Hunts cash an affront to our society

HUNTING foxes and other wild animals with packs of hounds is illegal in this country.

But for too long the law has not been enforced properly.

Most civilised people probably think that this barbaric so-called sport is a thing of the past. It isn’t.

While the majority of hunts involve upstanding members of their law-abiding rural communities, evidence suggests that some are carrying on as if nothing had happened.

Whether they abide by the law or not, the practice is disgusting and inappropriate in the 21st century. Even legal “drag” hunting, where an artificial scent is trailed around the countryside for the dogs and their riders to follow is despicable.

Often it ends in the pursuit of live animals.

Creatures who die in terror as they are ripped to bits in acts of savagery in the name of pleasure.

Accidents of course – but controversial and unsavoury all the same.

The problem is that much of the evidence comes from anti-hunt campaigners whose passion is too easily dismissed as unreliable zealotry. Extremist saboteurs hinder rather than help.

The law needs tightening up, not relaxing, as many Tory MPS want. It was Tory policy to make fox hunting legal again before a shamed Theresa May was forced to drop it.

But now Tory-controlled Shropshire County Council has given £50,000 in public money to five hunts in the county to help them survive the Covid pandemic.

While there is no suggestion these hunts are guilty of breaking the law, it is an immoral use of taxpayers’ money. Not least when there are many other deserving demands on public funds.

It has no place at all in any civilised society.