Who's moving in for the kill?

WHEN Tony Blair first walked through the doors of 10 Downing Street, he could hardly have guessed the issue which would prove one of the most controversial of his premiership. While education and health have both had their turn in the spotlight, one problem has so far proved resistant to promises of more cash and new initiatives.

Five years of political manoeuvering, demonstrations, pledges and lobbying, and the future of hunting with hounds is as uncertain as ever. For the last five years, hunts have approached the beginning of the season with the fear that it could be the last.

Just as the debate has aroused more passion on both sides than most others, it has also been the subject of more attempted compromises. Last year's was put forward by the so-called Middle Way group, involving setting up a new body to license and regulate hunts. The latest, a variation on the theme, would allow hunting where it was necessary for pest control.

Not surprisingly, this has not found favour with those who have spearheaded the campaign to end hunting.

"The licensing option isn't acceptable at all you can't license cruelty," says Niel Hansen, chairman of the National Anti-Hunt Campaign. "Either chasing a fox with a pack of hounds and tearing it to pieces is cruel or it isn't. This is a complete non-starter and it will please nobody.

"It is also a question of democracy. The vast majority of the population want a complete ban on hunting and the House of Commons wants a complete ban. I don't see what argument there is for not banning it completely."

And it is not just an issue of cruelty for the anti-hunt lobby. The Prime Minister made a television promise to allow MPs to vote on banning hunting, and it was included in Labour's election manifesto.

"It is not just a matter of animal welfare, it is a matter of Government honesty and integrity," says Mr Hansen. "We just don't think it is acceptable in a democracy to promise you are going to ban something and then decide to license it instead.

"You cannot say you are going to take a particular position that attracts thousands of votes and then betray those people when you get into power."

While the votes last night and today represent an opportunity for MPs and Lords to express their view, the next step will only become clear once the Government has set out its position, expected to be over the next few weeks. Until then, hunts will be in a sort of limbo over whether their sport has a future.

"Nobody has any idea over what this licensing system will be," says David Robinson, joint master of the Zetland Hunt, which operates in both North Yorkshire and County Durham. "It would depend on the terms and the complexity of it. It could be anything from a draconian system which would effectively put fox hunting out of business, or it could be a perfectly workable set of arrangements."

But hunts recognise that the numbers in the House of Commons backed up the opinion polls are such that some sort of restriction looks inevitable.

Mr Robinson says: "Most hunting people, faced with the prospect of a ban, would settle for something else. But it could be like a choice between being hanged or shot, although until we have some details of the licences we won't know. If some sort of compromise were available we would accept it. Most hunting people are fairly reasonable sorts, although the other side would say we're a bunch of blood-thirsty barbarians." Although the Zetland has had its last hunt of the season, Mr Robinson is confident that there will be at least one more season, and maybe more after that.

"The pace of legislation means it would leave us open for business next season. We have had calls to ban hunting for years, although they have become more intense over the last few years, but it does tend to wear you down.

'There are a lot of committed people who support hunting. Although it is a minority thing, it does seem to attract a lot of people to the debate, on both sides."

Darren Hughes, of the Campaign for Hunting, says they can do little more than wait and see what position the Government takes. With both the Commons and Lords votes foregone conclusions, that is the only thing which will bring some sort of resolution, even if only a temporary one.

"A lot of people in the countryside are fed up with it rearing its head. It is a case of everybody moving forward and seeing what final end point we can come to," he says.

But Niel Hansen is in no mood to move forward if it means watering down a ban. "The hunts are reluctantly accepting a compromise because they're desperate and they see it as the only way they can save hunting in some form or another. I don't think it is an issue where we would be prepared to compromise.

"Hare coursing is equally as horrific and they don't even have the option of claiming the hare is a pest. It is a declining species and to kill them in the name of sport is repugnant to most right- minded people." But controlling pests is exactly the justification used by people who take part in coursing.

"It is a service we're classed as pest control," insists Paul Saiger, County Durham-based secretary of the Association of Lurcher Clubs. "In some places there are ten hares per acre and they do a lot of damage, eating crops, and the same goes for rabbits."

As well as forcing the farmer to buy feed in, rabbits also pose a more direct threat to livestock, which risk injury through stepping in rabbit warrens.

While much of the debate has revolved around fox hunting, coursing and rabbiting have a substantial following. There are an estimated quarter of a million lurcher owners in Britain, and 20,000 in the North-East, and the consequences of a total ban on hunting could be serious for the dogs.

"We would like to see it remain as it is, but if we had to have a licence that would be acceptable," says Mr Saiger. "But a total ban would mean a lot of lurchers would become redundant."

Although hares are scarce in some areas, in others they are plentiful and are regularly culled, according to Charles Blanning, secretary of the National Coursing Club. But a ban would have a far-reaching effect from the 10,000 people a day who attend the three days of the Waterloo Cup in Liverpool, to the thousands of people who go coursing with two or three dogs on Saturday mornings.

But, despite the widespread support among MPs for a ban, he remains optimistic that the sport will survive in some form.

"Attacks on coursing started with Harold Wilson and have been going on for the last 30 years, but it is a problem that has proved so intractable better governments than this have tried and failed," he says.

"There is such a groundswell of opposition to a ban that it would make it difficult to get through Parliament, and, after all, the point of democracy is to protect the minorities as well as the majorities."