NO doubt most of us agree there are more important issues than foxhunting. But not even foxhunters can deny that many people looked to New Labour to ban it - and were led to believe by the 1997 manifesto that it would be banned. Yet, seven years down the line, it remains unbanned.

That's all I have to say on foxhunting for the present. (There's a surprise for you.) I raise the issue to highlight the contrast with the imminent "liberalisation" of gambling.

Do you know anyone, or have you even heard of anyone, who has been clamouring for the Government to open the door to mega casinos, operating 24 hours a day? Me neither.

Blackpool, of course, has been aiming for a while to re-invent itself as Britain's Las Vegas. But governments don't normally perform national cartwheels for the satisfaction of a single middle-ranking provincial town.

Yet, out of the blue just a few months ago, came the news that the Government was planning the biggest re-drawing of the gambling laws for 40 years, centred on ushering in the US-style casinos. Barely before that first spin of the wheel is over, a Gambling Bill to achieve this high-minded purpose is about to be pushed through Parliament - a huge social change implemented with scarcely any debate, and certainly not in response to public demand. A recent poll showed that 93 per cent of people believe the existing opportunities to gamble are about right.

So how has this major "reform" come about? Perhaps the Government, running out of ways to raise more cash without putting up income tax, single-handedly pinpointed gambling, for which we Brits have the biggest appetite in Europe, as an income-stream not yet fully tapped. But it's a fair bet there has been intense behind-the-scenes lobbying by the gambling industry. How else would operators already be keenly circling, poised to swoop on around 120 sites provisionally identified so far? This particular roulette wheel looks fixed.

The Government insists the changes are chiefly about better regulation, epitomised by the removal of slot machines from minicab offices. Blair and Co really do regard us as idiots. And they present as a good thing the fact that many of the 85,000 jobs promised by the casinos would be - in the Government's words - "in areas of high unemployment". They are content that much, if not most, of their "take" from the casinos will be from those with least cash but most desperation.

Is this what Tony Blair's "ethical socialism" - was that his phrase? - comes down to? The singling-out of gambling for high-priority, fast-track treatment exposes a tackiness, a shoddiness and a moral vacuum at the heart of the Government. Those experienced in dealing with the consequences of gambling grimly predict that the presence of the super casinos will quickly lead to a doubling in the number of gambling addicts, now estimated between 350,000 and 500,000 with many homes ruined.

In Australia, where the gambling laws were greatly eased in 1997, a steep rise in gambling addiction is blamed for parallel increases in crime, bankruptcy and family breakdown. But, as testified especially by our pensions' crisis, Tony Blair's government specialises in creating problems to which it then struggles to find solutions.