It’s Not About Class – It’s About Cruelty

Let’s put this tired argument out of its misery, shall we? The notion that banning fox hunting was some sort of envious swipe at the upper classes – a bit of political theatre to please flat-capped Labour voters and their imaginary pitchforks – is as flimsy as a red coat in a bramble thicket.

It’s not about class. It never was. It’s about cruelty.

Those who bang on about “attacks on rural traditions” conveniently forget that the same people campaigning against fox hunting are equally appalled by hare coursing, dog fighting, badger baiting, and any other sadistic pastime that treats animal suffering as entertainment. And let’s be clear – hare coursing isn’t exactly the preserve of the landed gentry swigging sloe gin on horseback. It’s more often associated with criminal gangs in 4x4s, trespassing on farmland and wreaking havoc. Yet the outrage from the so-called “animal rights brigade” is just as loud – and just as justified.

So if the objection is consistent – if it applies regardless of postcode or pedigree – then the class argument collapses like a soggy tweed cap.

Now yes, back in the day, hunting served a purpose. When the nobs still rode into battle, it kept both horse and rider sharp – fettle for war, if you like. It was training as much as tradition, a proving ground for cavalry officers in scarlet coats. But those days are long gone. No one’s jousting in the Home Counties anymore. The only thing being sharpened now is the rhetoric of those who want to cling to a bloodsport under the guise of heritage.

The pro-hunt lobby loves a bit of misty-eyed mythology. They tell us the hounds only ever catch the old and infirm, that the kill is swift, natural, and noble – as if the fox, panting with exhaustion after a miles-long chase, should somehow thank them for a ‘dignified’ end. But in reality, it’s little more than a rural bloodsport with a brass band and a sense of entitlement. Wrap it in all the tradition you like – cruelty by any other name still stinks.

And spare me the crocodile tears about shooting being worse. Yes, some are now using thermal scopes – and yes, it’s grim. But if your defence of hunting is that it’s slightly less horrific than a bullet in the dark, you’ve already lost the moral argument.

This isn’t about class envy. It’s about saying – as a society – that we’ve moved on from torturing animals for fun, whether it’s on a country estate or a council field. The fox doesn’t care if the hound was raised by an earl or the lurcher by a lad on a housing estate – it dies all the same, terrified and torn apart. And if you think that’s worth defending in 2025, perhaps the one being dragged backwards through history isn’t the fox.