There’s a grumble, often repeated among country folk, that ‘hunting people got hunting banned’. What they mean (I think) is that a combination of complacency, arrogance and the failure to get the public onside is what did for hunting.

It’s not really fair: arguably, without the disaster of the Iraq war, Tony Blair may not have felt he needed to chuck a piece of legislation at his backbenchers, like a juicy bone to a pack of hungry hounds.