If you actually wanted to create a law that would genuinely transform animal welfare in the UK, the sane approach would be to follow the example of the organisation Compassion in World Farming. They call for farming practices that ‘enable animals to engage in their natural behaviours as identified by scientific research’ (not that we need much scientific research to know what makes chickens and pigs happy). We would then have to pay and protect farmers to provide that kind of husbandry. It would be a very big, very expensive ask. But the government has other priorities.

It has been reported this weekend that Labour is all set to ban trail hunting. In other words, it wants to outlaw an activity that is specifically designed not to chase and kill animals, by providing hounds with a fake trail laid with fox urine.

The government, with that unerring instinct for identifying activities that might be enjoyed by people they don’t identify with, has decided that trail hunting is actually a ‘smokescreen’ for foxhunting. In April, the anti-hunting group the League Against Cruel Sports said that it had recorded nearly........

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