Government brushes aside the 'muddled' marchers

The government has announced that it will press ahead without delay with plans to outlaw hunting in a direct rebuff to the Countryside Alliance marchers.

Alun Michael, the Rural Affairs minister, said he would not be influenced by the strength of feeling shown by the demonstration and accused its organisers of being in a "muddle."

Mr Michael has just completed a six-month review into the future of bloodsports and is expected to recommend a ban on hunting with hounds, with only limited exceptions. He predicted his plans would be published "in weeks rather than months" and that the divisive issue could finally be settled within a year.

Unlike the previous Countryside Alliance lobby of London, no minister was present at yesterday's march and Tony Blair spent the day away from the noisy demonstration at his Buckinghamshire residence of Chequers. Mr Michael dismissed as a lie claims by organisers that he had been invited and he claimed the march has been hijacked by the pro-hunting lobby.

He added: "Some of those marchers spoke as if they thought it was an attempt to intimidate Parliament ... I think it would be wrong to be intimidated. In politics I don't think it's right to be intimidated." His unyielding tone suggested the Government was preparing to risk the political backlash from rural areas and to put through a near-total ban on hunting.

MPs have twice voted, on free votes, for hunting to be outlawed, only to have the proposal blocked by the Lords. This time, the Government could use the Parliament Act, overriding the second chamber, to turn the proposal into law.

The senior Labour MP Gerald Kaufman said: "One quarter of a million people marching means 99.6 per cent of the British population are not marching. This is a small minority putting forward a section of interest which they have every right to do, but it is an interest which reflects the needs and wishes of a tiny proportion of the people in this country."

Downing Street refused to comment yesterday on claims in Sunday newspapers that the Prince of Wales had relayed rural concerns directly in a letter to Mr Blair.

The Prince was reported to have complained that the Prime Minister would not have dared to attack an ethnic minority in the way that supporters of hunting were being persecuted.

Iain Duncan Smith, the Conservative leader, was among several members of the Shadow Cabinet who attended the protest. He said: "It is wrong, with all the problems that exist in the countryside at the moment ... that the Government should be giving government time to a Bill which will ultimately only make criminals out of a large section of the British public."

He also promised that a future Conservative government would allow parliamentary time for a new free vote to repeal any ban on hunting.

Baroness Mallalieu, president of the Countryside Alliance, said: "Hunting is the trigger for this march, but I would imagine that everybody on the march wants the Government to deal with a wide range of problems in the countryside. The point is that the people don't want to talk about hunting, they want to talk about all the other issues that are affecting them.

"A lot of what the Government is proposing to do on hunting is in fact based on class bigotry which, very sadly, still resides in parts of the Labour Party."

The former Labour minister Kate Hoey added: "Tony Blair needs to show leadership on this whole issue. If hunting is banned, then shooting and fishing will follow. The Government was elected to create unity in this country and not to create division."

Charles Kennedy, the Liberal Democrat leader, speaking from Brighton where his party was gathering for its annual conference, said that the issue of hunting was one in which there were different opinions in all political parties. But he added: "The Government is not listening nearly enough to people's views and we will continue to press them."

Mr Kennedy also said that the Government was not dealing with declines in agriculture, rural tourism and public transport, or with the closure of post offices in rural areas.

London's Biggest Protests

"MAY DAY 2000" 1 May 2000:

Organisers estimate that 150,000 protesters turn out for the biggest and most disruptive anti-capitalist protest of recent years. Violent confrontations break out across London. An estimated £500,000 in damage is caused as demonstrators daub graffiti on the Cenotaph and Churchill's statue.

"THE BARBOUR UPRISING" 1 March 1998:

The Countryside Alliance estimates that 250,000 people protest against a possible hunt ban and other threats to rural life. More than 2,000 beacons are lit across the country.

"MARCH FOR THE MINERS" 21 October 1992:

Police estimate that 50,000 people join a march to Hyde Park organised by the National Union of Mineworkers to protest against plans to shut much of Britain's coal industry. Some protesters believe that 100,000 take part.

"THE BATTLE OF TRAFALGAR" 31 March 1990:

Police estimate that 100,000 people march against the Thatcher government's Poll Tax. Some organisers put the total number of protesters at 250,000. The demonstration descends into the worst rioting in central London in recent history.

"BAN THE BOMB" 24 October 1981:

250,000 join a Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament protest in Hyde Park, according to the organisers. The protest was the biggest of the annual anti-bomb demonstrations throughout the early 1980s.

"THE BATTLE OF GROSVENOR SQUARE" 15 March 1968:

80,000 people march on the American embassy in Grosvenor Square to protest against the Vietnam War. The protest degenerates into a riot outside the embassy. Three hundred demonstrators were arrested and 90 policemen injured.