A law almost impossible to enforce

Decisions which are made in haste have a habit of allowing you to repent at leisure. And one cannot help but think that The Hunting Act, which outlaws fox-hunting, deer-hunting and hare-coursing with dogs, and comes into force tomorrow will fall into that category.

Yesterday, the Countryside Alliance lost its Court of Appeal bid to overturn the ban after arguing it was invalid because of the way the Parliament Act was used to push the law through.

Now hunt supporters all over the country are preparing to stage a string of meetings on Saturday in a mass show of defiance against the new legislation.

And they will achieve their goal.

As it stands, the law is so full of loopholes and grey areas that it will be practically impossible to enforce in all but the most flagrant of breaches.

Add to that the increasing number of police forces who admit they simply do not have the resources to stop illegal hunts taking place, and your have a real mess.

And there is the danger.

Whatever side of the bloodsports debate you are on, one thing should be crystal clear - the law of the land.

In this case it is not clear and, even if it were, the resources do not appear to be there to enforce it.

There also appears to be a determined band of people who would be prepared to break it even if it could be enforced adequately.

This a shameful situation in a country which used to be able to be held up as a model of law making.

But this is what happens when a Prime Minister throws an issue like hunting to his backbenchers in exchange for him being allowed to pursue his equally contentious goals in the Middle East.

Click here to find out more on this story.

Unpaid £40m a staggering figure

Everyone knows that the Government has long had a deep desire to simply bury the foot-and-mouth crisis of 2001 deep into the history books.

Major errors were made in the way it was handled and there was little transparency in the subsequent inquiries.

Last week we found out that there had been inadequate financial control and massive amounts of money had been wasted.

It all looked very much as if money was simply thrown at a problem in the hope it would go away and - now that it has gone away - the Government is simply pretending it never happened.

Which, let us be honest, is what any group of politicians would do.

That said, you would not expect them to leave a £40m unpaid bill lying around as they tried to spin their way to safer ground.

Yet that is exactly what has happened.

A staggering £40m is still owed nationally with some businesses being forced into liquidation because of the huge amounts of money involved.

At the very start of the crisis the Government, infamously, declared that the countryside "was closed".

That proved to be a mistake.

The rural economy has yet to fully recover - and with £40m worth of unpaid bills floating around four years later, it is not hard to understand why.

To find out more on this story, click here.