Stephen Moss The Guardian online.
Full article :Ten years after the Hunting Act banned the hunting of wild mammals with dogs, the subject is back on the agenda. Or sort of back on the agenda. The government is seeking to relax the act by stealth, allowing a vote next week on a statutory instrument designed to bring the law in England and Wales into line with that in Scotland.
Everything about this piece of legislative legerdemain stinks. For a start, the news that MPs are to vote again on the issue was leaked on budget day, when media eyes are turned elsewhere. A day to bury hugely unpopular news. The hunting ban is still supported by a majority of the public. Even polls where the question is put in a narrow way – relating to the controversial and undoubtedly flawed act itself rather than to hunting in general – produce a majority against the return of hunting.
Then there is the use of a statutory instrument to amend the law rather than a vote on a full repeal of the 2004 act – a vote that was promised in the Conservative manifesto but which the government believes it would lose, as it would be a free vote and Scottish Nationalist MPs would vote for a continuation of the ban. Notoriously – but at least democratically – the 2004 act absorbed 700 hours of parliamentary time. The statutory instrument that would substantially alter the act will be allotted 90 minutes of debating time in the Commons on 16 July.
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This is how this government is going to be working, for the next five years.
By deceit and stealth, selling lies to the public, and burying what they are really up to, with the help of most of the press.
Brownie points to the Guardian, for pointing it out.
