After a difficult year for No. 10, what better way to end it than by unveiling a nice package of feel-good animal welfare measures? Ministers have drip-fed a series of announcements over the past 48 hours, setting out plans and consultations for 2026. These include ending the use of hen cages, outlawing electric shock collars and, most controversially, banning trail hunting. In a nation of animal lovers, much of this will go down well with the British public.

Inevitably, though, such law changes are not as simple as they might seem. This afternoon, Downing Street has been facing questions about fears that British farmers are going to be undercut from abroad. Ministers have laid out plans to ban colony cages, which are used to........

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