It’s always seemed to me that the case for fox hunting in particular rested on two, mutually contradictory claims. One is that of pest control, and that hunting with hounds is the most effective (and, indeed, humane) way of cotrolling fox numbers. I’ve yet to see any figures produced to back up this claim - how many foxes there are, how many need to be culled, how many are killed by hunting with hounds. So I’ve always thought it was a pretty easy claim to demolish.
The other side of the coin is the assertion that fox hunting is really just a social/horsey occasion, which people go along to for the fun and thrill of riding to hounds, and that if a fox should happen to meet an unpleasant end during proceedings then that’s pretty much an accident. Now, in fairness, I can imagine that riding to hounds would be pretty thrilling if you happen to be good at riding a horse, but I could never see why a well-laid drag trail for the hounds to follow wouldn’t give the riders just as much equine excitement as chasing a fox.
But there you go. Cameron’s chums want to hunt, so he wants to let them hunt. Twats.