Joyce Lee Malcolm on hunting and self-defence

"God's hammer against cakes and ale" they called them in the seventeenth-century, those Puritans who outlawed sports, music and dance on the Sabbath. Today Labour backbenchers are a hammer against the "upper-class" country pleasure of fox hunting, ostensibly in the name of animal protection. The same politicians with little sympathy for householders fighting to protect themselves -burglars have rights too - insist police invest time and resources to protect foxes. One wonders who will get scarce jail space - violent criminals, bat-wielding householders, or hunters whose dogs kill a fox.

RTWT