Ahhhh, politics - that most corrupting of vices

So, the House of Lords has voted to amend the bill to ban hunting so that it may continue under license. No real surprise there then and, I might add, good for them.

We all know that Blair would rather have never put the issue on his manifesto (isn't hindsight a wonderful thing) but the depths of shame he should be feeling over the following revelation can never make up for his supposed support for a compromise on the issue:

Mr Blair is understood to be deeply unhappy at the prospect of introducing an outright ban. He regards that as contrary to his new Labour ethos of governing for the whole country and not acting out of spite towards any group of voters. He also accepts, however, that he missed the opportunity of introducing a “third way deal” in the last Parliament. Since then he has given pledges on a hunting ban to MPs in return for their support over bitterly contested votes for the Iraq war and top-up tuition fees.

Yes, yes, I know. This is the way politics works; I am not naive. And this is a perfect example of why millions of voters no longer engage with politics to any great extent.

Some really old Frenchman blogged the same thing in one of those book thingies.