Was Blair right or wrong? You decide (From Worcester News)

Was Blair right or wrong? You decide

11:40am Thursday 2nd September 2010 in

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A FORMER Worcester MP who campaigned for fox hunting to be banned said he is not surprised by revelations in Tony Blair’s book that bringing in the legislation was one of his biggest domestic regrets.

Mike Foster first championed the cause in 1997 before Parliament voted in favour of the ban in 2000. It eventually came into force in 2004.

But in A Journey, which went on sale yesterday, the former Prime Minister has said the fox hunting subject “resulted in one of the domestic legislative measures I most regret along with the Freedom of Information Act.”

He said how fox hunting “brought the most grief” and said he didn’t “feel it” either way. Mr Blair wrote: “I didn’t feel how, for fox hunters, this was part of their way of life. I didn’t feel how, for those wanting a ban, this was fundamentally about cruelty. Result? Disaster.”

Mr Foster, who was Worcester’s MP from 1997 to April this year, has not read the book, but said there was always tension about how the ban could be enforced.

He said: “I’m not particularly surprised. I spoke to Tony on many occasions about the issue and he was clear it should be a cross-party issue not a Parliament issue. I know from discussions I had with him there was tension about how the legislation would be formed to make it enforceable and that tension still exists.

“Parliament thought the matter should be resolved and that is what Parliament voted to do.

“It was never top of his priority list as Prime Minister.”

Mr Blair explains how following the ban, he received a call from Hazel Blears at the Home Office who asked if it should be “policed vigorously to get some prosecutions under our belt” to which he replied, ‘no’.

Mr Foster, who was appointed minister for international development in 2008, said: “The difficult issue has always been the enforcement. He was right to say the police shouldn’t give it special priority. It is not the job of a politician to say how a particular matter should be policed – it’s something which could have set a dangerous precedent.

“His view on hunting was similar to his views about the Freedom of Information Act. But had he not put forward the FOI bill, you wouldn’t have had all that fun with the MPs’ expenses last year.

“Whether he was right or wrong – that is for individuals to have their own opinions. We didn’t always agree or see eye to eye but further down the line he gave me my first ministerial post “It is a book I will look forward to reading. He was a great politician and a great leader.”