Sport cruel when it ends in bloody nose

THE word that might best sum up David Cameron’s mood right now – expletives excluded, of course – might well be “exasperated”. When he faced the cameras and addressed the nation on the morning of May 8 he had every right to feel elated.

He had, after all, overcome all the odds and most of the predictions and won a majority in the House of Commons in the previous day’s General Election.

However, that majority is a slender 12 votes. And it is already proving to be exceedingly problematic.

In his previous administration, in coalition with the Liberal Democrats, he could muster 76 votes more than the Opposition.

However, his legislative programme could only encompass those policies which Nick Clegg and his colleagues could be persuaded to thole. It was government not just by consensus, but by compromise.

Now he is finding to his frustration that an overall majority does not necessarily equate with over-arching power.

The latest manifestation of that hard fact of his political life came yesterday when Downing Street announced that the Government is to shelve plans to relax the fox-hunting ban in England and Wales after the SNP revealed their intention to vote against the measure.

When combined with a threatened rebellion by some Tory backbenchers, that meant the vote would almost certainly have been lost.

This is the second Government climbdown in a matter of days – the first being the far more substantive issue of English Votes for English Laws (Evel), announced on the hoof by the Prime Minister on September 19 last year and withdrawn, to be redrafted, last week.

That intention to restrict the rights of Scottish MPs has understandably enraged the SNP, especially when taken in conjunction with the out-of-hand rejection of a raft of amendments to the Conservatives’ Scotland Bill, despite their being supported by 58 out of Scotland’s 59 representatives.

During the course of this Parliament, there will be more fights to come during which the Government could emerge with a bloody nose, or worse. Aside from the vexed question of Europe, Mr Cameron still wishes to abolish the Human Rights Act.

Here he might fall foul of a united Opposition backed by concerned Tory backbenchers; he faces similar challenges in pressing on with the full gamut of welfare reform.

These, of course, are issues of pressing importance north of the Border. The same cannot be said, in all truth, of the matter of riding with hounds in England. (Mr Cameron no doubt hopes he will be able to get this measure passed after the revised Evel legislation is passed, but this is by no means certain; he would still require a majority of English and Welsh MPs.)

There can be little doubt that the SNP’s position is chiefly informed by the simmering resentment regarding Evel and the Scotland Bill, and a concomitant perceived lack of respect for the Scottish mandate.

The Nationalists must, however, be careful not to be seen as a destructive, blocking force in this Parliament.

That could yet bring about a backlash south of the Border that would ill serve interests in this country.

Both in hunting and in politics, bloodlust is to be deplored.