Once again MPs have voted on hunting with dogs, and this time, they’ve voted to ban it. It remains to be seen whether they use the Parliament Act to stop the usual stall in the House of Lords.

I’m not surprised, the vote was always a foregone conclusion, I’m just exasperated that so much time, since New Labour came in, has been wasted on such a complete non-issue. My opinion has wavered from not really caring to being against a ban. Newsflash to the anti-hunt lobby- foxes are still going to be killed. They’ll be trapped and shot and poisoned, not because the country folk enjoy killing things, but because they’re predators and a danger to livestock. To put it in emotionally loaded terms, think of all the poor little lambs that are going to die if fox numbers aren’t controlled.

But I’m not a supporter of the Countryside Alliance either. In fact, I hold them in utter contempt. It’s strange how they didn’t start their campaign until their ‘sport’ was under threat and suddenly cared about all the other rural problems they’d been ignoring for years. There are far more important issues, such as the death of services, population decline and the ageing population.

Hunting is indefensible as a sport, but that’s okay because it’s much more than that. It’s a method of pest control around which a social scene has developed. Trying to ban it is just a waste of time dressed up as public interest.