OH for heaven’s sake. While everyone is trying to cope with surviving this awful recession some politician is plotting to repeal the law that bans hunting with dogs.

Surely the last thing that any party would want is to resurrect that hoary issue? The Tory Party has been doing its best to lose its image of being what Theresa May called “the nasty party” with considerable success. And now their shadow justice minister is doing his darnedest to turn back the clock.

Do I think it’s a major issue? No. But I’ll tell you why I am against it. It is a simple matter of right and wrong. British people don’t like cruelty and, to me, chasing after an animal to see it torn to shreds smacks of just that.

And cruelty is cruelty whether you pick on a child, a pet, a wild animal or even, heaven forbid, a politician. It is wrong.

If some animals need culling or you kill an animal to eat it, so be it. But do it humanely.

Call me an old puritan or simplistic but humane killing does not ring true when it involves dressing up, having fun, chasing and ripping apart a fox or deer and calling it sport.

The law banning hunting with dogs may not work effectively but at least it is there. And what’s wrong with drag-hunting?

With the ban, as a nation we can criticise behaviour by others where animals are made to suffer without looking in a mirror and seeing hypocrisy stare back at us.

There are much bigger matters facing Britain today than this buried old chestnut. It should be consigned to history. Where such practices belong.