Labour set for blood-sports row

Press, 15 June 1978, Page 9

Labour set for blood-sports row

NZPA Staff correspondent London Britain’s Labour Government looks set to plunge into a row over the future of blood sports like fox hunting — already a passionately debated issue between opposing factions. The party’s powerful home policy committee, headed by the leading Left-winger, the Government’s Energy Secretary (Mr Tony Benn), decided last night to recommend the inclusion of a total ban on blood sports in Labour’s election policy. The recommendation has still to be ratified by the party’s full national executive later this month, but political commentators said that the influence of the Benn committee is such that the pledge seems certain to be included in the party’s manifesto. The proposed ban would make the legendary huntsman, John Peel, turn in his grave, a grave which has already been desecrated by the militant opponents of fox hunting (the three guilty men were jailed). As well as fox hunting — which, with its red coats, horses, and baying hounds, ranks with cricket as the most English of sports — the proposed ban would include all hunting which pits animal against animal. Hare coursing (which as t .• fore-runner of greyhound racing involves the pursuit of hares and rabbits by dogs), the hunting of otters by beagles, and deer hunting with hounds are all included in the committee’s recommendation. But the shooting of animals for sports as in deer stalking has not been frowned on by the committee, and the increasingly popular use of falcons, and other birds of prey has also appa'ently been ignored, along with fishing. X draft document before the committee stated that fox hunting — enjoyed by Princess Anne and her husband, Captain Mark Philips, as well as by Prince Charles — was “cruel, inhumane, and ineffective” in the con-

trol of foxes. The only reason for its existence was the “amusement of its participants.” Stag hunting with dogs was “possibly the most grotesque blood sport of all” and hare coursing and beagling were “barbaric and inhumane.” The deliberate “cultivation” of pheasant and grouse for shooting should be avoided, the committee decided. The mass-circulation “Sun” newspaper said that the ban, if adopted would “hit all sections of society from the Roj’al family down.” The paper cited Welsh miners as keen fox hunters, often with their own packs of hounds, and predicted opposition to the move from within Labour’s own ranks, as well as an outcry from the Conservative Party. The blood sports issue has been simmering for years, with the battle occasionally boiling over. In many areas, news of forthcoming hunts is now passed around by word .of mouth or by coded advertisements, in an effort to avoid harrassment by anti-blood-sport demonstrators who lay false scents, light heavily smelting fires, and generally do what they can to create a diversion to confuse the hounds and allow the escape of the quarry.