The most risible aspect of the whole damnable topic of fox hunting is that before the vote took place, the "nature loving" tally-ho crowd bleated on about how other issues are far most important (education, health care, pensions, the Iraq War, etc.), and how can the Government even think of bringing up fox hunting?

Why, because the bill to ban fox hunting was a promise Blair made in 1997. For those who assert that the PM breaks his promises, this is one he has fulfilled. And for all their concerns about democracy, the great majority of Britons express disgust with fox hunting, even those in rural areas, and, as such, welcome a ban on the blood sport.

But lo! Now that the ban has passed by a huge majority, and enactment by the Parliament Act is swaying over their bloodthirsty tradition like a Damocles sword, the fox killing lobby have decided it is an important issue, come to think of it, what, what!

As one anti-hunt web page I stumbled across succinctly puts it, "Is it that this barbaric sport attracts violent thugs like flies to a lump of shit, or does it simply make ordinarily law-abiding folk go into a frenzy of bloodthirsty yobbishness? Those individuals who derive pleasure from the prolonged pursuit of a terrified creature to the point of its exhaustion and then watch its being ripped to shreds are clearly depraved."

Hallelujah. Believe you me, it's going to take more than the pampered, spoilt-rich family of an ageing rock singer to convince me to "topple" the Government. The pro-hunting lobby is nothing but a very loud, and very sick, minority.

The issues that matter in Britain are (a) asylum seeker and immigration policy, on which Conservative opposition leader Michael Howard has the right idea but Labour have done nothing about; and (b) the European Union "Superstate" Constitution, on which Blair has been keen to enter Britain, but for which the United Kingdom stands to lose much of its sovereignty as a separate nation. Polls reveal the British public in favour of both a firm immigration policy and a reduction in asylum cases, and opposition to joining the European Constitution.

Both issues were strangely absent from the Prime Minister's speech yesterday, however. The anti-war and pro-fox hunt crowd can yell and holler and cry in each other's beers (the two factions naturally go together: if you're anti-war, you're certainly not bothered by butchery, whether by the likes of fox-hunters or Saddam Hussein), but on the two most important issues affecting Britain and British sovereignty, Blair and New Labour remain uncomfortably numb.