Forget the benefit cuts: fox hunting is what today's left cares about

A week ago we had a budget that aimed to do over as many of the low paid as possible. So pleased were the Tories with this wheeze that Iain Duncan Smith looked as if he was about to shoot his wad right there in the Commons.

Needless to say, instead of joining with the SNP and opposing this budget root and branch, the Labour leadership decided that actually they quite liked doing over the poor as well. Perhaps they would have introduced an amendment to ensure that plenty of lube would be applied to the dildos that were going to split proletarian ring pieces, but on the principle of shafting the poor Labour was on-message.

Labour promptly began an internal argument over just how much of a shafting the working class could be realistically expected to take, but the fight seemed to be very pro forma, at least as far as I could see. It was as if our representatives in England felt the need to go through the motions of opposing what to their constituents was probably the vilest budget in a generation, but their hearts really were not in it.

What Labour needed was something that they could rally around, and the ever obliging Cameron promptly gave it to them in the form of a bill to amend the fox hunting legislation in England and Wales. At once what passes for the left in England began a campaign to pressure the SNP to abandon its long held policy of abstaining on non-Scottish matters and join with Labour to inflict a defeat on the Tories. Foolishly the SNP took the bait, with the result that the measure has now been withdrawn for the time being.

The point is that the Tories are split on this issue and by sitting on the sidelines - and encouraging Labour to do the same - the combined opposition could have enjoyed the sight of an internecine Tory fight that might just have poisoned relations within that odious party for the rest of the parliament.

Instead, the Tories are now more united than ever because Cameron can blame it all on the wicked Scots and their equally anti-English Labour stooges. He will press on with the English votes for English laws legislation, and presumably Labour will either support it, or make only token noises in opposition.

Meanwhile, the population of Britain who are now being quietly forgotten thanks to this fox hunting non-issue are advised to go and stock up on plenty of super-sized tubes of best quality lube.