he thinks he will buy off with such a move, all it does it advertise their intellectual and political vacuousness. Why should anyone vote for a party with such a bizarre set of priorities?

But there is another issue here -- maybe the most important of all for Blair. He is going to use the hunting ban not only to make a mockery of the Commons by forcing it through in a day, but will then react to the anticipated Lords revolt by forcing it through by means of the Parliament Act. This appears to be a constitutional sledgehammer to crack a nut, since the Parliament Act has only ever been used on a tiny handful of occasions. But maybe the real agenda has been revealed in this poisonous little aside by one of Blair's aides:

'"This approach leaves us with the delicious prospect of a win-win situation," said a Government source. "If it gets through then we make keeping the ban the nuclear issue of the election. But if the Lords block it we can retaliate by putting a pledge for fundamental Lords reform in our manifesto." '

Maybe the real agenda behind the hunting ban is the delicious destruction of Parliamentary process, the delectable removal of all oppostion to the government machine and the delightful abolition of parliamentary democracy altogether.

Posted by melanie at September 6, 2004