IF I'd been anywhere near Oxford on Saturday last I would have been tempted to go on the march about the appalling animal "rights" extremists, in favour of the necessary use of animals in scientific research.

Most demonstrations are against the government of the day.

I've been on plenty myself, in my teens, as a student at Leeds University, as President of the National Union of Students, and as Blackburn's MP during those 18 years on the opposition benches.

We had one of the largest demonstrations in the town in decades before or since in 1981, against the then government's economic policies, which in turn had forced the closure of one mill and factory after another, and had taken unemployment through the roof. (For Asian males it reached 44% that year.) In the early Nineties I recall two huge protests in London about the recession and against the brutal closure of virtually all of the United Kingdom's pits.

Since we went into government in 1997, however, the boot has been on the other foot as it were.

We and sometimes I have become the object of plenty of marches and demos, which is how things should be in a democracy.

Saturday's demonstration about scientific research was different from the usual marches. It's a subject on which I feel passionately.

I know no one who likes the idea of experiments on live animals, but I also know of no one who wants potentially unsafe drugs brought to the market, and which in turn have, and could, cause horrendous unanticipated side effects for the patients concerned.

So the question is which is the lesser of the two evils?

Experiments on mice, rats, dogs, and sometimes on primates like chimpanzees, or defective drugs, like thalidomide and many others, leading to lifetime deformities, or premature deaths; and even worse, no drugs at all for a wide range of life threatening or debilitating conditions?

Those people who pose as on the right side of "animal rights" claim that none of the experimentation on animals is necessary, that it can all be carried out in other ways.

That is a lie. When I was Home Secretary I was responsible for the licensing and inspection of establishments carrying out experiments on animals.

I tightened the regulations, so that researchers really do have to prove that there is no alternative; and we also all but eliminated experiments on the safety of cosmetics rather than drugs.

Do you know anyone suffering from the appalling tragedy of Alzheimer's Disease? There is no cure just yet: but one may well be on its way safely delivered by experiments on animals.

Ever been through the roller coaster of joy and abject despair as a baby born alive but prematurely struggles for life?

The life support systems for premature babies specialised ventilators, incubators and monitoring systems had to be tested on monkeys first.

If we want the best drugs to be available in the UK, and to continue to be one of the world centres for scientific research, we have to stand up and be counted in support of researchers, go on marches and demonstrations, and back even tougher action by the police and the courts against these terrorists.