Originally Posted by Chris

Not banning something isn't serving a client group - it is simply following the basic and worthy principle that you don't restrict people's freedom to go where they like and do what they want unless there are pressing reasons to do so.

The animal welfare argument is highly contentious. What parliament did - as you say, taking advantage of an unusually large Labour majority - was to enforce a moral view on a minority by statute.

Originally Posted by danielf

Slavery is different, but not that different. More people object to unnecessary cruelty against animals than a couple of years ago. This has resulted in legislation again cruelty to animals. The point of the analogy with slavery was that, at the time, to many people, slaves were just short of non-human.

Perceptions change, and your arguments against the fox hunting ban can easily be transposed to slavery. At the time, trading and keeping slaves, was a widely followed practice that suddenly became illegal, because some people didn't like what others were doing. In hindsight, there's little that's Draconian about that.

And I'm not conflating anything thank you. Any form of government is going to be a trade-off between what's considered acceptable and people's liberties. As it happens, animal rights have come to the fore in recent years, and this means that unnecessary cruelty against animals is frowned upon. Just like smoking in the Pub, where others are affected (unless it's the HoP Pub, but that's another matter).