THE MASSIVE support in and out of Parliament for the Bill to outlaw hunting with dogs puts the spotlight more firmly than ever on the cruelty of hare-coursing as the sport's premier event, the Waterloo Cup, commences today at Altcar in South Lancashire.

Let us hope that, as Michael Foster's Bill heads for its Third Reading next month, Parliament determines that this year is the last time this sickening spectacle takes place.

For while the bloodsports fraternity plead that many MPs who voted for the Bill are from urban areas and do not understand the country way of life, the undeniable fact is that, in hare coursing, wild creatures which are not even verminous, as the hunters' other quarry, the fox, is said to be, are killed for fun by dogs which rip them apart.

And whether or not such slaughter is accidental or incidental to this pursuit, a civilised society does not condone gratuitous killing of animals and its laws ought not to uphold it.

It is as simple as that. And that is why this year's Waterloo Cup ought to be the last.

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