Mr Blair should show some courage and outfox his critics

The Government has dithered so long over the issue of blood sports that it is impossible to be sure that this year's fox-hunting season in England and Wales, which started yesterday, will be the last.

Although the duration of the Prime Minister's indecision is some indicator of his abiding desire not to offend people, it ought also to act as a warning. It is no test of tolerance to allow people to indulge in an activity to which no one objects.

Tony Blair seems to have a keen sense of the political risks of offending the self-appointed countryside movement, but he does not seem to see any connection between the difficulty he is having in enacting a simple ban and his own rhetoric of liberal toleration.

Once a Government gets to the point of considering the use of the Parliament Act to overrule the House of Lords, it needs to pause to think. It is simple enough to wonder whether the issue of fox-hunting is worth the resources of government and legislative time that have been tied up in it over the past five years. What would be really courageous, however, would be to recognise that the Government should not press ahead with a ban, not because it is not worth the trouble but because it is wrong in principle.

Hunting is not a particularly edifying pastime. For many people, it is hard to understand how pleasure can be derived from killing animals. But it is not so offensive a practice that it ought to be banned. Foxes are shot, trapped and poisoned as well as hunted, and if hunting is banned the other – often far crueller– methods will take its place.

The effect of a hunt ban on the calculus of animal welfare is far from clear cut. There are many more important ways in which cruelty to animals can be reduced, especially in producing the food which is eaten by most of the people who tell pollsters they support a law against hunting.

The true liberal ought to recognise that other people must be allowed to do things of which the majority disapprove, provided the balance of harm is roughly even.