Country diary: why I support hunting It promised people a say in the circumstances of their own lives through the Localism Act. Yet thousands of acres of open countryside are being covered with bricks and mortar; where's the localism there? And all those country people who knocked on doors throughout Britain at the last election for "Vote-OK" urging a Conservative vote have been let down. I hope the Tories remember. But why do I support hunting? I have only ever hunted because of my job - and found it extremely exciting. To ridicule hunting is easy - red coats, hounds and accents straight out of an elocutionist's handbook. And yes there are some quite dreadful Hooray Henrys and Henriettas who hunt. But in reality, hunting is quite a surprising activity; like cricket, it achieves what the class warriors find difficult to accept: it cuts across class barriers. Yes, toffs hunt - but toffs, as well as spivs, also hire boxes at Britain's most expensive football stadiums. A second glance at an average meet, beyond the toffs, will reveal hunt followers on foot, bikes and clapped-out 4x4s pulling elderly horse boxes. Some of the accents also tell a story: of people who work on the land, who retain strong regional, rustic accents, from the rolling Rs of the South-West to the constricted vowels of the North. I recently spent a weekend in the Lake District, where hunting on foot with the Fell Packs lightened the lives of many hill farmers and shepherds as they eked out a living from the land. It was a living culture, dealt a body blow by the hunting ban; and it is now hounded by "hunt monitors" - self-appointed vigilantes. To the hill farmer the hunting ban was discrimination at its most basic. In any other sphere the activities of the hunt monitors would be branded as a "hate crime." I am not going into the imagined cruelties of foxhunting here. I analysed foxhunting seriously as a conservationist and a non-hunter in my book The Hunting Gene 13 years ago, at the height of the Countryside Marches. It took time and serious research and so I will not discuss the "barbarity" of hunting with anybody unless they have read the Gene, or the Burns Inquiry report on hunting. Thisa document commissioned by Tony Blair's Labour government to inform MPs - most of whom were so bigoted that they never read it. I will simply say that to me hunting is the most natural and humane way of controlling foxes (if any killing is humane) and that there are so many foxes now that on conservation grounds alone they need controlling (not exterminating) for the sake of ground-nesting birds - particularly the lapwing, stone curlew, common curlew and grey partridge and most of Britain's mainland tern colonies. There are other predators that need controlling as a matter of urgency. But that goes beyond the scope of this article, and also brings into question the integrity of some conservation charities and quangos that appear to be in a state of permanent denial. What some "antis" fail to understand is the fact that I love foxes - but I love lapwings and curlews too, and fear for their long-term future. Foxes are not the only reason that lapwings have not yet come back to the Countryside Restoration Trust's Lark Rise Farm: a lethal cocktail of crows, magpies, badgers, foxes, sparrowhawks and irresponsible dog walkers with their pampered pooches is also to blame. We live in a changing, complex and unnatural world, and the countryside needs management of habitats and species. Hunting could and should play a part in that. I have had foxes as pets in the past - they were wonderful "friends" - teaching me much, but remaining in effect "wild animals." Even in captivity they could not be house-trained and they could only be let loose when the free-range hens were shut up. Most came to a sticky end. One was shot, one was killed by a dog and, yes, I have spilt many tears for lost foxes. So how can I support hunting - made illegal by the prejudices of those who are supposed to defend freedom? One reason is that in hunting there is no such thing as an injured fox. It is either killed or it gets away. And remember, a fox is comparatively small - weighing in at about 15lb - plus or minus a few pounds. Corset, the now-retired foxhound that I walked as a puppy, still lives in retirement with my sister and weighs in at a cool seven stone (about 100 pounds). So foxhound vs fox is no contest. And what has my support for foxhunting done for me? It got me stitched-up and arrested by the Gloucestershire Constabulary - and when they paid me the compensation that followed, the cheque arrived in an unfranked envelope, costing me £1.24 to retrieve from my village post office. I was sacked by a national magazine as its "farming and wildlife adviser" and it helped with my eradication from the bunny-hugging BBC - all this in Britain, the home of free speech, the Mother of Parliaments and legislation guaranteeing "equality and diversity." Equality and diversity for some, apparently. Next Boxing Day I shall again be turning up at the Boxing Day hunt, but I shall remain silent. As I go I'll pass land earmarked for a massive housing development which, in itself, is a considerable threat to "legal" hunting. I recall the old rhyme: "They hang the man and flog the woman/Who steals the goose from off the common;/Yet let the greater villain loose/That steals the common from the goose." As the countryside and rural culture disappear, I wonder if that villain has actually turned out to be David Cameron? 'Messages From a Disappearing Countryside' by Robin Page is available to order from Telegraph Books at £14.99 + £1.35 p & p.