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There are two main arguments against the ban on fox-hunting: It is part of the way of life for the people who took part in it, and because foxes are a pest that need to be controlled. Both are true, i suppose, but neither justifies what was a cruel and unnecessary hobby. Both are also very easy to dissect.

As for foxes being a pest, it is very easy to have sympathy with farmers who awake to find they had suffered a fox invasion. Foxes do not merely take a chicken to feed their family, they will rip to shreds all of the poultry that is there. Foxes are pests, and nobody is trying to protect them simply because they are an animal. There are very few people who in life have never squashed a fly or swatted at a mosquito, but the fallacy in this line of argument is not that control of foxes is unnecessary, but that no rational thinking individual who had not heard of fox-hunting would ever draw a line from the need to protect your livelihood from a pest to the absurd practice of dressing up and chasing them on horseback.

Imagine, for a moment, that there was a grizzly bear rampaging the streets of London. Even the most fervent of animal rights activists would struggle to argue against bringing it under control. If required, there would be few if any who would be appalled were that bear to be shot and killed. What would not happen, and what would cause outrage, is that hypothetical bear being in any way tortured, or held in captivity for entertainment. In the same way, nobody complains about bear-baiting being illegal, it being made so centuries ago, as was cock-fighting.

There is no justification ever for animal cruelty in the name of sport and entertainment, and this is exactly what fox-hunting was. I laugh when i hear fox-hunters complaining that hunting is the most effective way of controlling foxes. If you can't think of a more efficient way of controlling them than climbing aboard a horse and chasing them across the countryside until they have no more energy to continue, whereupon they are duly ripped to shreds by a pack of hounds, you aren't trying hard enough!

One must question why fox-hunting was allowed to continue up until the 21st century when bear-baiting and cock-fighting and dog-fighting were not. Though if one does, the answer is blatant. Fox-hunting is the purveyance of the establishment; the elite. It is the pastime of those who retain the power - the land-owners, the royal family, the Conservative Party. The long-outlawed sports were the activities of the working classes, and so it was easy to suddenly find morality when condemning them.

Fox-hunting was part of the way of life for many people. I couldn't care less. Was the Government right to ban it? You bet, it should have been banned decades ago.

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